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Here’s the new video of the title track from the new Scorched By The Sun album “Eclipse” featuring Dave Stafford and Bryan Helm. Recorded during 2017 and 2018 in Scotland and Wyoming. I’ll be playing a house concert in Laramie on Friday March 1st For further info go to: https://www.facebook.com/greenhouselaramie/
The reason I mention this is that I will be appearing live at the Old West Bar in Medicine Bow on August 4 at 7 PM as part of a series of fundraisers to put together money for the purpose of relocating the cabin next to the museum in Medicine Bow. I hope that anyone interested will come on down for an evening of music and fun and to support this cause. I’ve been busy working on a couple of music projects since I moved here and both are getting close to completion. I thought I’d share a track from one of those projects with you here it’s called “The Great North Road”. I’ll be making an effort to bring you more music and news from this place in the months to come. Thanks as always for taking the time to visit my site. I hope all of you are having a happy and healthy summer and if you can, please come on by the Old West Bar on Saturday August 4th for music and more starting at 7 PM. It’s located on Route 287 on the North side of the street, not too hard to find but here’s a map and some info- https://www.facebook.com/pages/Old-West-Bar/126906084325784
In addition to school I’ve been busy working on new music (Work Study Anthology Vol.1-4) a project that’s currently over halfway through with a total time of over 4 hours. The material consists of new and reworked tracks with an emphasis on guitar in a variety of styles. I’ve included a short piece “WSA#19” from these sessions with today’s blog to give you a glimpse of what I’ve been up to. I hope to be completing the project in the next couple of months. Since my updates here have become sporadic to say the least, I’ve decided to call a halt to the blog aspect of this site at least until I finish school and possibly beyond. I’ll continue to make all the existing music here available and some new content also on occasion, but no commentary of consequence. Given how often I’ve been posting here lately, this cessation shouldn’t cause anybody any great concern. I’m hoping however to post music tracks more frequently as part of the ongoing effort here. I want to thank all the folks who’ve taken the time to listen to the music collected on this site. Being a “hobbyist” who loves the studio but hates the stage, this is in all likelihood the only place most people will ever hear any of this music. I’m grateful for the opportunity to do this and again for your interest in my work. Best wishes to all of you in 2017.
I hope that this new year of 2015 has been kind so far to you nice folks who visit my website. I wanted to let everybody know that I recently upgraded the workings at this site to optimize it for all current mobile applications. This should make it easy to check my stuff out wherever you happen to be, try it and see if it works. Speaking of works, I’ve been busy with lot’s of schoolwork and music work in the past year. I’ll post an update on a current project soon, but here’s a rough mix of one new piece in the meantime. Again my best to everyone. The photo above is of a sandstone image of the Goddess Durga (made in India about 950 C.E.), part of the permanent collection of the Denver Art Museum.
….comes in the form a new recording. It’s titled “Dreamtime” and it’s the work of myself and Dave Stafford as the duet Scorched by the Sun. It’s a fifty minute musical excursion into dark ambiance of a cinematic and textural nature which I think many folks will enjoy if they give it a chance. It’s now exclusively available as a download at the following location: http://scorchedbythesun.bandcamp.com/ I have been working with Dave since 1988 and I believe this project is our best recording so far. I look forward to our next effort and encourage you to check out our new release if you enjoy the ambient/electronic genre of music. In other music news- I’m working on recording demos currently with Industrial Hemp and I’m also working on a solo project which will be done later in the year. In addition to that I’m back in school for some global music studies which I’m enjoying greatly. My best wishes in this new year for all you folks who have taken the time to read and listen to my stuff. I’ll try and be more regular in my updates here while staying busy making and learning about music. In the meantime, please take care and if you get a chance, do check out “Dreamtime” I think you’ll like it.
I began jamming with a local bass/stick player by the name of Mihaell Baev,  a very talented and creative guy who I ran into at the local community college and accosted because he had a King Crimson t-shirt on. We played pretty regular for a few months and started working with another guy named Justin Fulford a 7 string guitarist who’s a friend of mine, and a drummer named Mike who was an old friend of Mihaell’s. Anyway the holidays put the brake on time for such activities and the new year began with the news that my father had experienced a severe heart attack and was very near death. I returned to Ohio to see him in the hospital,  he rebounded somewhat over the next several months, but never recovered due to the severity of his condition. When I returned home in January, the next day I started back to college for the first time in 35 years and found myself  in a very different mindset about what I wanted to accomplish musically in my life, due to some new perspectives. I took an introductory guitar course from an excellent player and instructor by the name of Matt Dorris, who was very tolerant of all my ingrained bad playing habits and archaic musical references. Matt is the only person other than Robert Fripp that I’ve ever sought guitar instruction from (so far this lifetime), they should both get a medal. At the same time as this I was still rethinking the dynamic of playing music. I played a 3 hour live gig with my friend Chris Filbin on bass for an art gallery opening in February that was well received.  We call ourselves “No Evil” a kind of ambient/ space/jazz thing …if you will.  Chris is a very sympathetic and inventive player and a wonderful guy who you might recall added some great bass tracks to some lapsteel work of mine a couple years back. Chris has some health issues, which makes me all the more grateful when he chooses to spend some of his time and energy playing music with me.  Unfortunately for Mihaell he was also was not feeling as well as he might and the resultant lull in jamming  produced the seed that became… Industrial Hemp. IH consists of myself on 6 string guitar/loops/effects , Justin Fulford on 7 string guitar/effects and his brother William Fulford on laptop/beats/samples. So far it’s a trip-hop adventure with a metal bouquet and experimental undertones that has no real boundaries…just fine by me.  We’re working on our first set  (about an hour and a half clicks so far)and hoping to record a CD of the best of that material in the fall. At the same time as this is happening my old musical partner Dave Stafford has finished adding his tracks to what will be Scorched by the Sun’s debut effort “Dreamtime” a wonderfully dark ambient work from both of us, that he’s now currently mixing down at his home in Scotland (I’ll let you know when it’s available). So the year marched on with school and much music happening until May when the semester was over. At the end of the month I got word that my father’s condition had taken a turn for the worse and that a visit was in order now, rather than later. I drove back with my wife and our youngest son, visited many times with my parents and saw friends that I hadn’t seen in over 25 years. We had a family get together on Father’s Day and returned to Colorado. My father passed away five days later on the 22nd of June, at home with my Mom in attendance. He had felt so miserable over the last 6 months that he was glad to go, and for his sake I was happy to see him stop suffering.  I ventured back in July for a celebration of my father’s life that drew about a hundred friends and relatives and stayed a couple of days with my Mom, looking through objects and photos, crying and talking about many things. Before I left for that though I had surgery to repair a hernia, which went very well and I now feel better than I have in years. So as you can tell perhaps it’s been a busy year so far and…school starts on Monday, so it seemed a good time to return to the blog and let you all know what had been going on. On that note I will dedicate myself to regular communications online to keep you up to date on whats going on. For some free tunes and info check out  www.industrial-hemp.com  we’ll be updating stuff there soon. I hope this summer has been kind to you, if not… I do understand. Thanks for reading and listening,  please have fun and be careful and I’ll check back in with you soon.  Photo of me by Sarajane taken at her Mom’s place in the Ohio countryside circa June 2012.
Speaking of listening….the musical selection for this entry is a little mandolin number titled “Five Finger Folly” recorded on a slightly defunct 6 string mandolin that has since been converted to sculpture of an unusual nature. Anyway this is it’s swan song of sorts, but hopefully not mine. I’m busy working on several projects at the moment which I hope to share some examples from soon here. In the meantime please enjoy this tune and another image from my recent trip to the museum. Best wishes to all of you, more soon.
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