About The Backroom Series Volume 2: Meeting and Leaving

These songs tell little stories of meeting someone interesting for the first time or leaving someone painfully for the very last time; of happily reconciling with your girl after she returns from a business trip or sadly saying goodbye when you are drafted into the Army; or in the case of Woody Guthrie, leaving the parched town of Pampa, Texas for the crowded, but exciting streets of Downtown Los Angeles in 1937.

About The Backroom Series: Unreleased, Unfinished Tracks

I have been playing the guitar, singing, and writing songs since I was a kid growing up in Minneapolis. My father, a self-taught guitar player, showed me how to play basic guitar chords and tried to instruct me to read music. But I was impatient and started playing songs by ear, based on what I heard on records and KEVE, the country station, and WDGY, the “modern radio” station that played rock-and-roll.

Since 2008 I have recorded about 40 of songs on five albums (available on Bandcamp.com), working with some great musicians and recording at Capitol Records and Sunset Sounds. But I have also written many songs that have never been recorded. A few months ago, while working in my little room at the back of the house, I took out a few and recorded them on my phone. The results were uneven and unfinished, but somehow satisfying despite their imperfections. Pulling out an old song that I haven’t played for five or ten or fifteen years, recording it and listening to it was sort of like meeting up with an old friend. It felt like I had invited a few friends over to have a drink and listen to a couple of songs they had never heard before.

That is what I am trying to do with The Backroom Series: home record a bunch of unreleased songs and post them on my music website for anyone to hear. And, in some cases, I might add a postscript that explains the context for the song, the reasons I wrote it, or what I think it tries to convey.

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The Backroom Series Volume 2: Meeting and Leaving

A Casual Look
I learned this song by The Sixteens when I was in middle school and listened to WDGY radio. In those days young guys who were drafted and on their way to basic training often asked their girlfriends to marry them before they embarked. Although she said she was “too young”, this girl agreed. Julia agreed to sing the girl’s part.

Baby’s Coming Home
I wrote this song about a guy preparing for his girl to return from her work that involves a lot of traveling. He makes sure everything at home is in good order, so their reunion is successful.

Days of 95
Two people are seated next to each other at a lunchtime event. One lunch leads to another, and the story unfolds.

Listen to Days of 95:

There’s a Time
This is basically an upbeat break-up song. Sometimes you know it won’t work out and it’s better to face reality and exit on good terms. If the song fits, put it on.

Feelin’ Mighty Small
I wrote this when I was doing research on Woody Guthrie for my album “Radio Songs”. The song describes Guthrie’s first days in Los Angeles after leaving the Dust Bowl in 1937. Shocked by the large population, traffic jams in downtown LA, and the lack of available work for an unemployed Okie, the song ends on the Santa Monica pier, with Woody looking into the sunset.

Visions of Ginsberg
I heard Allen Ginsberg read poems three times and each time I had a different reaction. The first time was in 1966 at the University of Minnesota where he read from “Howl” and other great poems in Beat Generation literature. Chicago provided the next venue in 1968 when Ginsberg joined demonstrations and called for action against the war in Vietnam. The last time was in Miami in 1972. Ginsberg had moved from anti-war activism to praying for peace with Buddhist chants. I wasn’t convinced and thought that we needed to demand more from our political leaders.

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at Bandcamp