Here’s a raw iPhone recording of one of my recent originals. I’m not sure how to classify this one… maybe just generic Americana? It’s one of those that just came to me, so I wrote it without worrying too much about its commercial appeal. Sometimes songs get started for me from a melody or lyric that starts going through my head, and sometimes they start with a vision or a memory of a physical space. In this case, it was the latter; I was remembering driving through rural northern California late one summer.

So, I done up and wrote a holiday song. So tender!

Of course I’m still working on it, so any comments and/or critique would be appreciated. Bring it on!

I don’t think this one fits the “country” genre, but I thought I’d share this worktape demo of a new Americana rock song I’m working on, possibly for The Georgian Company. Any thoughts? Do I need to re-work the chorus? Add a bridge? Suggestions? Critique? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

The file has a few seconds of silence upfront since I haven’t trimmed it yet… just thought I should mention that in case you think it’s not working. It probably is—just give it a few seconds.

After years of getting emails from TAXI—“The World’s Leading Independent A&R Company”—about why they think it’s a good idea for me to join, I’m still skeptical. Why is there a $300 registration fee? It seems like it could easily be a bad scheme to rip off struggling artists if you ask me, especially with other options for getting song placements popping up by the minute. And why is it called TAXI?

However, in their most recent spam, their “Road Rally” program caught my attention. It seems like it could actually be good, and $300 for a good conference seems fair. And then I can check out what the rest of the membership benefits are, too: song listing submissions, critiques, etc. My curiosity got the best of me, so I signed up and am flying out to L.A. on Thursday to check out the conference (and visit my homies Blake and Doug).

I may not have time to keep you posted here during the weekend, but I’ll definitely follow-up with my thoughts on the conference, my better-educated perception of TAXI and hopefully an interesting story or two.

And in other news, here’s another take from my video experiment. It’s weird not knowing where to look, etc. when making these. I’ve always thought singing to the camera was a little too cheesy, but maybe I just need to get over that. Maybe I’ll get Doug to give me some video performance pointers. Anyway, this song is called “Off My Mind,” which I wrote and recorded with Just Guns.

In case you’re on a mobile phone, here’s the audio version:

Since I’m kind of a mac nerd, and my old iPhone broke right after the new ones came out, I used that as an excuse to get the new iPhone with video. And since I now have the capability to easily shoot web-quality video, I thought maybe it’s about time I experiment with making one. So, here’s my first shot at it. The song is “Trainwreck,” which I wrote and recorded with The Georgian Company.

In case you’re on a mobile phone, here’s the audio version: