"Chapter One" or "My First Album" or "Who the Hell Was I?"

Like many of our former selves, mine, as a teenager, was a hopeless romantic. I was at the top of my game in terms of grand visions of life and love and those visions were mostly expressed in the (rudimentary) art of the song. I had notebooks full of lyrics, chord notations, and snippets of tablature (how could humanity have invented something so perfect?) that outlined my utopian vision of the future. In August of 2000 (I was 18) I borrowed a four-track cassette recorder from Peter Winter, a guitar from the music room at school, and set out to immortalize some hand-picked gems from my canon. I hunkered down for a few days in my bedroom and laid down the following nine songs, emerging with a deep sense of accomplishment. There was never really a dream of being discovered and rocketed to stardom or anything like that. I was just glad I had expressed myself and made copies to share with a few friends before heading off to college.

Over ten years later, upon pulling out this first attempt at writing, arranging, performing, and recording my original work my emotions are mixed. I'm still viscerally connected to the songs and remember well my mental and emotional states surrounding the recording, but much of the sentimentality, romanticism, and naïveté I had has since faded. I'm still probably too idealistic for my own good.

Obviously the production quality leaves much to be desired and some of the technique needed some refinement, but the performances were heartfelt and the songs were crafted with care. So ten years later, I'm still glad I did it and am ready to share it. Maybe this time a high-powered producer will listen and offer to make me a star. And I'll give my sincere thanks-but-no-thanks, and explain that this chapter....is behind me (collective "groan", please).

Here, available for download for the first time ever (with behind-the-scenes liner notes!), is Chapter I.

1. You'll Never Know - Probably the last song written that ended up on the album. I workshopped it with Nate Detweiler in the single-wide that was our music studio. He came up with the cool guitar lick that leads into the chorus after the bridge.


2. Queen of the Town - I remember this track being almost 100% improvised. I laid down the guitar tracks with no planned form and don't think I wrote down any lyrics at all. For some reason there happened to be a violin in the house and I had literally been practicing it for 10 minutes before recording that track. So yes, it's awful.


3. Ray of Hope - This is one of the first songs I remember writing on guitar and actually liking. I was very proud of myself for playing that fast moving lick. It's about Natalie Portman, who I loved (I was 17, people).


4. In My Mind's Eye - The guitar part was influenced by the Foo Fighters song Floaty. You get to hear my pennywhistle chops on this one. I actually still kind of like it. Especially the little vocal flip at the top of the second verse. Ha!


5. Smalltown Dreams - The opening guitar riff on this was inspired by Sheryl Crow's song Redemption Day. I wrote it after spending a week in Europe on a school trip and falling in absolute love with the whole romance and mystique of the continent. My feelings have not really changed. Of course, it's about girls too (what wasn't at 18?).


6. Empty Sky - This was a pretty early one as well. I thought it was pretty funky at the time. It's kind of about moving past a crippling teenage crush. Or trying to at least. I guess. A couple years later Bruce Springsteen came out with a song that had the same title. I was pissed.


7. Fades Away - I still kind of dig the chord progression on this one. I remember the guitar part being kind of tricky for me to play cleanly. I was very proud of my three-part vocal harmony on the chorus.


8. My Funeral Song - This one is actually prettier than I remember. I wanted to use a pick for the chorus strumming so I somehow worked out some kind of primitive punch-in from the fingerpicked verses. If this isn't self-indulgence I don't know what is. A real Tom Sawyer moment for me.


9. The Game - I was really impacted as a teenager by the movie of the same name starring Anthony Hopkins and Cuba Gooding Jr. I thought that it had really big things to say about society, free will, and how self absorbed and delusional humanity had become. Another rippin' pennywhistle solo. In true '90s style, I included a "hidden track" after a couple minutes silence.



ZIP file including the full album in high-quality mp3 format.

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