When Tiff and I first sat down to write this song we had an idea or a basic premise for this project. Tiffany and I are an interracial couple and that by its self in todays world is not out of the ordinary. What separates us from the ordinary, is our age difference. And it is the age difference that initially brings out most of the awkward stares, the doubting looks, and the initial surprise when first meeting us. To Tiff and I, age is nothing but a number. We don't see our age differences because we look past the obvious to what really matters, and that is what's in our hearts and soul. But we recognize and respect other peoples feeling and or opinions. We try to be respectful as we present ourselves to the world. For the most part it has not been a difficult journey, but at times it has caused us some sadness. But because of our love and respect for each other, we move on and live our lives.The song "Unique by Design" written by Tiffany and I was our attempt to capture the challenges, the opportunities and the unconditional love of committing ourselves to each other. We wanted to share how love can be designed and agreed to. Recognizing we are a unique couple, we felt the name for the song would appropriately be, Unique by Design. We have been married now for over fourteen wonderful and challenging years. We did much brainstorming and had long evenings talking about how to present this song. We wanted a song that had a beautiful melody to convey how we feel about our lives. At the same time we also felt the need to express in words how we see ourselves and more importantly how other people view us. So the lyrics were important to us. Tiffany and I have always felt the need to collaborate because when in a bind between the two of us we always manage to find what we feel is the right approach or solution. This song challenged us. When we write music, Tiffany is usually the one who comes up with the words and phrases, while I begin to assemble the musical idea and look for a solid melody. But this song was personal to us. So what would normally be easy and fun to put together became a brainteaser. I saw my wife working to put together meaningful words and expressions but this was a tad bit more complicated. So as we always do, we stopped, challenged and chose something that we both came up with. Then we applied the idea until it fit. The same holds true for me when working the melody and the groove. Long story short this song was like baking a cake, we molded the ingredients till it hopefully tasted good. I guess the proof is in the pudding, so to speak.In any event, this song "Unique by Design" is the result of a labor of love. It became an exciting project to work on. Tiff is the singer in our family, yet she encouraged me to take on more singing than I normally like too, while at the same time, I challenged her to put a strong piano part in the melody. A fun part in making music is when momentum becomes obvious. Momentum challenged us to do try riskier harmonies and delicate timings. It was a fun song to play and sing. On the music side, I was having fun with my guitar tracks. The blending of the guitars was my objective. I had a blast setting up the guitar parts.The drumming and the bass parts were more challenging but as usual, I never turn away a chance and/or an opportunity to find a groove.Assembling all of the tracks is the fun part for me. Tiff is amazed as to how I can listen to each track and balance to tonal qualities and using the equalizers. My Tascam DP32SD is a versatile and reliable recorder. It allows me to multitrack and master the song. I like to use EQ and some basic form of compression to finalize the song.So until next time, Tiffany and I want to take this opportunity to say thank you to those of you who like our music. Music is the universal language of love, so thank you for listening to our music. It is truly a labor of love...Best Regards,Gary & Tiffany AKA "Exit4luv"

Unique by Design (Exit4luv Original)

Every now and then a song comes along that forces you to focus on your level of skills because it pushes our limits. Our ideas sometimes also force to evaluate our song and forced us to learn new thigns in order to keep up our high level of standards in our music. Gary and I are learning how to play music not by what we hear on the radiom but by what we write and how we write our music. This is easier because Gary and I are muli instrumentalist which allows us versatility. In order to keep up with our high level commitment of writing high level purposeful songs, we discuss every instrument being played before we lay down any tracks. This is our process of how we ensure that our music at least has some meaning, although we jest alot in our expression of our songs. We hope you are enjoying our musical jouney and we welcome anyone who wants to comment on our song. 
p.s. We have always believed in sharing the lyrics of our songs to those who may have a desire. Starting now we will include lyrics as part of the intial song download and as time allows we will start adding lyrics to our other songs.

Enough is Enough
(An Exit4Luv Original)

Been walking down this road, been counting the years,
Old smoke in my lungs, ringing static in my ears,
Our truth got twisted, it got bent at the seams.
Walkin’ a line that don’t lead nowhere,
What’s real don’t feel real—just somebody’s dream.

Veteran man down on the corner, he’s got a cardboard plea,
"Lost my will, lost my fight, now the world lost me."
People nod, they sigh, keep movin’ along,
Sympathy don’t pay when the rent comes strong.

Preacher says, "Change starts inside,"
But his mansion’s too tall to hear the street’s high cry.
Dealer says, “This’ll soften the blow,”
Ain’t salvation, but the high feels close.

Tell me when enough is enough,
When talk ain’t cheap, when truth don’t rust
If conventional wisdom can’t stand, and reason ain’t tough
Then tell me… when enough is enough
(Instrumental)
(Bridge)



Outro: Lyrics
People swear by daylight, but dance in the shade,
Words weigh so heavy, but meaning still fades.
Passive hands agree, nodding to the scene,
When it’s time to stand—ain’t nobody came.

Tell me now, tell me true,
Is the fight in us all gone, or just hid from view?
Did we bow out, fade into dust?
Or did we forget what enough ever was?
Tell me when enough is enough,
When hope ain’t lost, when trust ain’t tough
If wisdom can’t stand, and reason ain’t rough,
Then tell me…when enough is enough



Enough is Enough

One of the pleasures of retirement is the ability to have the time to start a musical project. "A Two-Year Lease On Love" another Exit4Luv Original, was one of those writing projects where everything lined up where they should be and soon after, I had a groove. I enjoyed the liberty of playing a raw blues rhythm riff and stepping out of bounds every now and then. And as usual we love to poke fun at ourselves with our self deprecating humor. We had fun putting this song together in all aspects of the process. From Copyright protection to performing, and then on to "streaming" distribution it takes a concerted effort to remain focused and find the time to have fun with it. We hope you enjoy our newest release "A Two-Year Lease On Love". We are in the final stages of our Exit4Luv web site. Currently we are putting the finishing touches on some of the inter-active (fun) sections. We will keep you all posted... 

A Two-Year Lease On Love

We are please to present to you another Exit4Luv Original, "Struggles and Tears" a fun song that touches lightly on the importance of our colleges and their responsibilities to our youth and any or all citizens. This song because of the groove allowed us to work on our vocals, which is what we work on all the time. We are looking to combine my somewhat heavy voice to that of Tiffs. We both love the brilliance of Harmonizing and recognize that it will take constant adjustments to keep working on our vocals. Thankfully Tiff has a good handle on her singing style and technigue. It is also fun to watch Tiff work her songs into a blues style format. I think she has grown significantly in her ability to sing the blues. If you agree give tiff a "shout out" and let her know...

Struggle and Tears

Indie Pop Love song by lyricist and songwriter Stan Countz

I'd Never Lived Before Your Love

Every now and then a song comes through some form of observation or a critical learning. We put this song together to send the message of hope. That with all things being equal, we should all lead happy and interesting lives. "No I In Goodbye" was a interesting song to put together, although we went through one complete iteration, we were not happy with it. Tiff and I love to sing so as with any song, we place special emphasis on tightening our harmony's, writing challenging lyrics, and believe me, we have have had some great times writing, playing our songs for you.

No I In Goodbye

The new Exit4Luv Original, "Truth To Power" is one of those special songs highlighting the difficulty we as American face, as we learn to settle our differences in communication and trust. Our country is in a perilously dangerous place at the moment. Our country suffered a dark moment last week and it was important to Tiff and I that we understand the term "Truth To Power" so that maybe just maybe, we can all drop our defenses masqueraded as biases and stop the negative rhetoric. 
Tiff and I sat in shock as we watched the events unfold. Neither of us followed in any detail the history of the struggle but we agreed that violence is not the solution. We sat down, did the things we do (music wise), talked about our approach and objective, which is to help understand what "Truth To Power" is. We talked on how and what to do to get the courage to hold a reasonable conversation where all we would do is to help all of us understand just what our differences are, and maybe find a way to help all sides step back and "Stop, Challenge, and Choose" just what it is we want to say. Once we lay out just what it is we hope to accomplish, then choose and speak "Truth To Power". Life is way too short to waste energy on hateful rhetoric. Serves no value nor does it make our world a safer place for all. 
Until next time, be safe and keep your eyes wide open...


Truth To Power

Another Exit4Luv Original, "When Silence Wins" is a gorgeous song with steady haunting rhythms and with meaningful "Profound" words. The song touches on how damaging silence can be in any or all relationships when it is used as a means to control. This is one of those rare "special" songs. We as usual worked extremely diligently on our voices to ensure we can tighten up the harmonies. Tiff has continuously worked on improving my singing skills ever since we first met. I'm a slow learner.  In doing so, we uncovered some otherwise neglected clever parameters our trusty and hard working Tascam Dp-32. I actually have an older model Tascam Dp24 with a cd player. We still have our Tascam Dp-03 small portable unit, which we used to learn how to use the fundamentals of. These are some very well designed "intuitive" recorders and although the small sweet and purposeful EQ'ing, the ability to bring out the best vocals is a testament to their high quality and durable design and in the exact price point for the average musician. We hope you enjoy. We understand there are small issues of signing in to the "Official" Exit4Luv Originals website and we ask for your patience as we both, Tiff and I, develop better accessibility in the area of web design. Oh, one last thing sometimes we run into problems when it comes to the naming of our songs. Like in this case, "When Silence Wins" was being named we had also chosen a tad bit longer song tile, ie. - And Silence is Not the Song We Want Today -. Drop us line if you have a preference/choice. We would be thrilled to communicate back with you...

When Silence Wins

Another special Exit4Luv Original “Full Stop Blues” This particular song was a blast to sing vocals and harmonies with my husband. This song has grown tremendously over a short period of time. I truly appreciate Gary’s patience with me as we took our time developing this song. So, we are blessed to be able to live our dream of music together. If anyone has dreams of making music don’t give up on it. When you do have some time to spend on creating music, when you give it your best, it becomes worth it. One area of education is we had to align the words with the melody. Another lesson we took from the song is about the power of pausing within the song and allowing it to breathe. With a little tender, love, and care, because of our efforts the outcome became very rewarding. The bass guitar sounded romantic, very supportive of our vocals, and our music. We are currently working on our website and if you would like to check it out go to exit4luv.com If you have any suggestions on what we can do to improve our website let us know. So, in the meantime we hope you enjoy and feel free to drop us a line.

Full Stop Blues

"We Damn Well Demand to Live Blues" This Exit4Luv Original song, wow what a ride songs are stubborn in their development because they either give up little information or too much information in order have a decent melody. When it comes to this song, I enjoyed playing the keyboard part because I was able to incorporate harmony sounds and riffs. On the keyboard, I also played and experimented with my pitch bend in the intro to add a Latin style to our song. We enjoy playing extemporaneously together, particularly on this song. The choice of the structure of the drums in this song was key to how I played my keyboard part. For those that might be thinking what an awkward title, it’s because as we were writing this song to express our freedom of wanting to live under our current rule. Furthermore, as we were writing this song, we recognized that the freedom of wanting to live is a gift as God intended. All in all, we hope you enjoy this twelve-bar blues song and feel free to comment.

We Damn Well Demand to Live Blues

We are please to announce another Exit4Luv Original "Ain't That America Cryin". For more details please feel free to go to our website "exit4luv.com" where we have a host of other information including videos and audio songs. Please pardon our dust as our website is currently under construction, but we are open for limited viewing.

Ain't That America Cryin

Hey all....

(Entry December 2023.)
Time really flies. It's been roughly nine years now since I wrote that original bio. We are now into our thirteenth year of marriage and a whole bunch of songs. What a journey it has been. 
One day while driving back from Houston, Tiffany and I were talking about our music, which we both played together on and sometimes collaborated on original songs, when we decided to give our music some legitimacy, and decided to give our music project a "band name".  
After what appeared to be a long extended moment of silence, we realized just how hard it was to find a name for our band. For miles and miles we tossed one name out after another, yet nothing stuck or sounded legitimate. Finally after what appeared to be hours and noticing our gas tank was getting low, we decided to get off the freeway to get gas and hopefully a bite to eat. We then decided to find an "exit ramp", and all of a sudden a lightbulb went off in my head. 
We are very much in love with each other and usually out of nowhere and at any time, one of us would look at the other and just say, "I love you". Well it just so happened that as I was looking for the nearest exit off ramp to fill up our car, Tiff looked at me and told me she "loved me". It was at that moment when I saw the exit ramp coming up, she told me that she "loved me" and I said wow this is an "Exit4luv" off ramp, so I looked at her and smiled. What if we called our band just that? So there is a little insight into how we named our musical project, Exit4luv. True story. It happened on interstate 10 just outside of New Orleans. 

(Original Entry 2015.)
As you can plainly see and it's not too hard to notice, Tiff and I are kind of a unique looking couple. We stand out in a crowd in many different ways. It has not been easy on the two of us by any stretch of the imagination, however, don't ever doubt our love for one another. The bond forged between us runs deep and true. However, the actual secret to our love and understanding of each other is really kind of simple. Tiffany who is younger, is really old beyond her young years, she is kind of like the proverbial "old soul".  Where I, the actual "old person" on the other hand, has never grown up.  I say this "tongue and cheek" of course. 
Actually at first, she thought I had the maturity of a 15 year old. She was actually being generous, just kidding... 
I think right now I act and feel like I'm still in my early twenty's. To our way of thinking, age is truly just a number. 
So you see, this is where we are as a happily married couple. Sounds intriguing and funny, in a cute kind of way, yet it is so very true.
To play my guitar, my drums, and teach myself the bass guitar all the while trying to learn how to record music was my retirement dream. Life was just too damn busy to do both, provide for my family and play my music. 
For some reason that only God knows why, after working for what appeared to be a lifetime and felt like an eternity, I find myself living that dream. 
I raised a family, earned my Doctorate, retired from management, became an entrepreneur and taught college as an adjunct professor of "applied mathematics".
And fortunately for me, after what appeared to be a pure chance encounter, I met Tiffany in 2010.  Unbeknownst to her, she understood my passion and zeal for music and encouraged me to focus and prioritize my life, and to stay true to that dream. It is so cool that I can say "dear friend", because after a couple of years,Tiffany became my wife. We became friends first which was important to both of us.
I am retired, and a two tour Vietnam combat service disabled Vet. I have lived a great life. I am blessed beyond my wildest dreams. 
The rest is just Blah, blah blah...