Rawly recorded (in mono.) guitar pop saturated by 70s AOR and American musical theatre; an ambitious debut by a well-meaning analog recordist who had no idea what playing every instrument yourself can do to your mind.

Details

Contents

#		Title	Length	Sample
1		Soul Connection	3:23
2		Picture	2:27
3		Old and Grey	3:19
4		Children Make Their Paces	2:37
5		Daylight Savings	3:28
6		Easy, Baby	3:46
7		A Side Two Get-together	1:41
8		Mono Is King	3:10
9		Quadraphonic Circus Parade	0:44
10		New Jersey Surf Story	2:58
11		Catgut	0:24
12		Dandelion Rays	3:15
13		Torture Sequence #1&2	1:10
14		Man-Sized	3:44
15		The Guitar	0:19
16		Love Is Love	4:41
17		The Hot Butter Radio Hour	1:23

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Description

Im actually from New Jersey, but since I dont feel right in any place other than New York, I tend call the city my base. I started my record collection at the age of five with my first copy of "Destroyer" by Kiss. I never outgrew my infatuation with what I heard on the radio in the 70s when I listened non-stop. I love records, liner notes, and of all the instruments I play, the electric bass.

My background includes musical theatre pit orchestras, in which they hand you a book of sheet music to read under a little stand light so people on the stage can give you a quick nod at the bows. (Heres a secret: in most cases, if the actors dont get paid, the musicians still do!) Its a viable avenue for a vocation like the electric bass, about which my grandfather once asked, "What do you want to play THAT for?" My music draws on that of the theatre in that it can use the voice of a rock band without necessarily speaking its language.

If Im not performing or recording, my voice is still regularly bouncing around in space, as I do voiceover work for Sirius Satellite radio. Its a cool gig in which I speak alternately like Frank Zappa and your old roommate who could never hold a job, depending upon the copy Im reading.

Im finally making my original recordings available again after years in the shadows. "Mono Is King!" was my first solo effort and its coming up on its tenth anniversary in 2007. Back in 2000, after too many knocks and barking up too many wrong trees, I let my little record company slide, to save my health. Easy, Baby.

Lately, Im being asked about my music again, which is a great sign of things to come. Ive begun work on a new album, so think of the originals as an appetizer. Im very proud of the first records, not only because they still sound great to my ear, but because they were the ladder to an awareness I might have taken a lot longer to reach.

Mono Is King!

They say that you have your whole life to write your first album. Though I wrote the songs mostly in 1996, I definitely tried to cram a lifetime of experience into the songs and the grooves. I was out to prove a lot with "Mono Is King!" about my talent, technology, music, you name it. Oh such purpose. The whole thing is a nod to AM radio in the 70s, which I loved so well. The album is in mono (meaning not in stereo) just like the music was that came out of my transistor when I was a kid. I recorded the record on 8 track and mastered it on quarter-inch reel-to-reel tape. I rejected all special effects and digital technologies, leaving only distance (how loud something was in the mix) to make my statement. Some of the arrangements are pretty thick for such a comparatively primitive approach.

In the theme of distance, most of the songs on "Mono Is King!" were about the self-imposed isolation of ambition, and the longing for connection that always lay beneath the exterior. Many of the characters are loners that seek a single true companion.

Even though Mono Is King! is on CD, it has two "sides," like an LP. Each side was conceived as a complete thought and each one leads to the other. In fact, at the end of side two, I introduce the first song on side one. This was my first attempt at playing every instrument and singing every part myself on a recording. I only enlisted a drummers help, because I didnt yet own a kit. Being alone in a studio for that long, rolling tape myself and performing each track one at a time, I started to go a little stir crazy, hearing weird things in the playback and getting punchy in the late night sessions. By side two, I had decided to document that experience, which accounts for all of the weirdness between the actual songs. I gave those little gems their own IDs on the disc, in case you dont want to follow me down.

Enjoy "Mono Is King!" I hope it demonstrates how much can be done with very little.