This is a song from a poem by J. Gozan, written c. 1988. This setting was written in early 1989. This recording is from sophomore year of college, back in the 20th century. Performed by college music warriors OCMR, a short lived band which flourished in spring of 1990 in the valleys of north central Ohio

Recorded in the TIMARA electronic Music Studios at Oberlin College. Engineered by Peter Flint, direct to stereo. (one afternoon of recording)
Drums, voice: Dan Kennedy
Guitar: Alisa Franklin
Bass guitar: Don N. Marvel
Piano, lead vocal: Ian McGrath

Snout - OCMR - 1990

This is a live performance of our song, "The Atlantic Center," from the Orange Bear, a Russian Art Bar in lower Manhattan. Recorded in summer 1998. we had gotten into the practice of warming up in our rehearsal space before gigs since we had Saturdays in the space. We played so much better after we started doing this. This particular gig I had the inspiration that we should do a short verse of Prince's 1999 during the closing 'jam' section where we would normally just maybe riff into a blues, or else one of our standard one chord jams. Instead for this one performance we suddenly (and not smoothly) shifted into a new tempo and fiddled with Prince. (I may have changed the words slightly to fit the times.) Better was our shift back into a final restatement of the Atlantic Center theme for  the finale. Often we would use this as a closing number but this time it was smack dab in the middle of the set. Ian wrote the song parts not  written by Prince(yeah, me). 

This was recorded open air by my then-girlfriend, Maria Winkler (now McGrath) on my Sony stereo recording cassette walkman.

The Atlantic Center - Anomaly - (live at the Orange Bear 6 Aug 1998)

This song was written for my last college band, Lumberbride, and performed in my senior recital back in 1992. It's an instrumental with a strong 7/8 riff and groove. I think it builds and releases intensity very nicely, and the band feels it and revels in it. This is a really strong performance, especially since it's the first public airing of the piece by Anomaly.

Originally it was performed with drums, bass, keyboards and electric violin (with the great Carla Kihlstedt on Zeta 5-string). Here Anomaly does it with our normal early instrumentation. This version differs from the one we eventually recorded on our "Taco Pasteles EP," which features more clarinet. 

This is at the Orange Bear in lower NYC, February 12, 1998. It  was recorded open air by my then-girlfriend, Maria Winkler (now McGrath) on my Sony stereo recording cassette walkman.

Gyroscope - Anomaly - Live at the Orange Bear 12 February 1998

This is a song of mine from 1990. Originally performed by OCMR at Oberlin College. This is Anomaly performing it at the Orange Bear. The version differs slightly from the original -- we had changed the riff a little. Plus there is a MicroMoog solo instead of piano. 
Unfortunately the recording is not great, lots of background noise. but you get the point.

Doctor Who - Anomaly - live at the Orange Bear August 6, 1998

From &reg; my senior recital project at Oberlin Conservatory. Don Marvel also provided many visuals receiving credit as an independent study.

Music by Ian McGrath
Lyrics by Don Marvel
written 1991

LUMBERBRIDE personnel:
Carla Kihlstedt: electric violin
Greg Myers: percussion
Don Marvel: bass guitar
Ian McGrath: piano
Matt Hubbard: voice
Susan Hanson: voice

Music from R

Oily If - Lumberbride - R

This is another song written in college and performed by Anomaly. Don Marvel gave me these words, when we started collaborating back in my second year at Oberlin. I believe it was a song he had written earlier to other music, but he told me I was free to set it anew. I think I did it over the following summer, put it in this odd metered herky jerky setting. Mostly it shifts freely between 7/8 and 4/4 time. It was a little complicated so I never introduced it to Mr Ability. Finally I brought it to my band Anomaly in the late 90s, after I made a successful demo a few years earlier, proving to myself it could be done. Anomaly played this song well, it was one of our better numbers by the time we were wrapping things up, and we rocked 7/8 pretty hard IMHO. I'm glad we got a good studio recording of it, from Loho Studios, 1999.

Get Fuzzy - Anomaly - Taco Pasteles

This is my second college band, Mr Ability, performing at their final show in December of 1990. Written by myself with lyrics by Don Marvel.

Righteous Weasel Boho Art Circus Blues - Mr Ability - Live at the Cat, Dec 1990

This is my church choir performing a piece of mine, a setting of the Latin "Hail Mary" text. I wrote it originally like a song back in 2006. I set it for 4 voices and it was performed at Mass in 2007. In early 2018 I basically built the arrangement over again from the ground up. A few things were maintained, especially the middle "Sancta Maria" section, but almost everything else was changed, besides the melody. The new setting is much more successful I think. 
Performed by the St Francis Xavier Church Choir (http://stfxbrooklyn.org) under the direction of Dr. Michael Kaminsky on Mother's Day 2018, during 9:30 Mass. Recorded by Peter Karl of http://peterkarlstudios.com/.

McGrath: Ave Maria (St Francis Xavier Choir, Brooklyn, NY)

This is an old one, performed live at the Orange Bear in NYC, March 1998. The song is from college with spectacular bizarro lyrics by Don Marvel. The music appropriately is riddled with time changes, and performed well by the ensemble.

ianmcg8