On this Easter Sunday, I'm giving a quick shout out to my long departed Great Aunt Bernice ("Bernie"). My parents used to drag me out to her and Uncle Johnnie's house on Easter. In classic early teen form I dreaded…

Deleted the ol' BandCamp account last week. This is all part of a gradual roll-back of my digital presence after feeling stretched uncomfortably thin during the BDB era. BandCamp joins Twitter and ReverbNation in the virtual recycle bin. While my…

A few years ago I decided to really go for it with music, to explore the limits of what I could create and become. When you start a journey like that publicly you muster all the bravery available. You have…

It's too much pressure to write a eulogy, so this isn't going to be that. But the occasion is the same: Jon Atkins, my wife's uncle, has passed away.  

I met Jon for the first time when he was already…

There have been some interesting articles about country music star Toby Keith since his recent, unfortunate passing at the young age of 62. Have you ready any? Thought I'd share just a quick post about him this Friday because he's…

When musicians perform but don't have a ton of fans, it's hard for them to understand if their material is any good or not. It's weird. They get out there and do their thing, and they hope that people like…

Below is a word-for-word conversation with ChatGPT from this weekend about songwriting. I generally like using chat bots, but this time it was deeply unsettling. After answering my question, the bot started buttering me up and asking a bunch of…

Well, here we go. 

It's election year in America and if there's one thing we can count on, it's that everyone will freak out. But I don't intend to here. Here are some things I want you to know about…

Got some great reviews for draft 1 of Wally the Christmas Whale!  Here are a few:

• “I want to leave now.” - Daughter
• “I can tell you worked really hard on it.” - Wife
• “Seems like AI.” - Dad
• …

About one year ago I realized I didn't actually know how to sing. 

It started in middle school when the sorting hat put me on the band track instead of the choir track and singing became something I did on…

To put on a great performance (not that I'd know), you have to put in hours and hours of practice, sometimes grinding through repetition of the same few notes. It's brutal. And did I say hours? I meant years. Great…

Let's talk about the mid-life crisis. I used to wonder what a mid-life crisis was all about when I was younger. And now, as someone who has gone pretty far out there with music in his 40s, I certainly am…

[Originally posted on Facebook] I posted a music video yesterday that Facebook only let 17 of the 300 of you see in your feed... (it's still there). This is another thing people don't realize about small band life. A Facebook…

I would like to thank the, uh, seven people who have streamed Lovers and Fools on Spotify since launch! ... And the one person (out of 150) who clicked the email link. Ha. It's ok--I've watched this growing trend for…

Still thoroughly enjoying the break from gigging. I miss making music with friends, for the people who cared, but there was also the other 95% of the job. Here are the things that I miss the least, just 'cause I'm…

Last show of the BDB tonight for quite some time! Engel's in Edmonds WA, 9 p.m. to midnight. In August of 2021 we played our first gig in the Seattle area (pictured), and 22 shows later I feel great about…

I realize that 50 followers on Spotify is laughably small by today's standards, but I'm still proud to have hit the number. Thanks for that, friends. It seems like at least as many of you are on Apple Music as…

Here's my December album pick for you, and a personal story behind it:  Revival by The Fairfield Four. 

It is no surprise to my family to come home to a house that sounds like a gospel revival, with bands like…