My Name is Annabel

 
 

Got to score another film for director Ida Joglar (who I previously worked with on Kili Big), this one a very sweet documentary short about Annabel Hernandez, a born performer with Down syndrome. Ida is a huge talent, and has a grace and sensitivity as a filmmaker that is rare. That trickles down to everything from how kind she is in the notes process, to the care she took in including Annabel’s feedback to make sure she felt authentically represented. The short is playing festivals and not online yet, but you can check out the trailer below.

80 For Brady

 
 

If you had told me 20 years ago that I would be writing a fake commercial jingle for Jane Fonda to be singing in a movie, I would have been very confused about what sequence of events that would lead to that. But as I have learned, careers are wandering journeys with plenty of unexpected side quests. Big thanks to the homies Kyle Marvin and Michael Angelo Covino for bringing me in on this very fun project—the second fake commercial jingle I have written for them! I also wrote and recorded a fake pharmaceutical ad theme song for their terrific feature The Climb. Highlight of the process was getting texted a video of Jane Fonda practicing dance steps and singing the song that I had just sent to production via voice memo a couple weeks prior. Surreal! Go check the flick out, in theaters next week!

Playing shows, writing songs!

I’ve been really been enjoying playing a lots of shows recently, the most I’ve done in years actually. Have done short stints on keys with Marmalade Mountain & guitar with Sister Gemini, and then a few shows with my old pals in Frith where I play keys/samples/guitar. No proper photos, sadly, just tons of bad iphone vids for the stories—such are the times, haha. Go follow me on Instagram if that sounds like something you want in your life.

I’ve also been doing a lot of songwriting thanks to some big inspiration from School of Song, an online songwriting school that offers workshops with lots of amazing artists. Have recently done workshops with Luke Temple, Ellen Kempner (Palehound), Courtney Marie Andrews, Robin Pecknold (Fleet Foxes) & Dave Longstreth (Dirty Projectors). I’ve gotten so much out of them and written a ton of new songs over the past year that I’m really excited about. I’m going to start putting some tunes out soon, but for now here’s a demo of a song I wrote in Robin Pecknold’s workshop:


Kili Big update

 
 

Kili Big, Ida Joglar’s documentary feature I scored last year, continues to be featured and win win awards at film festivals around the country. Excitingly, it’s also looking like it will be more broadly available this fall on some streaming services. Will share more soon!

Public Assembly #22 Filth

The theater company I’m part of, Public Assembly, finally came out of forced hibernation for another show. Our members have all gotten pretty busy in the intervening months, so this might be the last one for awhile, but it was a blast to get the band back together and put on another gloriously weird night of guerrilla theater. As always, huge thanks to our amazing audience.

I did the interstitials, with help from Chris Rolontz, Travis Warner and Chris Null. Music befitting of the theme “Filth,” replete with grimy drum machines, screeching synths, feedback, and vomit samples time-stretched into oblivion.

Here’s a little video of one of our interstitials from the night. Excuse the noisy (excited!) crowd and dark video. We played in between each of the 3 one act plays, and kept lighting to a minimal so they could reset the stage in darkness.

 
 

Kili Big to premiere at Bentonville Film Festival

 
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Kili Big, a beautiful feature length doc I scored about a group of plus-sized woman who set out to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, is having it’s world premiere in August at the Bentonville Film Festival. The film was directed by Ida Joglar, a dream of a collaborator. She has impeccable instincts as a filmmaker, and her vision for what was needed from the score was clear, while still leaving enough space for me to play and find my own way into the score. Her notes were always spot on, helpful and encouraging. I am so proud of the music that I discovered in the process and of the whole film. Congrats to Ida on the festival, hope you all can see it soon!

 

The Climb

 
 

My friends Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin made this fantastic film that is finally seeing a wide release after much Covid-shutdown-related delay. I made a jingle in the movie for a fake pharmaceutical product dubbed in-world as “the female Viagra.” Vocals by the incomparable Gabbi Barad, who not only sounded fantastic as always but somehow managed to not laugh while singing it. Listen to this silliness, but most importantly, go see the flick in theaters next week! It is genuinely terrific and you’re supporting two of the biggest sweetie filmmakers in Hollywood!

Cori Elliott - Between Two Places

 
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Cori Elliott’s fantastic EP Between Two Places is out today on the usual digital suspects. Go check it out on Spotify, iTunes or Bandcamp.

Cori and I have been friends for some years now, and have been talking about working together on something for almost as long. She has a truly singular voice, both as a singer and writer, and this batch of songs finally felt like the right project for us to collaborate on. We did most of it at my studio and had the time to really stretch out and experiment with each song. There was no preconception about what things should sound like other than the guiding principle that it should be different from anything Cori had done before. This freedom was SUPER exciting as a producer. We poked around a lot to find the right direction for each song and tried not to be afraid of dead ends. ‘Cause there are always dead ends. For example, we recorded two totally different versions of Lie to Me before scapping everything and starting fresh with a drum beat made from various environmental samples (stones clinking together, a crackling fire, cabbage being chopped, etc) that ended up being the key to unlocking the rest of the arrangement. It was often like that—we’d come up with one little hook or idea (the marxophone riff on True or the VHS-inspired synth drones on Lucky) that would break the whole thing open. In some cases, things would stall again and we’d have to find another little key to unlock the next section (like coming up with the idea to change up the chord progression on the second chorus of Crutch). Sometimes when you’re stuck, the client can get panicky that things aren’t going well, but through it all, Cori never lost sight that we’d find the way through. That patience really helped foster an environment of joyous creativity and led to what feels like some of the most interesting production work I’ve done so far.

We had lots of musical allies, as one does, while working on this:
-Kyle Crane played drums on all the songs but Lie to Me. I’ve worked with him a lot, and, as always, he killed. Even though many of the tracks were in a strange, half-finished state when he recorded, he found the perfect parts for these tunes.
-Chris Rolontz played upright bass on Too Far Gone, another terrific musician I’ve worked with a lot who knocked it out of the park.
-Jane Grondin (yup, my freaking mom) played the gorgeously evil-sounding strings on Lie to Me (including playing some layers at double speed so we could slow the tape down half-speed and get that deep, murky atmosphere from them).
-Chris Infusino played some tasty marching snares on Lie to Me.
-Boogie Jones ripped it on the saxophones on Lucky.
-Jason Soda did some engineering for us at Palomino Sound (the tones he get as an engineer are gorgeous and need next to no post processing, and his space is vibey and full of great gear—it’s where we recorded drums, mellotron & some other odds & ends).
-Cassidy Turbin did the fantastic mix and put up with my pickiness. Cass is a legit human angel and superb collaborator who is a dream to work with.
-Adam Haggar at Mount Olympia Mastering did the master. He made it all shine and truly gave a shit about this project (which doesn’t always happen when you get something mastered). For example, we approved the master of Eyes and the next day Adam sent us another pass of it because he just thought he could get even more out of it. What mastering engineer does that?? None, that’s freaking who. Go Adam!

Alright, that’s all I’ll be rambling about this one for now. Go check the EP out! Congrats to Cori, and bless u if you’ve read all this.

Cori Elliott - Too Far Gone

Another tune I produced with Cori Elliott is out, this one called “Too Far Gone.” Once again, a joy to help this song find it’s way with Cori. She sang lead vocals and loads of harmonies (big inspiration from the Jellyfish track “Hush” for the swelling vocal layers we did on the bridge). Chris Rolontz played upright bass. Kyle Crane played drums, which were recorded by Jason Soda at Palomino Sound. I played the other instruments and did programming. Mixed by Cassidy Turbin. Mastered by Adam Haggar at Mount Olympia Mastering.

Cori also made a killer music video to go with it that captures the moodiness of the song perfectly. Read an article about it here or just watch below.

 
 

Cori Elliott - Eyes

Had a helluva time producing Cori Elliott for her upcoming EP Between Two Places. She just dropped her first single “Eyes”. Read about it on Buzzbands LA or just listen here:

Thanks to Kyle Crane on drums, Jason Soda at Palomino Sound, Cassidy Turbin on the mix, Adam Haggar on the master! All fantastic people and great collaborators.

Here’s a lil’ behind-the-scenes vid Cori did of me producing this absolute BOP and (mostly) looking like a huge dork (though scratching X-files samples on a Califone Cardmaster was honestly a musical highlight of my life). Watch to learn all my secrets! (hint: they are mostly about using an unsettling amount of hand gestures)

 
 

Public Assembly Radio #2

We here at Public Assembly have wrapped on our second edition of radio plays and this batch IS. A. DOOZY! This month’s theme (suggested, as always, by our audience—for the radio shows via instagram) is “To The Moon.” I made our brand new theme song and did the mix, and lots of very talented people wrote and acted and directed and sound designed things! Once again, you can click through to soundcloud for the full list of credits.

As a little bonus, you can download the theme song for free by clicking here. Hope you enjoy the episode and stay safe, y’all!