Down on the Farm

Original cut - I wrote this song in about 10 minutes while taking the trash cans to the street. It was a long walk to the end of our driveway. Lots of crunch on the guitar in a punk rock style. That's a $5 set of bongo drums you're hearing. I made several drum tracks, all using the bongos and layered on top of each other. Each one had to be played from start to finish in one take. And, it was recorded by micing my Crate amp with a SM 57 in my living room. Kinda nasty.

Cool story. I sent Brian Ray, Paul McCartney's guitar player, my entire Down on the Farm tracks online soon after I recorded it. He actually responded and said he liked this song! I never heard from him again and that's ok with me. He made my day and I'm still mentioning it today! Thanks Brian!

Collaboration - Lyrics by Brenda Moons. She had a ton of pieces she'd written over the years and this one appealed to me. So, I made a song out of it. I actually used the same melody/chords on another song on The Apple. Yep, that's me bashing away on my electric drums. Pay no attention to the bad timing with some of my takes. Remember, I had to do everything from beginning to end in one take for each track.

Lyrics by Brenda Moons - Another piece that Brenda wrote most of and I changed up a few areas and put some music to it. It's fun putting music to someone else's lyrics especially if they allow you to chop them up. That's me playing my new Alesis electric drum kit jacked directly into the Tascam recorder.

Original - Yes, that's me playing an electric drum kit from start to finish in one take. No overdubs. Listening to this years later and I'm impressed with myself being able to play drums that fast and (almost) keep good time!

My cover of John Lennon's Imagine. I rather like my attempt at a Phil Spector "Wall of Sound" style production on this considering it was done on a very old 2-track Tascam recorder. That's me playing my new Alesis electric drum kit jacked directly into the Tascam recorder.

Another cover by Seether and sung by my friend Bill Richards who sounds a lot like the original singer and does a really great job. We recorded one track for vocal and another for my guitar. I think this was the third or fourth take. I laid down the drums afterwards. No bass.

Original recording - The more polished version is on The Apple album. Inspiration and some lyrics by my nephew Jeff while we were living together on a farm outside Orlando, FL. The lick was inspired by a friend at college that played a similar lick on something he was working on. Check out my "aaah...aaah...aah" harmonies. Ha! That's the $5 bongos again. I think there are 4 or 5 bongo drum tracks I layered on top of each other and lots of reverb.

I really like this tune and I'm using some strange chord combinations. Very mellow tune and I was imagining a single guy walking the streets where the action is when I wrote this. Again playing my $5 bongo drums and EQ'ing my guitar low and trying my hand at playing bass lines like Paul McCartney might have. Ahem.

Just a fun guitar jam on my Seagull acoustic guitar, my $5 bongos, and harmonica. There might be 5 or 6 different layers on this one. I like my aggressive acoustic strumming and my simple licks. There's those bongos again. This time played on the side with old bent drum sticks. I didn't over do it with too many layers this time. I think there are just 2 guitar tracks and one drum track.

Like the title says, it's a blues rockin' jam session with myself. I'm using my Gibson Les Paul with lots of distortion and trying to wail on the drums like Keith Moon or something.

Guess how I was feeling when I wrote this. This is a piano only piece done in one take from start to finish. If you listen closely you can tell that I haven't learned how to play chords with my left hand. I'm hitting the bass notes one at a time. Funny. This melody and arrangement ultimately became the Semper Fi song.

My cover of the classic Bill Withers tune. Another one take bare bones recording on an old phone of mine that I sat on top of the piano as I played. I think you can hear it vibrating at times but sounds pretty good. I've learned how to play chords with my left hand by now.