Come to Axum's Lounge! See my band bring it!!

My band Braddock Station Garrison returns to the stage this Saturday, April 26, at Axum's Lounge at 1934 9th Street NW in Washington DC. We are first up at 8:30pm. Being old we like going early. Let the young whippersnappers play at midnight. There are lots of cool restaurants in the neighborhood so come on down and make an evening out of it!

We are playing with some great local bands. We are particularly fond of Exit Vehicles. I used to work with Adam many moons ago and am excited to share the bill with his band.

So far we have had three shows with our new bass player Jim. We were very sad to see Patrick leave but it was a good life-altering opportunity for him and his family. Finding Jim was a God-send. He is an experienced touring musician, a great talent, and a really nice guy who fits in perfectly with the rest of us. He brings a unique style to the proceedings. We are lucky to have him part of our little group.

Our CD High Water was recorded and mixed by Don Zientara and is available digitally at iTunes and Amazon and CDBaby and at Bandcamp. It's also streaming on Spotify. We'd be most appreciative if you considering getting yourself a copy. We'll have physical copies and tee-shirts too at our shows.

Here we are doing "Hey Cindy" at our show at Empire in Springfield VA. Come check us out!!

Start Your Weekend Early!

Tomorrow night, which would be Thursday September 26, my band Braddock Station Garrison hits the stage once again. This time at the Tree House Lounge at 1006 Florida Avenue, NE in Washington DC. This is a nice intimate club, occupying the second floor of a townhouse right next to Gallaudet University. No jokes about a rock club next door to the school for the deaf. Actually makes perfect sense, I think.

It's a special show for us. We are supporting California's Aloha Radio on their national tour. They are a very cool alt-surf-indie band. Also sharing the stage is our good friends Bells & Hunters; the are a great modern rock band sure to impress you. A real treat for us is having our record producer Don Zientara open the show at 8pm with what I expect will be a great acoustic set. When we last saw him he had a surf-themed slide show so it really fits perfectly with the bill.

Speaking of our record, it is finally available. It is called High Water. You can get digital copies at iTunes and Amazon. You can also get a real CD or digital version through CDBaby. You can stream it through Spotify and Rhapsody. It astounds me that our cool little record is available at all these places. Most importantly we have a whole box full of them that I shall have in tow tomorrow night. Come on down and get a copy!!

High Water features 6 original songs: "Into Your Arms," "A Lot To Ask," "Fall," "Maria With Child," "California Specific," and "Girl Gotta Gun." All were recorded and mixed at Inner Ear Studios in Arlington VA by Don Zientara and mastered by TJ Lipple. Photography was done by my wonderful wife Jodi. Our logo was designed by the extremely talented Emily Blackwell. The package design was put together by our own Patrick McCann. Not surprisingly we encourage you to get yourself a copy!

We hope to see you there!!

Patrick, Steve, Michael and Tom
at Manassas Battlefield 

Stories from the Studio

If you LIKE my band on Facebook, then you probably know that a couple weekends ago I spent about 18 hours at Inner Ear Studios in Arlington VA. This was easily one of the coolest, most entertaining weekends of my life.

My band has gotten to the point where we felt it was time to do some serious recording. Our demos, which as of this writing are still at our ReverbNation site, were done in Tom's basement by us. They sound pretty good, but we wanted to have something that sounded great, done by a real producer in a real studio. A lot of this was vanity. Like I have said before we don't have any delusions about quitting our day job. Music for us is a fun way to express our creativity and let off some steam. The experience of working at a real live recording studio was something that excited us all.

We were originally supposed to work with TJ Lipple. He was on the roster of Inner Ear producers, actually had a website, and produced a record by Boris Milic I wound up buying a couple days later when serendipitously seeing a show at the Rock n Roll Hotel. This seemed sort of like karma, so I emailed him and we exchanged messages and agreed on a date to meet at the studio just to get to know one another. The entire band came out and we met and talked and hung out for a good 90 minutes at the studio. We went away with a settled date and feeling confident that TJ would do a great job.

The first name on the list was Don Zientara. He owned and ran the studio and was the engineer for a ton of great DC hardcore and straight edge bands like Bad Brains, The Dismemberment Plan, Minor Threat, and all of the Fugazi records. When I saw his name I laughed, thinking "yeah, that guy will want to do our little record." I actually got a call from Don a few days after I sent the deposit check in. I wasn't going to answer the ring but it was a local Virginia number. "Hi this is Don from Inner Ear! Just wanted to say we got your check and are looking forward to you guys coming in!" I think I was kind of in shock. He seemed like a really nice fellow and I was looking forward to possibly meeting him at the studio.

Fate would step in. Maybe a month before we were to record TJ wrote that his wife reminded him of a prior commitment on the date we had arranged. He said we could either move the date or he could find another producer for us. We liked the date so TJ kindly went to find some one new for us to work with. A day or two later I get an email saying Don would work the board for us. Don Zientara, the guy who worked on this. And this. And this. And this.

At first I admit I was a bit intimidated. Mainly because I thought what would he think of our songs. My neighbor Steve had done recording at Inner Ear and said Don was cool and just another guy. So intimidation turned to real excitement, knowing we were going to work with a guy who had worked on some sensational albums. Like with TJ, we met up with Don a couple weeks before hand. We found him very personable and friendly. He asked if we had our demos with us, so I pulled out my iPhone. He seemed to dig the music and we parted all looking forward to recording.

So studio day came and we were all pretty psyched. Don had told us to bring everything we had and I pretty much did that. Even my acoustic guitar in case the spirit moved us. The drums took a while to get set up right because you have to microphone them just so. Don actually kicked us out of the room so that he and the intern Nick could finish the job without us milling about. So we hung out in the lounge and ate cookies and drank French press coffee that Mike the drummer brought. Every now and then Don would summon one of us so that he could test the levels. When it was my turn he had set up baffles around the amps so there wasn't too much room to spare. After about two hours we were ready to start playing.

The room itself was divided into two sections. The far end was where the drum kit was set up with around 11 microphones carefully set up. The room bottlenecks in the middle before expanding again and that is where the other three of us were set up. It was kind of cramped but not bad at all. A window looked into the control room where all the cool recording tools were. This wasn't just a guy tapping a keyboard, though there were computers and monitors, but a big giant control board with 30 some tracks available. It was very impressive, and looking at it was pretty much like reading Greek. There were chairs on a raised area behind the board so we could watch as Don fiddle about with controls.

The recording itself was a great experience. We did 6 songs in one day, averaging about 3 takes per song. We did a guide vocal track as we played to help keep the time but those vocals were naturally tossed out and we re-did them after clearing out the room of all our gear. I took maybe 2 or three tries per song; one gave me a particular hard time because I had to sing pretty high. Don did a neat trick where he would tell me to sing just the chorus on one pass and on another to sing just the verse. This allowed him to mix it together and not have me fighting for breathe in between.

It was all good-humored and fun. There was zero tension. For my part I took to Don's suggestions without any argument. At one point he said "Good, I like compliance!" I feel we were pretty easy to work with and we didn't obsess over every little point. None of the oh-I-missed-a-note-there stuff. It wasn't absolutely perfect, but we didn't need it to be. Nor could we afford it to be. I can easily see how it can take a year to make Hotel California where you just start obsessing over things, tinkering constantly to iron out the performance.

After 10 plus hours we broke for the day. Tom and I were coming back the next day to do the mix. Patrick and Mike had family duties to attend to. Afterwards Tom and me and Patrick went for beers and dinner at Hard Times. We all enthused about how fun it was, how good it seemed to go, and how much fun it was to work with a real pro like Don.

The mixing process was interesting. It was here we really got to tweak the songs. He sort of level-setted the first track and instructed us to start fiddling. Tom and I thought it sounded great and were hesitant to start but after a bit we got into it. We agreed that his solos needed to be brought up so that took center-stage at the right point. For one song I did start fretting over my guitar tone. I had a specific sound in my head and me being an amateur I couldn't really describe it. Finally Don says to be "do you want more bass, mid-range? More treble?" I didn't know what I wanted, so I just said "I want it to sound Black Sabbath-y." Don nodded and said "mid-range." He turned the knob and there it was...the opening chord to "Iron Man." Funny that the most romantic song in our repertoire, the most overt love song, is the one I wanted to sound like Tony Iommi. HA!! The best part was when Don turned to me at one point and complimented me on my singing. What an awesome thrill!

We took about 2 hours per song and were really happy eith what we had. Don put it on flash drives we had brought and also did a very rough master so that we would have something to listen to before we had it officially mastered. TJ was going to do this for us. Tom and I left with CDs for the car ride home and were both ecstatic with the results, even though they weren't finished yet.

So as of this writing the tracks are with the master engineer, who in our case is TJ. He also said some nice things when he listened to them. Hopefully by Early August we will have some real CD-ready songs for you to enjoy!

If you want to se photographic evidence, I recommend checking out our Facebook page. I have a whole album of pictures there! And be sure to LIKE US!!

Sunday On The Town

Looking for something interesting to do? Have I got a suggestion for you!! Come see my band, Braddock Station Garrison, do its thing at The Black Squirrel. This is a very cool place located in the heart of Adams Morgan on 18th Street in Washington DC, just down the street from where Jimi Hendrix did a five-night residency in 1967. History!!

The Black Squirrel has some of the tastiest burgers in town along with one of the slickest beer menus around. Plus it's an intimate little place to see a show. And did I mention it is FREE. As in NO COVER CHARGE! As in come on in, plop down have a burger and a beer (or three) and enjoy the free music!

We go on around about 9pm, so don't be late!! There's a public parking just around the corner, which we highly recommend if you are not cabbing or Metro-ing down. Come on down early to hang out!

Here's our sweet-ass flyer! Come on down and tell us how good it looks!!

BSG at The Black Squirrel DC July 21

Thanks to Patrick my band now has a show on July 21 at The Black Squirrel in DC. What a better way to finish up your weekend than coming down for some Sunday rock n roll!!

The Black Squirrel is on 18th Street in Adams Morgan. Evidently they have an awesome beer list and great food. Come be the judge! The cool thing about this is it is a FREE show! Zoinks, Scoob!!

Times and other acts are still getting sorted out but it shouldn't be too late a night. Keep an eye on our Facebook event page for details. Come on down or the squirrel gets it! And by "it" I mean awesome rock n roll!!!

BSG Origin Story: Part 1

I learned to play guitar around about 1998. By 2000 I was playing at open-mic nights and doing shows with friends, friends who were very supportive in that I wasn't particularly good. We mostly did covers, mostly alt-country tunes like Wilco and Gram Parsons, Johnny Cash, Son Volt, Ryan Adams and Uncle Tupelo but occasionally more rocky stuff...Neil Young, Big Head Todd, Radiohead. I started writing my own songs around then. I did my first album in 2001, recorded and produced by my good friend Mike in his basement. The fruits of that labor can be found here!

I had a songbook of about 15 songs of varying degree. The shows I would do, usually just me and my guitar opening for my friends' bands, focused on covers but I began to work the originals in. I played in a sort of band with my friends James and Clay but nothing ever came of it. Part of it was that it just didn't quite click, but mainly I wasn't as in to being in a band as I was doing my own schtick. Then around 2004 I stopped. The writing dried up; I felt I didn't have anything to say anymore. I got married and all the angst that fed the creativity seemed to be sated. And I had always had a kind of disdain for cover bands. Well maybe disdain is too strong a word; doing other people's songs just didn't interest me. I loved the creation part of the music experience. Without that I lost interest. So I put my guitars away; even sold my electric Rickenbacker 330 (something to this day I regret immensely).

Original lyrics to "Fall"
including notes on the
demo I created on my
little Tascam 4-track

But music always stayed important to me. My wife will attest to this as she noted my regular CD buying, which in time became digital downloading (legally, I care to add). But there was no juice to playing out, to writing songs. I felt that had become a short interest, a strange little detour.

Then about two or three years ago (time has really become an odd concept to me...I really have no sense of it anymore) I finally accepted the suggestion from my friend Tom, whom I had played softball with for many years and who I knew was a guitar player, that we jam sometime. I had put it off for years, mainly because I hadn't played my guitar in years but mainly I was intimidated by playing with anybody of real talent. Finally he wore me down. I dusted off the songbook, got myself familiar with some of the old tunes, and drove over to his place in Centerville to play.

The thing I remember most about that first jam was how well Tom took to the songs. He seemed to generally like them. That was a kick; I was flattered more than anything else that someone would think well of my little stories. By then those songs were almost 10 years old in spots. The ones later in the book had been written with a band in mind but I had just not progressed that far. And then Tom finally badgered me enough where we jammed and it just clicked. So I started going over once a week to go through these songs with him. It didn't take long before the bug bit me again and songs started pouring out. So joining the ranks with older songs like "A Lot To Ask" and "Fall" and "Zero Confidence Level" and "My Waterloo" and "Take Control" came new ones like "Confederate Gold" and "Roadside Crosses" and "Maria With Child" and "California Specific" and "Any Day Any Way" and "Into Your Arms" and "Another Teenage Dream" and "Girl Gotta Gun" (with music by Tom!).

I knew it really clicked when Tom played me a snippet of "Take Control" on his portable recorder. He was working on the solo so he put together a basic rhythm track and programmed a drum beat behind it. He played me the track he had so I could get an idea of the solo. Now, "Take Control" was a song I was ready to jettison because I was still playing on my acoustic and felt it really wasn't working. Until I heard what Tom had done with it, which was to turn it into a noisy rocker. My jaw dropped. I will be the first to admit it wasn't like Jimmy Page hearing "Stairway To Heaven" I am not that delusional, but I was shocked that a song I wrote one way could be re-interpreted another, and that it would sound so great. I said to Tom over and over "That's my song! That's really my song!" It sounds dorky but it was really the moment Braddock Station Garrison was born; that I knew we were on to something pretty good. If not good, well at least something we would enjoy.

I am reminded of this because on my trip to the Record & Tape Exchange in Fairfax I bought, amongst other things, a copy of Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water for $3. And on that record is a song called "The Only Living Boy In New York" which to me is one of the best written and best produced songs ever. Let's give it a quick listen:

If I could write a song that is 1/16 as good as this song I'd be ecstatic. I love everything about this song. Paul Simon's (completely and criminally) under-appreciated guitar playing, the amazing lyrics, the perfect production, and that singing. Christ, that singing...those harmonies. Listen to the bridge where the voices sound like angels coming down. This song pretty much convinced me I was a hack and I should just stop trying to write songs because nothing I write will come remotely close to being as beautiful and perfect as this.

Happily I got over that. I won't even say too late because I think if I hadn't of stopped for a while I might not have started playing with Tom and I wouldn't have met Michael and Patrick. Braddock Station Garrison is a band. While it might be my name in the song-writing credits (something that will be changing) it takes all four of us to breathe the life into the songs. Each member brings his own touch and personality and interpretation to the song. And for me, I have grown enough to not be put out by that, to not be intimidated by that. Sure, there are sometimes things I hear in my head that I think are essential for us to capture, but for the vast majority I want my bandmates to take the songs in the directions they think best.

Bandmates is an accurate term but it's not the right one. These fellows are my friends, and I am damn glad to have finally found them. I will save the story for when we met those two guys for another time.

By the way, if you want to hear and see what we are up to, we'll be doing a free show at The Black Squirrel in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of DC on Sunday July 21. We shall be back with the electric instruments so we'll be making a wonderful ruckus.

So You Want To Be A Rock n Roll Star

This song sums up my feelings for today!

Hope to see you tonight!!

Even more shameless self promotion!

Yep, that's my band! You can hear what our demos sound like here and can see how we bring it here. And most importantly you can LIKE us here!

So yeah, we are playing a show Saturday June 8 at DC's Bier Baron. This is the old Brickskeller located in DuPont Circle. Doors open at 730, show is at 9, and it's a trifling $10 at the door.

We are fortunate to have two amazing artists joining us: Emily Henry is a gifted singer/songwriter and she will be kicking things off; I know 100% you will like her as much as we do!! Steve Bowes is an old friend and he will be joined by his Pharmacy Prophets cohort Wes Fleming for some old fashioned cry-in-your-beer acoustic numbers and slow ballads (as Johnny Cash would say). Then as a special treat (I hope at least) I'll be doing some numbers from my two solo records before Braddock Station Garrison does a special acoustic set; we are seriously excited about this set because you will see us in a whole new light. What better way to spend a Saturday night in DC?!?

Here's a catchy little number you will hear at the show. It's called "Fall."

 We hope to see you there and appreciate the support!

Gimme some of that rock n roll music...

This is soooooo happening tonight! Come on out to The Sidebar Tavern and check us out!!

Shameless Self Promotion!!

You probably know that I have my own band called Braddock Station Garrison. We are a little bit power pop, little bit Americana, but a whole lotta rock n roll. We have been working on our demos for a looooong time now, and I am very happy to announce that they can be listened to and downloaded at our ReverbNation site. So, PLEASE, come check them out!

Tell your friends to listen to California Specific!

Tell your family to listen to Maria With Child!

Tell that girl you have a crush on to listen to Zero Confidence Level!

Tell that girl breaking your heart to listen to A Lot To Ask!

Speaking on behalf of Tom and Mike and Patrick, we are very proud and grateful for the support! Let us know what you think!!

Back In The Saddle Again

Pardon my blatant self-promotion, but my band Braddock Station Garrison returns to the stage tomorrow night! We shall be at the Red Palace at 1212 H Street NE (that's NORTHEAST!!!) in Washington DC. Doors open at 8:30 and we hit the stage around about 9pm.

We are honored to be playing with these great bands: You're Jovian, Golden Gurls, and Technicians. Do yourself a favor and check them all out. They are all unique and talented and make great music. As I have said many times here the worse thing a band can be is uninteresting. These bands are most assuredly NOT uninteresting! We are super excited to be sharing the stage with them!!!

All of us would be extremely gratified if you could make it out. It is guaranteed to be a great night of music at a very cool venue, one that is sadly closing its doors at the end of the month. I have been meaning to see shows here in the past, so it is kind of bittersweet to know my one time there will be to play there with my band. Gauging from the web site it appears to have a New Orleans whorehouse kind of vibe. Who doesn't like that!!??!!

If these words don't do it for you, how about a picture? Here's a poster that Golden Gurls (I am assuming it was them because I stole it from their Facebook page) cooked up. It's about 87 kinds of awesome. Hope to see you there!!!