Music
From Wiki Essays
Music is how I've come to process the world. I feel weird on days when I do not play any music. Some days it needs to be exactly what i played yesterday, and other days it has to be completely new. That's the mystery of my brain.
Contents |
Baltimore -- The Early Days
I've done a lot of solo work in my day. Thanks a bunch to Stefan Keyser, who taught me my first chords and let me play his guitar for a year or more in the basement of Patapsco Hall at UMBC. Throughout the second half of college, I jammed with friends, but never really came out of my shell. My first year out of school, I had my most formative experiences with the acoustic guitar, having been introduced to Michael Hedges by Jim Kukla. This was my first real experience, beyond dropping my low string to D, with alternate tunings, which boggle my mind and confound me to this day. In those days, I started meeting Tom Walton for music sessions. We covered a bunch of Beatles, Bowie, TMBG, Talking Heads, and Syd Barrett as the acoustic guitar-accordion duo James Brown Polka.
D.C. -- Discovery of Drums
Once I moved down to the D.C. area and started renting a house, I had to have drums (in fact that was a requirement for the next living arrangement). Carlos Guillen got me set up with an old kit and some basic know-how. A bunch of us met down in the basement there, including my brother's bands, Roman Empire and Logan Chambers. I played drums with Jim (guitar) and Chris Phelps (bass) a few times, an experience I was calling Alpenhorn, since we went off in proto-metal-funk. I also had a group tentatively called Mig, but none of us were ready for the big time...
Austin Acoustics
My first two years in Austin were spent playing solo acoustic guitar, since we lived in a small apartment on the second floor. I wrote hundreds of shells of songs, finished 15 or so and recorded Steevsongs there in 2001 and 2002 on an old Toshiba Satellite using a cheap PC mic. It shows in the recordings, though the music is surprisingly audible above the noise.
Once we bought our house, the drums came out into the garage, then made their way into the living room a few times when Kristin was gone (when I recorded the percussion piece Game Lan and a few other now lost tracks), and then into the back room (where the rhythm-section only Backroom Sessions came out in 2007), and finally back out into the garage (where they've ended up on a few recordings on AmFu. Seven years is a long time in one house. Luckily I wasn't stuck with one instrument; I picked up an accordion and a mandolin over the years, finally arriving at an electric guitar in the middle of my life at 33. Imagine playing acoustic guitar for 12+ years, and finally getting an electric. The world opened up to me.
Recent Groups
I played bass with Chris (drums) and Kaleb (keys) for six months or so in 2008, and we called outselves Octafunk, owing to the largely blues-funk sound that we generated on into the night at Chris' place. It sounded like we were eight people at times. We should revive this project, if only for the sheer noise...
In winter of 2009/2010, my brain trapped in a cycle of DADGAD and GADF#AD tunings, I wrote a series of songs that will end up on Longwinter Sisters later this year. I need to re-establish my recording rig; I've been without a Shure mic and a mixer for too long. I need to learn to use my Oktava condenser mic...
I've played in new age, polka, klezmer, folk, funk, rock, heavy metal, punk, indy rock, pop, electronic, and acapella settings, and a bunch of blends of these.
As of early 2010, I'm singing and playing guitar, drums, and accordion with Push the Button, a house band that's getting a few gigs together for later this year. Look out for us! Or hire us.
In April, 2010, I also joined two friends from work (and one's son) on another project in a 60s blues-rock, British Invasion band, Radars. We're mostly playing covers right now, but I've recently introduced one of my tunes, and soon Terry will as well.
I'm also considering joining a Sunday night group that I know of through a friend, but not until one of these efforts gives up the ghost.
I got together in late 2009 with Chris, Whitney, and Sankalp and turned a shell he'd been working on into a full song, Darkest Before the Dawn. We've been meaning to make our meetings more regular, but now we're in moving mode, so this is more up in the air...
Tablature
Here is some tablature I've collected over the years, most by others, some by me.
