I lived in Salt Lake City, Utah, until I was four, at which point my family moved to the wild west... of Pennsylvania. Sometimes referred to as "Northwest Virginia," it is a beautiful landscape populated by a unique folk, a patchwork quilt of close-knit kin. Yes, the men are men, and the sheep are scared. Or, the men are men, and their wives are their sisters. Something along those lines.
At age 12, my family moved to Orange County California, where my music tastes expanded widely -- while I began to embrace country and occasionally folk music as a nostalgic reference to my former home, I also became intimately acquainted with pretty much all things new wave.
And, at 16, we moved BACK to western PA!!! Talk about culture shock!
I consider myself a Jersey Boy at heart, because I spent every summer here from the time I was 18 months until I was in my early 20s, and I have been living here for two years now. I also consider Penn State my home, because I treasure my college years, and I really did consider spending my whole life in the hills of Centre County.
I have been writing music since the teen years, although I tend to go on fairly long hiatuses between creative projects and get bogged down in personal details that prevent me from pursuing my art/craft to its fullest. Hopefully launching a site that forces me to recognize my creative side will change that!
I have two complete CDs worth of demos in song cycle format, and then another handful (almost a full CD) of random songs in search of their respective mother projects. A link provided below will allow you to purchase some of my music (currently, from my unsigned CD -- in high quality, digital demo format -- Endless Street: A Spiritual Travelogue). The songs are all in MP3 format for ease of downloading and compatibility with standard technology. (If you are wondering what the playlist order is on my album, it is as follows: Endless Street, Postcards, Vapor Trails, No One Gets Out of Here Alive, Slipping Through My Hands, Days of Hollow Men, House of Cards, Waltz for the Dissolute, Ten O'Clock in Toronto, When All is Said and Done, The Consecrating Mother. The last three songs are cover tunes and, therefore, not available for purchase yet because of copyright laws for MP3 sites are still a little muddy when it comes to such; there is also an uncompleted tune, eventually to be inserted between the first two tracks.)
My solo shows basically consist of me and a piano, although I am hoping to align myself with some guitarists with whom I can co-headline shows, adding to the instrumentation and variety of both our repertoires. (Parker Weissman, that means you! And, Ken Levy, if you're out there, when the Hell are we going to collaborate again?)
I currently live in Ocean County, NJ. I'm interested in performing any local venues that already have a piano on the premises. Also will consider:
•western PA near Venango County (where I grew up and where my mother still lives)
•Denver, CO area (where my father lives)
•the Poconos in PA (I just love to visit)
•NYC (so I can hang in Manhattan and visit friends... and perhaps mingle with other artists and potential label executives)
•Penn State area (any opportunity to return home is a bonus!) •Princeton, because my "day job" is SAT instructor for Princeton Review, and I work for the Princeton office and love to visit my co-workers
•New Hope, PA area, again, because it's such a cool town, and I have friends there
•Irvine, CA or (southern California in general) because it would give me an excuse to visit my dearest friend Joy, who is a member of Riddle the Sphinx (also on myspace! check 'em out!)