My Latest Release – Go Slow

My latest release is a collaboration between two friends, Michael McEnany and Patrick Wolfkill, and myself. We met in my home studio, did some tracking, and wrote the music for Go Slow. We had no idea what the song was about, at that point. I wrote the lyrics, played acoustic, stitched the song together, and started to flesh out the arrangement. Mac played bass, Pat played the one electric. I programmed the drums, B3, piano, and layed main vocals and harmonies. Mac came back to finish off the bass and added some vocal harmony, too. I finished of the tracking with some B-Bender, some Tele lead, and then brought out my venerable Kramer, with the Floyd Rose locking trem to finish off the bridge lead solo.

I tried to do some new things mix and production-wise. Some things worked out and others go yanked. I tried some binaural panning, to get the sound of something going by and above you, and then echoing off the surrounding canyon walls with doppler effect. Automations detailed work was needed in a couple parts, including the B3 part, where I automated the Leslie rotor speed and volume swells. I brought out an e-bow for some etherial guitar pads in the bridge. As usual, I had some help on the mix and production from Falling Waters Studio and friend Brad Rudolph.

Adding to the music, I pulled together a nice music video using a new resource and tool for me. Storyblocks.com and their Maker tool enables you to put together videos with a nice library of clips. I was able to search their catalog with key words from the song and put together a cool video for the music. Looking forward to creating some nice videos for my other new songs.

Related to Ukraine, new friends, Shaunessy and Amalei, who raise funds for medical support in Ukraine, did the beautiful cover art for me.

Go Slow should be out and available in a couple of days. I just submitted it today.

Lavish You with Praise Released

My song, Lavish You with Praise is released and available on all the music streamers. I collaborated with two friends and hope you enjoy the results. Steve Almond added bass and Steve DiDominico added guitars and vocals. Currently, I have another song almost ready for release. It’s called, Go Slow. It is a collaboration with another two friends. Hope to have it released by mid or late May. In the songwriting process is another song. A disco kinda dance tune. We’ll see how it comes along or if another song happens first!

New Release On the Way

With Spring firmly here, the leaves will soon follow! Just like the leaves’ promise to come soon, I will be releasing a new song in a few days. In the Bible story, a woman breaks open an alabaster container full of very expensive perfume and she pours it on Jesus’ feet in an act of worship. Mary is broken, the jar is broken, and the sweet fragrance of worship and broken fills the room. The moment of lavish, abandoned worship totally silenced the noisy room. Lavish You with Praise, is about that moment. Things that were broken and of no Earthly value have great value in Heaven. Pour out your worship to God and lavish Him with your praise. Wave some palms, too! (and please pray for Ukraine….)

NO WAR FREEDOM

NO WAR FREEDOM is a song I wrote in response to the ongoing Russian war on Ukraine. The song will be released soon. In the meantime, you can go to my video page to listen to the song (Not suitable for children, graphic images of the war in Ukraine). Go to the official Ukraine government site to find ways to support the people of Ukraine (ukraine.ua). They are tragically suffering at the hands of Putin and the Russian military. Russia is committing atrocities and war crimes against the people of Ukraine. Pray for Ukraine and stand with them. Do what you can do to help them.

A January Tan – New Release Coming!

I have a new song submitted for release, hopefully later this week! The is entitled “A January Tan”. The song has a good story. We had the opportunity to attend the City Quake gathering event in January. A chance to travel to Florida and flee the Pennsylvania winter for a little is a welcomed event. My wife and I tacked on a couple days at Cocoa Beach before starting the drive home. Saving some space, my ukulele came along to keep my fingers busy and maybe start on a new song. Some interesting chords and melodies happened and now there is a new song. Back home, i spied the concertina my wife’s cousin gave me. I did promise to learn a little and get it into a song.

Back to the beach and the moment a song started. I had this innocent little story song lyrics going through my head, and the conversation in my head about other topics. In the midst of the songwrite moment, I was discussing the term, “equity of outcome’ with myself. The idea being, if you were from Pennsylvania and wanted a nice beach tan in January, you needed to go somewhere like Florida to get it. The only thing you might get in Pennsylvania in January is frostbite. So I had a couple quirky lines of verse lyrics about getting a January tan on the beach and was thinking about the chorus. But before I could write one lyrical word, there was an interruption and it was a fairly forceful one that stopped me in my tracks.

So now I had a silly beach song going on in my head, a moral and ethical conversation about the word “equity”, and an interruption from God. The interruption was God speaking to me (may seem odd to folks buts that’s another post to write about).

I was asked a simple question: “What does the word “equity” mean to you?” The second part came before I even had a chance to properly think about a response.

“Equity is not a system to game for our own getting ahead. It is not about a plan to get what we think we deserve to get. It is not about receiving at all. It’s about giving. Giving…. Equity is that everyone has an equal chance to love one another. Love one another.

Jesus summed up the commandments and the Law into two statements. 1. Love God. 2. Love one another. That is what we need to account for in the outcome of our lives. Not accomplishments or achievements. It will be about how we loved. Like the workers in the vineyard, where all the workers get the same pay no matter what time of the day they started?

So, just love one another. Love one another.

Hope you enjoy the song!

Light Into the Darkness

This is the time of Advent. The time of waiting for the coming of the One who is the Light, the Messiah, Emmanuel, God with us, present with us here and now. The coming of the Light into the darkness.

How’s our songwriting reflecting this time of year? Is Good expressed rather than evil in our songs? Is there a longing for Good or only a wallowing and celebrating in the evil of our times. Our culture has become very toxic and perverse, with right suppressed and wrong extolled.

It’s a dark time, where songwriters could surely help bring a Light.

A Christmas song for you to enjoy…

By the Time I Get to Phoenix

We’re on the road to the Phoenix City Quake. It will be a good and busy week, with lots of worship music and meeting people.

Have to admit, we are also looking forward to some In/Out burgers this week. Love their chocolate shakes, too.

I will be playing the B-Bender Tele this week. Tune in to see the band in the evenings. Will be great speakers this week, too.

This week, I will be working on finishing the sync’d lyrics for my Searching Put the Beautiful EP with Musixmatch and they should become visible on AppleMusic and Spotify. Will try to put some song backstory and song secrets into the lyric display, too!

Also, I plan on doing some writing this week for the next music project. A couple songs are under way and a thought about instantaneously sowing and harvesting.

Have a great week and see you in Phoenix! Crank it up!

EP Released into the Wild

This week, my new EP, Searching Out the Beautiful, with all the music I wrote about in past posts is now released.

With the help of friends and family, the music was all written and produced in my home studio, over the course of the last year.

The songs sound like they do in my head, so I am very pleased with them and feel good about sharing these songs with the world. I put heart and hard effort into writing and production so they would be positive songs and sound.

Each of the songs has a story, some of which I’ve shared in past posts. These tunes are not shallow, manufactured songs. Each one was a hard effort to compose music with a mission to carry a positive message of hope and light, something to lift people up in these times.

If anything is conveyed and taken in through this music, I hope it is an important message for us all to search out the beauty that surrounds us, rather than focusing on the darkness that tries to steal our joy and life. Stand firm in the beauty. That is where you will find your strength and peace.

Searching Out the Beautiful

EQuinox

It’s almost Equinox time and I have a five song EP ready to release. The EP was a lot of hard work, over a very long haul, and through all kinds of life changes and challenges. As a musician, songwriter, arranger, engineer and producer, each release brings a lot of learning. It is no small task to take songs from writing to a finished production, in a home studio. Encouragement from others is crazy helpful and sustaining. Over the course of the last year, a lot of help came my way from Falling Waters Studio and friend Brad. Sweet bass lines and long how-to calls abounded. For those gifts of friendship, I am extremely grateful. The inspiration for the EP is so firmly rooted in family and friends. Family and friends are life sustaining, and are incredibly critical to creatives. Loneliness and depression can only survive in a relationship vacuum. With so much negative expression so readily available, it was important to me that the EP was solidly positive. As a songwriter in pursuit of beauty, over the past year, I became much more aware of the beauty and goodness that surrounds me. Take time to gaze on and deeply treasure such beauty. For such beauty I am extremely grateful. I will post here when the EP is released and where you can go to find it. Hope you all enjoy it and I hope it brings positive vibes to the listeners.

A Mid-Summer’s Night

Turned my attention to the last song on the EP called 1955. It’s a song about the generations. Tonight I tried Vocal Align Project. It helps align vocals or instruments, in a very fast manner. Not sure if I will keep it or not. It aligned vocals nicely and made the vocals tight. At the same time, I noted some nuances that affect my processes and make later changes more difficult. Have one small section to sing and then work on the guitar fill and solo sections. Hopefully, will get that done this week. Then on to the last song of the EP. Slow progress but we’ve been busy! Stay chill out there!