Made of Wood

About a year ago I recorded this little explanation for the great Jackass Penguin Podcast about one of my favorite chord progressions. I played some examples of how I'd used it in a couple different settings.  Hear me talking about the progression and then use it in a couple very different contexts.

Can The Beatles sound be explained by their keys and chord progressions?

Does spending 100 hours on a song (the most I've done by far) mean that it's my best?  Robert Plant apparently wrote Stairway to Heaven in "15 minutes."

The Sneaker Pimps must love them some James Bond.

Making a Bass part have some more syncopation to it by emphasizing the silence

What if there was someone out there who could take little pieces of you doing your thing, rearrange them, and make a new thing that was way better?

Having had to take and largely suffer through 4 years of music theory in college, it's unavoidable that I think about music structure and harmony.  Sometimes understanding those details doesn't explain at all why things work or don't, but sometimes... it's interesting.

I always gravitated towards music without words.  Something about the way I hear music- I even hear the singer as an instrument.  A beautiful lead instrument, but an instrument. Often I don't even really know what my favorite songs are about, even after I've heard them hundreds of times.

The album is officially released!  For those of you who haven't gotten to check it out, please do.  Spread the word, send your friends to this site, the facebook page, etc etc. 

As a little celebration, here's a free link to download of a couple songs from the album- it has 2 of my favorites. 

I hope the holidays went well for everyone. My personal favorite holiday is New Years.

Some quick updates- the new album "The Chill/Funk Trip" is almost done, I'm shooting for an early Feb release. It will have about 10 songs on it- the latest ones that I've been posting online. They'll probably all get one more remaster.