Here's a few older things that I've found. They all have some personal historical meaning to me--primarily because they remind me of important people in my life and important times. Here's a few pieces I'd like to share:

Song for an Aries Wow, this is really ancient stuff! One of my oldest and dearest friends, Phill Hausman, recently sent me a CD of some old recordings we did back when we were just starting out playing in the 1970s. The CD is entitled "Collected Works 1973 to 1976." Included on it are a number of collaborations the two of us worked up. Also, let me mention that Phill is an electronics whiz! He's creates some really heavy gear in his current work, but he's been building incredible things since we were kids. In fact, he built our band a stereo PA system when that stuff was pretty much unheard of on the local level. We won't even get into the amazing box he built for me that allowed me to switch between two old GBX amps and a leslie cabinet and run my guitar through the filters in a Mini Moog. Anyway, these recordings were made utilizing two cassette decks for dubbing and I'm not talking about high end stuff! Still, Phill managed to get some great sounds down for us, even then. It's amazing that material has survived. I can't believe we actually were trying to write songs with real melodies back then. Phill and I both playing guitar on this one. Yes, I actually knew an Aries back then, but I'm not sure that really had anything to do with the writing of this song. It was probably more the Mingus influence on us. Interestingly, the CD archive he sent me has us playing a cover of Goodbye Pork Pie Hat with Phill playing some really nice guitar. I would have included it here, but there are copyright laws, and I really should ask him if I can post it. I didn't feel bad about this one because I helped write it!

Excerpt for August's Song You guessed it. We probably recorded this in August in a tiny cramped bedroom space (our parents wouldn't let us leave gear sprawled all over either house although his parents and mine really supported our music. His dad has got the greatest jazz collection I've ever seen!) when it was really hot. Phill is handling the melody on Mini Moog and I'm playing the guitars. I still wish I had that Mini Moog, even though the heat made it a bit unstable as you can hear from time to time with the oscillators detune slightly without our asking. Still, i think it's a cool song from some ambitious kids just having fun way back in the '70s.

The Prophet's Vision in the Desert This is one of the earliest studio recordings I did with my main man Craig Harding sometime during the late '80s. I had been out of music for sometime. (another long story) and Craig enticed me back in to do some work with him as I was living in the neighborhood at the time. Ironically, for some reason I had bought a small Yamaha synthesizer and was messing around with midi just for my own edification, so Craig called me in to do some midi programming. This is one of our pieces, realized on that ancient Yamaha, a very primitive Ensonic sampler and some soundscape recordings by Craig. I think this little four minute clip took us more than 14 hours to put together--possible more. For those of you who are interested, the underlying spoken text is from Ezekiel 6:2-7.

Soundscape from a War Zone This piece was recorded a little while after The Prophet's Vision in the Desert at Craig's old Ajax Team Recording studio. Again, it's realized pretty much on those ancient synths. It's a tribute to our old friend Lewis "Luke" Fields, a Vietnam vet who has passed beyond the veil. Luke was something of a political radical, enlightened thinker and a strong peace advocate after having spent time in the war. A lot of us believe--as he did--that exposure to something in the war led to a a number health issues for Luke in later years, with could have had something to do with his early passing. When I originally posted these notes, I apologized for some of my awkward compositional ideas on this, but later received an e-mail from someone who told me that I need not apologize for any attempt to try to express my feelings -- or the nation's pain -- regarding this issue. I thank her for reminding me that I wrote to let my friend know I was thinking about all that he had been through for so many of us and need not be ashamed of the effort in any way. By the way, that's another old friend, David Kraus, speaking Hebrew. I sampled him reading the first line out of the Torah, because at the time, I couldn't read any Hebrew myself. I've long since learned some. Of course, I can read much more than I actually understand. . .

Mercury's Abode Another piece from that era. This originally was part of a larger piece with a lot more melodic material wrapped around it. If I remember correctly, it was part of a brutal musical piece about crucifixion. . .

Well, that's probably enough for now. Hope you didn't mind tripping down memory lane with me for a few. I've got tons of this stuff, but this is probably a bit much already, eh?

Take care,

--michael