About Me
Bio
Conscious of but not fanatical about music as a young child. Got interested in classic hip hop (Run-DMC, Whodini, UTFO, Beastie Boys, etc.) early in middle school. Got really interested in the typical classic rock fare (Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Rush, Pink Floyd, etc.) a little later. Picked up dad's acoustic guitar under influence of Hendrix, Page, Lifeson, et. al., but really wanted an electric guitar. Early playing and attempts at songwriting earned scorn of siblings. Finally got an electric guitar. Got better at guitar. Early attempts at band formation (Sound Pollution, The Toggling Snogglebots, Dark Gnomes) generally unsuccessful. Started branching out from classic rock and listening to all kinds of other stuff (The Cure, Sade, The Smiths, Aimee Mann, etc.). Got better at songwriting. Started messing around with analog synths. Put serious pursuit of music on hold to seek gainful employment. Still played guitar and wrote songs in my spare time. Amassed tons of songs while continuing to explore new-to-me music (bossa nova, modal jazz, R&B, Bacharach, etc.). Got bummed that I hadn't done much with my musical talents. Now making an effort to change that.
Re: Music Making
- I love playing guitar, but mostly play to write music.
- I write songs that I qua listener find to be emotive and/or interesting.
- I don't, can't, and won't write songs to suit anyone else's tastes.
- I have a few hundred songs in various stages of completion, between 100–200 of which are lyric-ready or could be in a short time. (I probably average between 5-10 new creations per month despite working the equivalent of two full-time jobs. I really don't think I'll ever run out of material.)
- I prefer listening to sequenced songs (e.g., albums, EPs, singles, etc.) to individual songs and think that a well-thought-out song sequence creates a whole greater than the sum of its parts. When I'm working on a song, at least part of me is thinking about how it might fit within the context of an album, single, set list, etc.
- I generally prefer sad to happy music.
- I'm far more interested in music and its emotive capabilities than lyrics. (I can go years liking a song and not know what half the words are.) But I love the sound of the human voice and the sound of words set to music, which is why I write more songs than instrumentals. And I do appreciate a good lyric when I actually read it.
- I value character over precision in music performance.
- Although I'll never be a hack, I have no qualms about making tons of money playing and recording my music with like-minded musicians. But if I can't make money making music I like, I'll just make music I like.
What I Listen To
I listen to and learn from a lot of different music—alternative/indie/whatever rock, 60's–mid-80's R&B, classic pop/rock, bossa nova, 50's–60's jazz, classical—and I always have an ear open to new sounds. Just to give you a taste of my tastes, I've included below extremely non-exhaustive lists of some of the artists, albums, and tunes that I dig, in no particular order and limited to twenty per list to keep things from getting out of control. I also sometimes post about music I like at my blog.
Twenty Artists
- Stereolab
- The Smiths
- Bee Gees (60's)
- Burt Bacharach
- The Left Banke
- The Sundays
- Genesis (Peter Gabriel-era)
- Pink Floyd (pre-Dark Side of the Moon)
- João Gilberto
- Portishead
- P.I. Tchaikovsky
- Tegan and Sara
- The Zombies
- Antonio Carlos Jobim
- Red House Painters
- Mazzy Star
- The Kinks
- Interpol
- Queens of the Stone Age
- Maze, feat. Frankie Beverly
Twenty Albums
- Stereolab, Dots and Loops
- The Smiths, Meat Is Murder
- Erykah Badu, New Amerykah Part 2: Return of the Ankh
- Bee Gees, Horizontal
- Interpol, Turn the Bright Lights On
- The Sundays, Blind
- The Buzzcocks, Singles Going Steady
- Nick Drake, Pink Moon
- Red House Painters, Red House Painters [I]
- Aimee Mann, I'm With Stupid
- The Cardigans, Emmerdale
- Make Phantoms, Make Phantoms
- Television, Marquee Moon
- Al Green, I'm Still in Love With You
- The Isley Brothers, 3 + 3
- Kate Bush, The Dreaming
- The Kinks, Something Else by The Kinks
- Radiohead, Kid A
- Jimi Hendrix, Axis: Bold as Love
- The Shins, Wincing the Night Away
Twenty Tunes
- “Outstanding,” The Gap Band
- “Soft Shock,” Yeah Yeah Yeahs
- “Carefree Highway,” Gordon Lightfoot
- “Felicidade,” Antonio Carlos Jobim
- “Stranded in Your Love,” Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings (w/Lee Fields)
- “Know-How,” Kings of Convenience (w/Feist)
- “A Roller Skating Jam Named 'Saturdays',” De La Soul
- “Rainy Night In Georgia,” Brook Benton
- “O' Sailor,” Fiona Apple
- “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis,” Ralph Vaughan Williams
- “Joy and Pain,” Maze, feat. Frankie Beverly
- “Mistral Wind,” Heart
- “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed,” The Allman Brothers Band
- “Cravo E Canela (Clove and Cinnamon),” Flora Purim w/Milton Nascimento
- “Hello It's Me,” Todd Rundgren
- “The Wine is Young,” Dionne Warwick
- “Time (Clock of the Heart),” Culture Club
- “I'll Be Around,” The Spinners
- “I Don't Want to Hear it Anymore,” Dusty Springfield
- “Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get,” The Dramatics