This is the field recording of "George Bailey" It's observational that trying to be bigger than yourself is painful and it's questionable if the dreaming hurts worse than the living.

It's a Wonderful Life (George Bailey)

Inspired by my musical heroes, I forged this song.

Stumbling Dreams

Devil's End

Gallant

Antisocialite

Like many of my story songs this vignette is about complications that come up in relationships.

Precious

Please note: this conversation starts about 10 minutes in -- by this point my wife and I are both completely flustered by the oppressiveness of the rep.

So! Last week my wife called to disconnect our service with Comcast after we switched to another provider (Astound). We were transferred to cancellations (aka "customer retention").

The representative (name redacted) continued aggressively repeating his questions, despite the answers given, to the point where my wife became so visibly upset she handed me the phone. Overhearing the conversation, I knew this would not be very fun.

What I did not know is how oppressive this conversation would be. Within just a few minutes the representative had gotten so condescending and unhelpful I felt compelled to record the speakerphone conversation on my other phone.

This recording picks up roughly 10 minutes into the call, whereby she and I have already played along and given a myriad of reasons and explanations as to why we are canceling (which is why I simply stopped answering the rep's repeated question -- it was clear the only sufficient answer was "Okay, please don't disconnect our service after all.").

Please forgive the echoing and ratcheting sound, I was screwing together some speaker wires in an empty living room!

Updates:
7/15 - Comcast has issued an apology: http://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-voices/comcast-statement-regarding-customer-service-call
7/16 - I have continued to reiterate publicly that I do not want Comcast to terminate the rep, and that I believe the call itself belies a deeper, systemic dysfunction:
https://twitter.com/ryan/status/489576392250519552
https://twitter.com/ryan/status/489576399636676609
https://twitter.com/ryan/status/489576406301413376

Comcastic service disconnection (recording starts 10 mins into call)

this is our debut album put on the web for everyone to hear as a convenience from us to you. a gratuitous amount of time, effort, and money was put into the making of these songs so if you like them please do not hesitate to tell us and or buy the album. enjoy 

07 - Fight With Monsters - Burn It Down

Have you ever had a 24 hour day-mare? That's what I'm living. Blood in the shower....blood in my bedroom.....blood everywhere. -Alison Costa Rica (recorded message from 2004)
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This was recorded in August of '04. I was playing on Lee's mom's acoustic guitar (tuned in D cos it doesn't stay in tune in E), and this little ditty came thru me fingers. recorded it right there in lee's bedroom that week on my 4T on track 1. went home and added forward and backward echo (tracks 2 & 3), bounced to track 4 and erased the others. finished overdubbing in one night at Seej Studios, added strings (i think it was 3 or 4 tracks just being bounced on and on cos there's different types of string selections i put on), church organ with echo printed on the track, and i added piano to add a little subtlety to the mix (only to be barely heard in the final mix, that was intentional, kinda like what Brian Wilson did in the 60s).

Remixed for stereo in Audacity in Feb 2012, incorporating the intro from the original mono mix made in 2006. Panned the strings track to the left and added a slightly delayed string track on the right to get a fuller string sound. Added more echo to the organ track and fixed the piano track to be more in time. 

The Bipolar Express

Solo concertina rendition, original is public domain.

In The Gloaming (Annie F. Harrison)

Badfinger's Pete Ham wrote this in 1967 (when the band was called The Iveys) to his young neice who had a great imagination and adored her Uncle Pete greatly. 

Pete utilized the band's Revox G36 tape recorder's overdubbing capabilities to great effect, adding double-tracked harmonies, a slide guitar, and tapping the back of his acoustic as if it was a pair of bongos. The song was released posthumously on "7 Park Avenue" in 1997, showing that Pete was an very eclectic and underrated songwriter and guitarist. 2 other albums showcasing his demos were released: 1999's "Golders Green" and 2013's "Keyhole Street: Demos 1966-67," the latter available on PledgeMusic here: http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/peteham

A short clip of the original song is here: 
http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/window/media/page/0,,1557723-5203344,00.html

As much as I wanted to duplicate Pete's demo on my 16track, this late night stereo recording (via my Sony digital recorder and stereo mic) has a charm of its own, achingly longing to be somewhere else with someone I could spend the rest of my life with, whoever that someone may be...

Pete Ham's "Island"

I am a singer songwriter. In 2006 I began writing songs. For ten-years before that I tried to become a published novelist and short story writer, and even won a couple of awards. To date I've written over 500 songs. I learned "Down in the Valley" at age seven on my mother's knee and knew I had to play music. In 2010 I began playing my original songs for audiences, wondering if they would be accepted. Since then I've performed a couple hundred times. I am inspired by folk-indie artists like The Shins, Elliot Smith, and Fleet Foxes, bands you often hear in little indie films and coffee houses. If that style is what you're looking for I'd love to take a booking with you for your venue or event.

Precious

originalmechanicalmouse