The Latest

Hey! This is a new song. I am a neophyte when it comes to mixing, and I think I have reached the limits of both my skills and my equipment (I definitely recommend a decent set of earbuds here). But I’m putting it up now because I am pissed off, and it is a lot faster to write a song when I am pissed off than an entire novel. I mean, ROCK PAPER TIGER took some serious time!

As always, thanks to the amazing Tony Mandracchia for his guitar work and the fabulous Todd Tatum for drums! (and Dave Hunt for his drum studio!)

I am still in the process of updating and organizing all the music stuff, so consider this a sneak peek of our newest tune: “King of the World.” This song has a funny genesis in that the hook of it and part of the verse are things that have been stuck in my head for decades that I’d never done anything with. Recently the self-generated ear worm got worse and worse (have I ever discussed my ear worm issues? Remind me to share the time that Christy Gerhart and I recorded the backing “karaoke” track for the film Undercover Brother. The song was “Ebony and Ivory.” Trust me when I tell you that you do NOT want to have “Ebony and Ivory” playing in your head incessantly for nearly a month). ANYway, I decided I’d better just turn it into a song if it was going to be in such constant rotation in my personal Brain Radio. Thankfully Tony Mandracchia and Todd Tatum were available!

I am still not good at all at the whole home recording thing and have realized that the less I do to the tracks, the better. For my own vocals, that means no presets, no EQ, just some appropriate reverb. For Tony and Todd’s wonderful tracks, leave ’em alone! (if you’re in LA and need some drums recorded, may I recommend David Hunt? I think they sound fantastic!)

I’m so pleased with the way it came out! I think of it as sorta psychedelic Steely Dan (who once did a very different song called “King of the World” — it’s on one of the first albums I ever bought, COUNTDOWN TO ECSTASY).

Hope you enjoy!

Okay, this isn’t done. But I feel the need to share. I am so very tired of people who refuse to follow simple health guidelines because it’s become some kind of bizarre badge of cultural identity.

Therefore…thanks once again to Tony Mandracchia for his awesome guitar work on this. EDIT: Now with drums by Todd Tatum, recorded by Tom Lee! (still needs mixing prolly)

Remember when I said that I’d have some news on drums soon? Okay, you may not, it was a while ago. But in fact I now DO have some news on drums! And I couldn’t be happier. The amazing Todd Tatum, who was the drummer for the Pickups back in the day, has recorded drum tracks for the tunes that Tony and I have been working on–huge thanks to his friend Tommy Lee (no, not that one!) for the recording engineering on these! Now if I can just get Dana on castanets for at least one tune, we will truly be complete.

I now have three, almost four of the seven songs more or less finished. I realize that “finished” is a relative state here—I mean, mixing is a huge black hole where you could completely spend a thousand years and not realize it, and I am still very much a novice. But I think the results thus far are good representations of the songs, and I am (relatively) content.

So! Presented for your enjoyment, here is “Elephant,” the first song on what will at some point be…an album? I guess? Which I’m calling PLAGUE SONGS, because hey! Why not?

(UPDATED TO LATEST MIX)