Category: Liner Notes

2/26/26 – The word “love” has more meaning than the English language suggests; in Greek there are 4 different words for love. What we call “romantic love” probably fits the Greek eros best. To me, the onrushing feelings of romantic love, especially at the start, are like a sandstorm rushing in. Eventually it passes by, but when it’s around you it can be, as the song says, blinding.

Behind The Lyrics: I’m a fan of keeping a hand-written notebook of song ideas / lyrics; it’s a great way to see how the process of lyric writing has come together by looking back at crossed-out lines, words, alternative rhymes in parentheses, etc. Lately I’ve been using the iphone’s Notes app to do basically the same thing, and I think it’d be fun, going forward, to share with some lyric screenshots from each song so you can peek inside the process. Here are a few screenshots for Sandstorm. I hope you dig em – just keep in mind that sometimes I don’t finalize the lyrics 100% until I’m in the vocal recording booth, hearing how everything fits together with the music.

Looking back, Sandstorm probably could’ve been a Valentines Day release – oh well, now you’ll just have to listen to it all year, especially on 2/14!

Thanks for stopping by. Stay tuned for another new song in March; follow me on Spotify to get notified of the exact release date.

Listen on Spotify & AppleMusic

1/23/26 – I wrote this one as a reminiscence of moving to California and my time here in the golden state, far from home. As musicians and creative people, sometimes when we up and move ourselves to a place, we don’t know what we’re gonna do, who we’re gonna do it with, or where we’re gonna go.

C.S. Lewis wrote, “Life is lived forward, and understood backward.” Little by little, if we keep Faith, we meet the special people, go to the special places, and do the special things that make everything make sense in retrospect. Eventually, we find the reason why.

Thanks for listening. If this song resonated, you’ll probably like what’s coming next.

Listen on AppleMusic

for S.M.S.

12/12/25 – Ever wondered what a song would sound like if the Verses were instrumental but the Chorus had lyrics? I’m not sure exactly why Allen Carrescia (who co-wrote this with me) and I decided to do that here, but circumspect is the result. This song originally did have full lyrics (Verses, Bridge, all the things), with a much different, acoustic-guitar-driven accompaniment (maybe I’ll publish that to my Soundcloud someday!), but Allen and I wanted to explore new musical possibilities in a “lofi-adjacent” vibe.

The production process Allen and I used for this one was unlike anything I’d ever done. After the vocals were recorded, I basically recorded a bunch of trumpet phrases in several separate takes, and told Allen to choose and move them around wherever he thought they fit in. He did a great job with it, and on the first try, no less.

One last note: I didn’t start singing until years after being a professing trumpeter, and only did so at the encouragement of my friend Christine Fawson (thank you Christine!), a fellow Berklee mate and an amazing singer and trumpeter herself. That, along with this song, is why the 10-song album to which this song belongs is also titled “Circumspect.”

I’ll be releasing more songs like this one soon – give me a Spotify follow so you don’t miss any.

Listen on AppleMusic