A Fender guitar autographed by yours truly and my pal Elaine Summers is being auctioned off to raise money for SMASH.SMASH is Seattle Musicians Access to Sustainable Healthcare. A very worthy cause. In addition to the guitar we signed, there is lots of fun Seattle rock stuff including an autographed guitar from a guy named Mike McCready. (Mike's in a band called Pearl Jam if you didn't know.)Speaking of Pearl Jam, Stone's new side project [...]
Can we create a series of singles that supports a community of artists & creative professionals while incubating a donor-driven record label focused on giving? Can we? Let’s find out! • • • Turns out that I cannot. Not while living thru year five of chronic fatigue I can't. I gave it my all. But it's taken it's toll on my recovery and I have accepted that I simply can't pull this off while staying within my "energy [...]
Health Update Slowly but slowly my health is improving. (Health backstory HERE.) Assuming the trend continues, it shouldn’t be too long before I’m ready to begin pre-production on my next record. In the meantime, I’ve been dusting off the old live chops. Live & In-Person On November 8 Elaine Summers and I will play a couple of songs at The O Space to help celebrate the release of Vashon Calling, an album to benefit Vashon [...]
Health Update My sabbatical continues while I focus on recovering my health. (For the backstory, read my Healing Music post.) My energy is still low, but the general trend is moving up. Recently I had a stretch where I felt like I was operating at around 50%. After being down in the 20% range so much, that felt amazing. I see light at the end of the tunnel. Actually, I don't feel like I'm in a tunnel at [...]
20 years ago today, on April 7, 1998, Epic/57 Records released my third album, Spacey and Shakin'. I wrote the album with my band The Sinners in mind. Peter Stroud, Dave Hull, Rob Brill and Elaine Summers all shine on this disc. Our producer engineer team of Brendan O'Brien and Russ Fowler created what to my ear is a damn cool sounding record. (Audio dorks might be interested to know that much of the compression [...]
My new single, “I Am Awake” was crafted with relaxation in mind. It’s a sonic elixir of sorts, and maybe an antidote to a week that began with the horrific events in Vegas and the death of our beloved Tom Petty. I hope it brings some peace and ease into your day, or at least a brief respite from the sadness and shock. But as much as I hope this music provides some benefit to [...]
Tom Petty was a huge force in my life. I’m devastated by his passing. My heart goes out to The Heartbreakers and their amazing crew. I’m moving between heart-wrenching sadness and gratitude-laced trips down memory lane. While his body of work has had an immeasurable influence on me as a songwriter and musician, I’m most appreciative of the man himself and the kindness and generosity he extended to his young, eager fanboy of an opening [...]
If you've been following my posts here, you may recall that I promised new music this summer. Well, it's the last day of summer and I just released a single. "i am AWAKE" is ten-minutes of ambient bliss. I had hoped to release a lot more than just one track, but life had other plans. I'm working on a personal essay that will bring you up to speed on why I don't have more music [...]
I posted this video a while ago on social media announcing that I was close to finishing the first 1000 TREES single. I have since finished the track, but it will still take some time before it’s released. There are a few reasons things are moving at such a glacial pace. Busy mastering engineers, the search for the right designer to create cover art, embarking on producing an EP for Moody Little Sister [...]
I tagged along on Danny Newcomb's video shoot yesterday with my filmmaking mentor John Jeffcoat. In order to get to watch the man in action—and pick up cinematography tricks along the way— I offered to lend a hand. I ended up giving him a second set of eyes while capturing drone footage. I carried stuff. I operated playback for lip syncing. I removed dog poo from the trail so shoes weren't soiled. I yelled "We're [...]
