I have a few of our little MD 20/10 tour samplers left from the tour of the same name. They’re $5 (cheap!) postage included and come with a free instant download of all of the songs, so you don’t have to wait to listen!
You can also purchase my songs from the sampler individually on the same page.
Once the CD samplers are all gone, though, I’m taking the whole thing down. So get ‘em while they’re hot!
Here are some notes on the three recordings I contributed:
This is a stripped down, acoustic version. This song originally appeared in a distorted, synthesizer-laden version on my album “[Secret Hotels]“.
I was going to stick to making this only acoustic guitar and my voice, but the idea was floated that Laura might back me up on a few songs during the tour with my newest synth: The wonderful Yamaha PSS-80. So, I decided to track a PSS-80 part, as well.
While we’re on the subject, I want to take a moment to tell the story of my unlikely acquisition of this lovely little synth. I happened to be in Indianapolis for a visit and I was looking at Laura’s little stash of instruments when I stumbled upon a well-loved little PSS-80. I started playing with it and was immediately surprised at how cool some of the patches sounded. She told me that she had used it all over her last album. She’d had all kinds of guesses from music nerds as to what was making those sounds. All of which were grandiose by comparison to the real source. I continued to play with it and proclaimed that I had to get one! So, I decided to keep an eye out, henceforth.
The next day I was visiting with my friend Casey Roberts. I think we somehow got onto the subject of tiny, consumer grade synths from long ago and he said he’d found a little keyboard still in the box at a local thrift store. He told me he’d never used it so far and probably wouldn’t, then asked if I wanted it, saying I’d probably get more use out of it. (Such is his generous nature.) I told him I was always up for more instruments! (Such is my selfish nature.) So we went back to his studio/gallery space and he pulled down a box from a shelf in his storage area…Yeah, that’s right: It was a Yamaha PSS-80 IN THE BOX!
Sometimes life just works out that way.
So, my thanks to Casey Roberts and Laura K. Balke for bringing this little guy into my life!
This song was recorded a few years ago when I started working on a follow-up album to “Cutting Exercises“. I got a good way through it, when life handed me some new business to attend to and I set it aside. At that point, I started “[Secret Hotels]“ as a means of coping with what was happening around me at that time and worked on that until it was finished last year.
I still haven’t gone back to finish the record that this song is from, but I intend to finish it before the year is out.
Hope you enjoy this piece of it in the meantime.
This is another stripped-down, acoustic guitar, vocal and PSS-80 version of an originally more synth-laden song.
This song was originally written as part of my first album, which I have yet to release. In it’s original incarnation, it’s a speedy little synthpop song with layered vocal harmonies. When I was sequencing the tracks of that record, I realized there was nowhere I could put this song that made sense to the overall flow of the thing, so I just set it aside with the idea that I’d find a place for it somewhere later.
While in the midst of writing/recording the record after “Cutting Exercises“, I realized it could really work in the context of those tracks. So it sits amongst those dormant tracks to this day, waiting for me to come back and finish it up and give it a home.
Until then, this version will have to do.