Daniel Ward-Murphy, The Bottom-End Interview

It’s a new year and Sellaband artist Daniel Ward-Murphy is hitting the ground running. His debut album, Until The Morning Light,  produced in London by studio veteran Tony Platt, is receiving rave reviews from the Sellaband community. I recently cornered Daniel in the men’s room of the home office and forced him to grant an [...]

Comfort Food, Sellaband's The Akibas

Here in the states we are smack in between our two “holidays of excess.” The true meaning of Thanksgiving and Christmas can be lost in the flurry of culinary activity and the season is given over to trotting out old family recipes heavily laden with spices and ingredients that sit in food warehouses all year [...]

Recording a Vintage Bass Track

The invention and marketing of the electric bass represents the dawn of modern recorded music. Giving the event the weight it deserves moves me to declare that we are now living in the year 59 F.E. or “Fender Era.” The amplified solid-body bass holds a special double-faceted place in modern music. First developed as a [...]

The Bells of St. Monrovia

I am at my wit’s end. Am I going nuts or having auditory hallucinations? Nope, they are real…I’m hearing bells. And I hear them EVERY MORNING…EVERY HOUR! The church around the corner has gone back to a time when ringing bells on the hour was a public service and it has become the bane of [...]

Looking at Things "From Both Sides Now"

Joni Mitchell’s line “I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now” holds new meaning in light of a recent Science News article which describes studies confirming that musicians use both left and right sides of the brain more frequently than average people. I am assuming that by average, the author refers to what could be [...]

Don't be Afraid of the Obvious

Quoting one of my earlier posts, rule number two states , “It’s always simpler than it seems.” Okay, so the rule is a bit simplistic. But it  can furnish a sense of optimism, false or otherwise, in the face of overwhelmingly difficult tasks. Creating a piece of music consists of the same multi-tiered process as [...]