Some Forgotten Angel (2006)

            This one has been shortened from it’s original inception, from a sprawling 14 songs, to a manageable 10 songs, and finally to an appropriate 7 songs.  This was my first full-length studio album, and I think it’s pretty evident in a lot of ways.  By time I recorded these tunes, I’d been writing and playing for what I would have said was a good long time, but in reality, not very long at all.  There’s some innocence (read: naïveté) in most of the songs, and not a lot of focus.  Being in a studio was sort of like being on a playground, and so I was really more focused on learning the ropes than on doing my best to craft something.  Still, the songs are fun, and they are neat little musical Polaroids of my younger self.
            I recorded the songs for what would become this EP during my last semester of college, right before I moved to Kentucky, which would change me faster and in more ways than I could ever imagine.  My college professor and good friend Brett Mullinix helmed the recording in his studio, 3 Cat Studios.  He played the drums and bass and the lead guitars, and my friend Andrew Vickery came and played a bit of harmonica, mandolin, and did some back-up vocals as well.  That shy and lovely voice piping up behind me on “Ireland,” is the lovely and talented Lacey Jayne Howe.  I like to never got her in there for that.  I’m glad I finally did,
            Most of these songs are utter nonsense, just ramblings of an overly romantic Me.  “Fine With Me,” is probably the oldest one in the set, outdating most of the others by a full two years, and was an improvised song at an open mic night, where a friend luckily was recording the performers and let me have a copy of my set.  I still play that song a bit. “Streetlights,” is another of the serendipitous, lightning in a bottle tunes.  I wrote it in studio during a session for Andrew’s first album, and I more or less hi jacked the session at the end of the night to demo it.  We had a great time getting that down the first time, and it is fun to play every time.
            “Ireland” is a notorious song, having had a bunch of incarnations before the one on the record.  It apparently has a catchy chorus, as I would hear people in my college singing it back to me during weekly open mic nights at the campus coffeehouse.  It sort of became a joke after a while.  But I like how it turned out.
            I look at these sessions sort of the way I look at my Freshman yearbook from high school.  There’s fondness for the songs because they meant something to me at the time, but just like I sometimes can’t figure out why I wore t-shirts 2 sizes too big and Doc Marten boots with shorts when I was 15, I can’t remember why I chose some of the lines and musical turns that I did during these sessions.  But, like those goofy pictures, it’s fun to look back and see how far I have (hopefully) come, and to share them with others for a smile or two.