Fall Samba is one of the earliest - maybe even the second? - songs I composed after I relearned to play guitar in 2023. I’m assuming it was autumn when I wrote it. (That’s one of the things about my particular dementia characteristics: the passage of time has become very blurry. Gina bought me a clock that shows the day of the week, the time, and the date in huge numbers and letters, and this is extremely helpful for navigating through a single day, but a day ago could seem like a week ago, and … [Read more...]

When I was growing up in Harrison, New York, we lived about a mile from the train station. I didn’t sleep well as a kid, anxious about all sorts of things. But nothing calmed my anxiety, at least temporarily, like the quiet night-time sound of the train passing through. I have always considered trains to be these soothing, but powerful marvels of technology. In 1985 I went to see an intense action movie called Runaway Train. After the engineer has a heart attack, the train barrels down the track … [Read more...]

"Give Me a Second Chance" fell into my lap one afternoon; not fully gelled, but close. I find this song interesting, to me, because it begins with a thematic lead section that reappears twice more in the song, but has no rhythmic, chordal playing under it. I think it works; you’ll have to judge for yourself! If you pick up an album by Stars of the Lid (a personal favorite!), or many other exclusively instrumental acts, you might get the impression that the performers pulled their song titles out … [Read more...]

“A Thing That Lasts” came together in a very unusual way. I was having some funky fun, playing around with a Lenny Kravitz- inspired rhythm. Once I established a “verse” and a “chorus” (I put these terms in quotation marks because having verses and choruses in my instrumental compositions is usually only obvious to Fett and I), four lyric lines appeared from left field. I wasn’t planning on writing a song with lyrics, and I certainly hadn’t considered writing a chorus about doing something … [Read more...]