GRO Some Cello!

Here is a tune that I played cello on over the summer.   Green River Ordinance is a super nice bunch of guys, and this is a great song.   Even if top-40 aiming rock/pop is not your thing, you might enjoy the powerful chorus, the sincere performance and the spectacularly layered production here.  Great job to the guys at Blackwatch Studios in Norman!


The cello is filling out the texture throughout the song (translation - you really can't make it out too clearly), but you can hear me swooping around a bit during the bridge.


I wish these guys the best.   I really enjoyed seeing some skillful pop music production during the sessions.

Happy 2012!

It is a new year, and that is a good enough reason to look back a bit and then to make a few plans. I ask for the indulgence of any readers. Even though this blog is mostly a way to explore thoughts and feelings about different issues, it is also a professional site (sort of) that is an attempt to somewhat publicize my musical endeavors, so bear with me!

2011 was a wonderful, busy year. Our second son Wolfie was two months old the day it started, and now he is pushing 15 months! He's left babyhood behind (almost) and is moving straight towards toddlerhood.......headfirst with a jetpack on! Severin has used 2011 to leave toddlerhood behind and enter boyhood with all its inquisitiveness and imagination (and willfulness ;)

In 2011, I wrote and recorded the score to the documentary "Where Did The Horny Toad Go" and I played many recording sessions for artists like Green River Ordinance, Kelly Clarkson, K.C. Clifford, Jami Smith, Portraiture, and several others.

I was privileged to have my string piece "Oklahoma Trails" performed by Doug Newell and the Enid Symphony Orchestra. Then the recording was used to accompany the wonderful outdoor event "Enid's Night Of Generals" organized by Wade Burleson. The piece was originally commissioned and performed by David Koehn and the Edmond Memorial High School Orchestra in 2010.

I was also lucky enough to play a pair of reunion shows over the summer with my band The Fellowship Students. Great times were had by all!

Currently, I am preparing for the release of the album of "Where Did The Horny Toad Go" - in fact, after writing this blog I am going to listen to the master I just received from Garrett Haines at Treelady Studios. As I mentioned, the project was recorded here at my home studio, known as Galloping Cat Studios (I love the name so I had to mention it. Even now I am hearing the sound of a cat galloping down our hallway).

I also have re-releases of some of my earlier albums that will see the light of day this year. They are remixed and remastered versions of two lo-fi EP's I did around 1999 and 2000. I am very excited to put them out there in a better form than I did back then.

I also hope to begin recording another project this year - the third in a series of albums in the vein I call "limited music" - songs/pieces recorded in the popular idiom drawing inspiration from classical composition in the sense that they are limited to a specific instrumentation. My chosen "limitation" is restricting the recordings to cello, acoustic guitar and voice. The first two records in the series are "Light Plays On A Pearl" (2006), also recorded without any effects, and "The Twin or The Seed" (2007).

And of course there is "normal" work to do. Teaching lessons, playing gigs, etc.

I do have plans to write more this year. My goal is to keep posts reasonably brief and somewhat often - perhaps breaking different ideas up into series of posts. One of my two main goals is to write about my novice understanding of meditation and hopefully to get a few readers to participate with me in attempting meditation more often and sharing our insights. One of my primary reasons for this is to simply get myself meditating regularly again. In my brief, "amateur"experiences, the effects on my life have been profound.

My other goal is to present a series called "Theology From The Plain" where I explore my framework for seeing "that which is". It will not be super organized, but once again, my attempts will hopefully be reasonably brief and often. I hope this will help keep things pleasant and somewhat interesting for any readers who are generous enough with their time to stop by this site and explore with me.

That's what blogs are for right? We explore as readers and writers - in posts, in comments and in our personal thoughts.

I wish you the very best in all of your endeavors this year!


ADDITION - Thanks to Burk for reminding me that I also want to start posting more about music!

The Goat Rodeo Sessions

Don't you just ADORE stringed instruments?

Mr. Mailman

Earlier in the summer I did some cello session work at Blackwatch Studios in Norman. I liked the song immediately, especially after the artist, Ben Rector, described it to me as an 80's Randy Newman-esque piano-driven pop song. If you mix that with a bit of the Jackson 5 chord progression from "I Want You Back" you get this excellent summer pop song called "Mr. Mailman." It is part of a 2 song EP called Summer Candy which recently reached #15 on the iTunes pop charts and somewhere around # 50 overall.

I don't have a youtube video or anything to post, but go check out the 30 second clip on iTunes. The cello stuff worked out really well, I think.