Why Am I Doing This?

It's been almost a year since I updated this poorly maintained thing. What better time then for a rambling Mission Statement/ Biography.

Okay. First off, a little about myself.

I've always had music. When I was 8 years old, I wrote "Hello, I Love You". I was very disappointed when I heard the song performed by the Doors on the radio. Around the same time, I wrote a new melody for they lyrics of "My Country 'Tis of Thee"; it was an oompah beat. I knew all the words to "Burning Down the House" by the Talking Heads and even created my own choreography.

I was in a school sponsored choir (Favorite song by far was Waltzing Mathilda) and took saxophone for about a week. My parents bought me a little casio keyboard for Hanukkah one year and I enjoyed the heck out of making a cacophony on that.

The first album I ever bought was Fat by Weird Al Yankovic. The 2nd one after that was the Chronic by Dr. Dre.

In 7th grade, my family moved and I had to make new friends. One of these friends had a cheap Peavey Predator guitar, a Strat knock off, and sold it to me along with a little amp. At first, all I did was tune arbitrarily, make terrible noises and play with the whammy bar a lot. My Bar-Mitzvah yielded guitar lessons where I learned *gasp* how to tune, stomp my feet and my first song. It was "The Man Who Sold the World" (the version from Nirvana Unplugged, to give you an idea of the year).

My friends and I made music, covering Green Day and Minor Threat songs and generally sounding like garbage. But it was fun. Around this time, I started writing little poems. They were the kind of stunted trite that can only be produced by a 13 year old kid who thinks he knows about the world. I wrote them semi-consistently through middle and high school. They were mostly about girls, though I do remember one where I was metaphorically talking about my guitar like it was a machine gun.

Clearly, the idea of being a rock star had found purchase in my mind. And it was inevitable for a romantic, day-dreaming nerd like myself.

In college, I was in a band called the Knights of Chernobyl. My BFF and band mate Chris wrote a lot of the songs and I found that encouraging. Specifically, he wrote one just after 9/11 that was really good and won us the Battle of the Bands. After that, I concentrated on trying to write songs. Unfortunately, a clash of styles meant that the band didn't respond to my music (and admittedly, all of my songs were pedestrian compared to the hard hitting reggae-funk the band was spewing). Eventually, the band broke up.

The summer after that break-up my friend John (a bassist and AMAZING musician) and I would get together every night and jam. We recorded all these jams and then honed some of them into songs. John was really encouraging me in my songwriting and we recorded a couple of those songs, which was an amazing experience for me. It was very validating especially after the rejection I experienced in Knights of Chernobyl.

After college, I was living in Los Angeles and I wasn't very happy. One day, I got into a car accident that took my car out of commission. I was expelled to the purgatory that is the Los Angeles Public Transportation System and during my time there, I began to write the song that would become "Agnes"; the song that started this 5+ year journey of "real songwriting".

Nowadays, I can't imagine my life without songwriting. I've got probably 100 songs (not all of 'em gems) under my belt and no sign of slowing. At the risk of sounding cliche, it gives my life meaning. Now, that's not to say I'm successful, but I realized that with songwriting, I don't care; I will be doing it until I can't anymore.

Phew. Okay, that's a basic bio. And I'll be revisiting "Agnes" in the future.

But I wanted to let you know why I'm writing this.

Reason the First: To Record for Posterity the Reasons Why I Wrote Songs

Mainly, as a reminder to myself in my sure-to-be-addled old age. Trivia, rudimentary analysis, alternate versions, the stories behind the music. But who knows? If I end up like Burt Bacharach or something, this'll be a trove of information.


Reason the Second: To Promote My Music

I'm not going to lie. I hope that this increases the number of people who are exposed to my music. Hopefully, they'll like it, too!

Reason the Third: To Inspire

I am not a musical genius (or a genius of any sort). I am not a poet. I am simply a guy who has piddled around for a while and now has some songs. By revealing my processes, I hope to show that it's easy if you are consistent and persistent. You can do this, too!

...

Alright, stay tuned for my first real post. At my current pace, this'll be sometime in the next decade.