Month: June 2026

You can listen to me read this post on Soundcloud here, or as Bliss and Drumming wherever you get your podcasts.

The next song up on the docket for re-release is from my first album, Conversation with Francis Bakin from 2008, Cold Snap.

I had been living in San Francisco for seven years or so at this point, having settled here in 2001 after the year on the road with the band BOTTOM. In 2007, I was taken from a 10-day silent meditation retreat to the hospital room of my mom, who went in for an emergency surgery (she’s very healthy now). In that room, maybe because I was in a sort of manic state of being plopped into a very stressful and emotional situation after seven days of pure meditation and silence, a whole album of lyrics and melodies fell out of me. Those songs were recorded with Zepparella with Anna Kristina singing the words.

Shortly after that, I realized that if I was going to keep writing songs and lyrics through this new portal that had opened, I should figure out how to sing the songs myself. My fraught relationship with my singing voice had been a tussle since my early 20s, (I wrote about that in my previous blog post) and I set out to work that out through my own writing. I holed up in my studio and wrote drumbeats. Lyrics came out of the beats, and then vocal melodies, arrangements. Continue reading “Old Material, New Release: Cold Snap”

You can listen to me read this post on Soundcloud here, or as Bliss and Drumming wherever you get your podcasts.

Today begins the first post of looking back at early musical endeavors, re-releasing songs created in the first few years of my songwriting journey.

I imagine most artists are this way except the lucky few: when I revisit early work, it’s hard to get past hearing all of the problems with the track. For someone like me who has battled a harsh internal critic, it can be kind of excruciating to listen to the first songs I was putting into the world as a singer and songwriter. At first listen, I wade through the issues I have been telling myself the songs have for all the years since creating them.

However, I guess enough time has passed and I’ve done enough work to strangle that critic, or at least make some kind of peace with her, to be able to listen and appreciate these early endeavors. I see where I was and I see where I have been going, and now it is rather sweet to listen. I hear some pure impulses, and appreciate the bravery and creative output. I remember how it felt to be her, and to recognize how far along I’ve moved.

Continue reading “Old Material, New Release: Marathon Runner.”

I’ve been running around and sitting in one place, both lately. Zepparella shows, and then coming home glued to different creative projects I’m working on. Drum practice has been fun in a brand new way, songwriting is requiring a patience and deep dive that is both delicious and a bit terrifying, and another writing project has been sort of all-consuming and pure fun.

I drove down from Portland on Sunday after a few shows and the Old Man had a killer documentary waiting for me, “Milford Graves: Full Mantis.” To call Graves a drummer is to sell him short, as he was a genius, visionary, multi-disciplinarian, professor. Luckily, the Old Man has been collecting Graves albums for a while, so we’re in a lovely exploration of the music as well. Look up the doc if you haven’t caught it yet. I found it endlessly inspirational, and his explanation of what it is to swing was… chef’s kiss.

Continue reading “To Swing Means You Want to Live to the Next Day”