Loud Stories

A set of five short finger-style pieces composed during the final months of 2018 and recorded in February of 2019 on my Martin 000-18 in my home project studio. Influences abound, from John Fahey to Ry Cooder, with one piece being a direct homage to the great Mr. Ry (though there's no slide involved).

Five Easy Pieces

Funk groove, electronica overlay, "speech song" vocals, overtones of early '80s Talking Heads. 

Pardon My Technology

Reworking of a song from deep in the American folk idiom, perhaps best known through Clarence Ashley's version on the Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music, infused here with a bit of contemporary middle class darkness.

No Bright Cities

A little 70s-influenced jazz funk thing, with flavors of Ronnie Earle & Grant Green, featuring a little stretching out on my Ibanez hollow body. 

After the Seventies

Improved mix & cleaner vocals for this track in this version: An anthem about our current political & national mess, with a sonic debt to 80s power pop & Graham Parker, with a nod in the direction of the Black Keys in one riff.

State Of The Union

Final installment in my 2015 Sounds from Upstairs project, deliberately avoiding a holiday tone with a proto-metal / Husker Du sound, this is a tune about a rootless male character drifting through life trying to find a bit of Mojo, which clearly isn't working. Includes in the lyrics a couple of phrases stolen from Hunter S. Thompson, who may be the tutelary spirit of this piece

Namaste Bro

Re-mix of the first tack released during my 2015 Sounds from Upstairs project

Jackie Walked Down Remix

Little version of an old Charlie Brown soundtrack classic

Christmas Time Is Here 17

You could say this is a tune about a maudlin, self-indulgent and rather desperate guy who can't get his act together in a failing relationship, or you could say it's a tune about the complexity of self-doubt and the messiness of a longing for love. Or something in between. You decide.

Somehow

A little rendition of the old Sound of Music chestnut, with a jazzy edge, in a four piece format -- bass, drums, rhythm and lead guitars. Not quite modal like the Coltrane version, a little lighter but not merely (I hope) an easy listening approach.

Faves Xmas 18

Thinking Of Ry

Poor Boy Variations

April Haze

Cascade

Don't Look Back

A Lo-Fi-ish instrumental rock thing that recalls instrumental dance tunes of 1966(not quite “the twist” happening in this one, though). It's “lead guitar forward” and the sound I was after on my Tele was something like Clapton’s Bluesbreaker tones from the mid-sixties.  The backing music is pretty simple but the rhythm guitar part is heavily effected with Fender-y slap-back and tremolo that I think is reasonably period true.

1966

Atmospheric electric guitar instrumental that uses a repeating figure and deep delays as rhythmic element.

jlucia

Pinned to spotlight

Popular tracks