Bar Bands and Bad Advice
Our drummer had vanished. Joe’s Bar. North Denver suburbs, circa 2002. The “band” I was in at the time – we didn’t have a name, we never practiced, we just showed up and played every other Friday, and somehow got paid! – had finished our first set. We did the usual “we’re going to take […]
Rules About Rules
Last weekend, I spent two days attending a songwriting workshop in the small town of Smithville, Texas. It was facilitated by a singer/songwriter that I’m a fan of, a musician by the name of Matt the Electrician. Matt’s awesome. Check out his song “Got Your Back.” Matt rocks. And the first thing he did was […]
Meaningless Lyrics and Leadership
Meaningless Lyrics and Leadership *To hear the music referenced in this article, watch the video here. “I am an American aquarium drinker, I assassinate down the avenue.” The band is Wilco. The song is I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, and when Jeff Tweedy sings that line in concert, the crowd goes nuts. It’s […]
A Perfect Recording. A Hollow Heart.
*To hear the music referenced in this article, watch the video here. I made a choice I regretted for a year. Then did what I should have done in the first place. Love Again, the title track from my latest release, is one of the best songs I’ve ever written. It has a great […]
A Fool and a Foreign Language
This is my song, What Kind of Fool, from my latest release, Love Again. This is also my song, What Kind of Fool… Huh? I’ll admit, when I first saw this, I had NO IDEA what I was looking at. I was in a Nashville recording studio with some of Nashville’s A-list session players (holy […]
The Power of Trash and Timing
*To hear the music referenced in this article, watch the video here. Did you throw it away? No, not your leftover chicken mahkani. That was delish. You housed that the next day for lunch. Did you throw away that idea? File away that attempt in the “unsuccessful, never againl” pile? Did you let go of […]
Why Inspiration Is Killing Your Creativity
*watch the video and hear the music here What can you learn about innovation from songwriting? Well, very often when we’re trying to create something new, we wait for motivation and inspiration to strike. And what any artist or musician will tell you is you can’t rely on that. It’s inconsistent. It isn’t always there. […]
The Hardest Guitar Part
*watch the video and hear the music here. The hardest guitar part I’ve ever had to play… …was the one I didn’t play. Here’s a story about how we all have to leggo our ego sometimes. So the title track on my new album is called Love Again. And the song is fantastic. It sounds […]
🎸 Don’t Let It Die on Your Hard Drive 🎸
🎸 Don’t Let It Die on Your Hard Drive 🎸 *Watch the video here* My friend Jason LeVasseur shared that advice with me. Advice he received from another singer, songwriter, and musician: don’t let it die on your hard drive. In that conversation, we were talking about sitting on songs that we had written, but […]
Lessons from Death and YouTube
“1861 called. They want their funeral traditions back.” That was the ad campaign plastered on the walls of the London tube from a company named Poppy, one of several modern mortuaries transforming the way the business of death gets done. Wait…can death be…cool? Thinking outside of the box…and the casket. A slew of hip and […]