The Pioneer RT-909 reel to reel tape machine, built between 1979 and 1984. It was the early 90s and I had just moved to LA. A friend of mine had had enough of Southern Cal and was moving back home.…

Are they living things? They seem to have a presence about them..

Are they time machines? I'm hearing notes come out of a small wooden box that someone heard in the late 1800s when the instrument was hanging in a…

I've always believed "Stardust" to this day to be one of the most beautiful songs ever written. The legendary story of “Stardust”’s genesis goes that Hoagy Carmichael was walking around Indiana University’s campus one night in 1927, looking up at…

The best life advice I've learned recently is this. Be careful who you enter into long term relationships with. This applies to business relationships, to employment, to friendships and of course marriages. Particularly in the age we're living in now.…

The Neumann U47 has always been a dream microphone for me. It's iconic! It has been in front of so many famous voices and songs that it's very sonic signature can be recognized in the recordings. Vintage King's Los Angeles…

It was 1984. I was wrapping up my senior year of high school in Southern Cal. After years of being a less than stellar student, I managed to eke my way into Northwestern University's School of Music. My folks were…

I came up with the first eight bars on piano while visiting friends on a trip to the Midwest. After returning home I just kept adding a few bars here and there until it got 2 minutes long. Then, I…

"You're a song

a wished-for song.

Go through the ear and to the center

where sky is, where wind,

where silent knowing.

Put seeds and cover them.

Blades will sprout

where you do your work"

Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī

It was late 1973. My folks had just moved into their very first home in Shutesbury, MA. My elementary school teacher was Mrs. Nerbonne (the lady you see narrating). And I'm the little kid in the back desk with the…

What microphone is best for your voice?

Great question and as with a lot of questions, the answer tends to be "it depends".

My voice has always been on the thin and raspy side and can easily be overwhelmed by…