“Daisy” 2021 SongoftheYear.com Semi-Finalist

By July, 2020, my business had run out of work due to COVID-19's affect on the aircraft manufacturing business along with the 737 MAX debacle -an absolute perfect shit storm. With so much time on my hands, the decision to delve into the world of Digital Audio Workstations was reached. My long-time Friend, Ben Eshbach, frontman of the Sugarplastic, had made a nice career for himself creating music for film and television, winning two Emmys for his work in recent years. He had always encouraged me to get into DAWs. I tried to explain, I just didn't have the time -until now. 

I downloaded a copy of Cakewalk and started the unreasonably ambitious endeavor of producing an album-length body of work. I played the L.A. alt-rock club circuit in an impressive number of go-nowhere bands throughout the 80's and 90's. It was great fun but I hung up the guitar and focused on the machine shop in 2000 . After all, It was the right move. For some reason, though, I thought myself up to producing an album.

From Summer, 2020 till it's completion in Spring, 2021, seemingly endless hours were put into the making of Songs from the Spare Room. I can say, without hesitation, if Ben hadn't been there to help me along, this album would never see the light of day, much less be listenable. My wife, Marie (pronounced Mary), had founded concerns about the hours I was grinding away in the spare room under headphones. "If you're going to be doing this all the time, maybe you'll write ME a song". She was right to be concerned and want inclusion. I do love her so, and so, she and that episode were the inspirational genesis of Robot Love.

There's a very good reason why it's the primary track -Ben co-write it with me. If there's a song you want to get right, it's the one you write to your love. The melodies and arrangement are all the product of Ben's imagination and touch and without that contribution, Robot Love would have been just another track.

During this period of virus-induced production, I grew a full beard for the first time in my life, determined to let it grow until immunization. Pictured to the right, in front of the spare room, the day I received the first of two Pfizer vaccine injections. Who knew  two shots would be needed back when I decided to go full Rip Van?

Some of the songs were written in the 90s (Deja Vu, Upside Down, Lenny & Squiggy and Rock Ptarmigan). Some of the songs were written during production (Robot Love, Slightly Green Banana, I Ain't Allowed and Daisy). John B and Total  Eclipse, cover songs.

Finally, you may have sworn you heard bird chirping faintly in the background while listening to Songs. Don't bother going back and listening again, it's there. Our three Green-Cheeked Conures, Joey, Koko and Haiku, are pathological rascals and, frankly, there isn't anywhere within our home far enough from the spare room to fully isolate their piercingly sharp squawking. Oh, it would have been easy enough to scrub those chirps from the tracks. Many would. I would have under different circumstances but leaving them indelibly memorialized that harrowing lockdown we all endured.

So without further ado.