May 16, 2023 – Today is the birthday of guitarist Robert Fripp, and yesterday was the birthday of his frequent collaborator Brian Eno. It’s hard to measure how influential these two artists have been, not only to me but to generations of musicians and listeners. It would not be an exaggeration to say that their work changed my life, as much as anyone else in my personal pantheon of musical heroes.

April 28, 2023 – It's been a while since I've done one of these One Song posts, and in this case that title is somewhat misleading because I'll actually be talking about several songs by Fela Kuti, the late, great Nigerian musician/singer/bandleader, nightclub operator, rabble-rouser, and founder of a style he called Afrobeat that combines elements of Nigerian highlife music, 1970s-era James Brown-style funk grooves, jazz, and political ranting.

Dec. 30, 2022 – My musical education began at home. My parents were not too involved in music themselves, but they liked it a lot. When I was a little kid they used to play records and dance the Twist in the living room. I always liked that. So there was a record collection in the house, though it was a bit of a hodge-podge…

Dec. 20, 2022 – Town and Country were an all-acoustic quartet from Chicago that played a kind of quiet, folky take on minimalism and drone-based music using a core instrumentation of two contrabasses, steel-string acoustic guitar, and small harmonium.

Dec. 15, 2022 – Yep, I still collect physical media — CDs only, mostly from thrift stores, used record shops and Discogs, and I occasionally purchase something new or get things from fellow artists as gifts or trades. My collecting habits are based mainly on whatever I happen to run across randomly rather than looking for anything in particular. It’s much more fun to dig for unexpected treasures than to shop on Amazon.

Dec. 3, 2022 – Death has really been lurking in my world lately. I mean, it always is, but as I slide further into my 60s it becomes more of a tangible presence. I recently lost three people who mattered to me in varying degrees, and it’s taken me this long to muster any words about them.

Nov. 20, 2022 – Today is Meredith Monk’s 80th birthday. I’m celebrating by digging into the new box set of twelve albums she’s released on ECM, and digging up this interview I did with her forty years ago.

Nov. 3, 2022 – My friend Rob Millis just shared this wonderful documentary called Gitara, about guitar music in Azerbaijan, and I am smitten. I don’t know enough about it to say anything terribly interesting, but I sure do love what happens when electric guitars fall into the hands of folks who didn’t traditionally use them.

Sep. 23, 2022 – In my last post I made a passing reference to the important field recordist, media theorist, and advertising guru Tony Schwartz. Then I remembered that I had this interview I did with him in 1985, sitting idle in draft form on my old blog, and thought I should make it available again.

Sep. 17, 2022 – This is the story of how I put together a backing band for weirdo musician Gary Wilson and brought him to Olympia for a pair of concerts in 1981.

Aug. 28, 2022 – For several years now, French horn player Tom Varner has been doing a series of “vespers” concerts at the Good Shepherd Center Chapel with a large improvising ensemble of brass, percussion, and field recordings, drawing on members of the Seattle Phonographers Union (including me) for the latter.

Aug. 18, 2022 – There’s a new release of old recordings by Cheri Knight, my dear friend/collaborator/housemate back in college days in Olympia, released on the Freedom to Spend label. Cheri’s had a long and varied career in music, but this material had been largely forgotten and has finally resurfaced forty years later.

April 29, 2022 – With My Back to the World, my score for Mary Lance's documentary about the abstract painter Agnes Martin (1912-2004), is now available as a digital-only release to stream or download on BandCamp. Read the backstory here.

Dec. 24, 2021 – As I said last year, I am not good at making Top 10 lists, or even Top 50 lists. But here, in no particular order, are fourteen releases that made an impression on me in 2021 and that I expect to spend more time with in 2022.

Dec. 15, 2021 – It’s a good time for digging in the bargain bins as people ditch their CDs in favor of digital-only or succumb to the Great Vinyl Boondoggle. So here’s a list of this year’s gleanings – mostly from thrift stores, a few from used record shops or Discogs, and the occasional gift from an artist friend.

Aug, 24, 2021 – I’m late in mentioning this, but back in June my music was used in a very beautiful new video piece by Seattle artist Robert Campbell. It was screened as part of the Currents New Media Festival in Santa Fe, NM that ran June 18 - 27.

July 31, 2021 – Among the many interesting musical characters who landed in New Mexico when I lived there, Dino was one of the most remarkable. He wasn’t a household name to most listeners, but he had been a vital member of several intersecting music scenes in both the Bay Area and NYC before coming to northern NM, and he quickly impressed all who encountered him.

May 28, 2021 – Proximity Effects, the second album by Three Point Circle, a trio project by myself, Marc Barreca, and K. Leimer, is released on the Palace of Lights label.

Mar. 11, 2021 – Back in 2011, a piece of mine was included on a 2-CD tribute to the composer Erik Satie on the Arbouse label in France. I only recently found out that this album was reissued in 2015 with a third CD added, and just got a copy in the mail.

Feb. 13, 2021 – A friend of mine recently posted about quitting her long-term meditation practice. After twenty-plus years she was feeling frustrated by her apparent lack of noticeable progress and finally decided to give up on it. I get it. I've practiced meditation for over twenty years now. And like my friend, I sometimes feel like a failure. So why do I keep doing it?