It's Gonna Be a Great Day
In Another Life
The World Is Upside Down
Where You Are
Emily Standing
It's a Lonely World
Satellite
Goin' Down
Sakura Lullaby
On My Ride
CD Packaging

The first song is "It's Gonna Be A Great Day"

This has been remixed and had a couple tweaks done to it so that it's different from the version on the "Sakura Lullaby" EP. This song, like most on this album, came to me quickly. I sat at the piano and it started playing itself..or seemed to. It was written during a particularly bad day. It's funny, I usually write my most positive, upbeat songs on the lousiest of days. Therapy, I suppose. With the changes we are all hoping to see in the next year or so, I now see this song as more upbeat and inspirationalthan I ever have. I always wake up thinking it's going to be a great day, sometimes it doesn't turn out that way, but at least I go into all of them with great expectations.

Recording this one was a blast. Everything came together so easily. It was the first one we cut. I recorded the rhythm section in Glendale, California with Dave Beyer and Mark Browne. Dave toured and recorded for 3 years with Melissa Etheridge, and has played or recorded with The Motels, Jewel, Joan Osborne, Gregg Allman, Michael McDonald, Christopher Cross, Stephen Bishop, Helen Reddy, Jango, and Debra Davis among many others. He has performed at major venues worldwide, including the Greek Theater, Universal Amphitheater, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Woodstock, Madison Square Garden and Royal Albert Hall; and has played on The Tonight Show, David Letterman and Ally McBeal, to name a few of his credits.

Mark's played with Paula Cole, Emmylou Harris, Philip Sayce, Chrissie Hynde, Sarah McLachlan, Lily Wilson (his very talented wife), k.d. lang, George Michael, Patty Griffin, Sheryl Crow, Wynonna,Beth Thornley, Neil Finn, Joan Osborne, The Dixie Chicks, Billy Idol, Dolly Parton, Lindsay Buckingham, Mark Goldenberg, Gloria Estefan, Chaka Khan, Rufus Wainright, Donna Delory, Mary J. Blige, Jewel, Garth Brooks, Cindy Lauper, Destiny's Child, Pat Benatar, Simple Minds, Anne and Nancy Wilson, Ichiro, Vonda Sheppard, and is Melissa Etheridge's touring bassist. (He was on the Oscar's with her!)

Mark & Dave played on 10 of the album's 11 tracks. They are the best of the best, in high demand players, and I'm sure you'll agree with my choosing them for this project when you hear the whole CD. Their credits are stellar to be sure, but more than anything, the sessions for this album were great fun, and very musically satisfying.

The band was especially alive on this track, really on all of them, but this one is very fresh sounding. I worked tirelessly for hours getting the right reverb and eq on the lead vocal track. It's one of my fave sounding vocals on the album. They all have their own unique quality though. I think that's one reason I've never been so excited about a new CD. Each song, each moment of each song, represents so much time and thought, and I couldn't be more proud of them all, not to mention the performances I got out of all the players. Man, after proclaiming all that, I sure hope you don't think this album blows!

Trivia re. 'Great Day':
I usually play the song in the key of G live, but the recorded version is a half step up, in A flat, or G-sharp, whichever you prefer. Those aren't the easiest keys to play in, so I usually cheat and play it in the much more comfy key of G. I tend to write a lot of songs in G, not sure why, unless I'm just lazy when I sit down at the piano. That's probably it.

It's amazing how half a step up can brighten up a song. I may have to learn it in G-sharp. Naw. G is fine.

"In Another Life"

This song I worked for. This one was definitely not one which came to me so easily, until the 11th hour that is. The song began, and lived for about a year, as a completely different song.

Out of the 16 or so songs recorded for this album, (out of about 30 written), this was by far the most enjoyable session. So much so that right after the magical take, drummer Dave Beyer said, "that was enjoyable". I kept his immortal words on the "tape", but forgot about it. So then, while mixing the tune at home, I kept hearing "that was enjoyable" after the song ended. The first time I was sure it was a neighbor who had come up to my front porch (near the studio window). I just figured he was standing there listening to my mix, so I smiled and thanked him. He smiled in an odd kinda way...the way most people smile at me, so I didn't think much of it. It wasn't for another week or so that I found the actual track where the infamous words lay.

"In Another Life" is perhaps the sweetest power pop song I've done since "Arianne". I really love this one. Tommy's jangling electric 12-string just pours syrup all over the track. The band was just so tight, yet loose as well--the perfect combination. I had one more session left with Mark & Dave in Glendale, CA before I had to fly home, but there was one problem. I hadn't decided which song to record for the session, which was about an hour from starting. I was staying at a friend's house in L.A. who happened to have a piano there. I was trying out all sorts of tunes and remembered the one I had just always called "POP SONG" to remind me of how poppy it was. Within an hour I had most of the lyric, and had rewritten the melody, put it in the right key, wrote the charts, and was off to Glendale. I think this is why the recording came out so well. While the song had been around forever in one form or another, the version we cut was as fresh as it comes.

The lyric is about something many have gone through, not me of course, I mean I just write the words, I don't live them. Right.  It's 4 parts of a past relationship, culminating in a night of intrigue! Did they or didn't they?

I had several options for the intro, but decided to go with having the bass "scoop" into the song all alone. It's really a bass solo intro, but I guess you won't know that until you hear the song. HAHAHAHA Nanny nanny nanny goat, can't catch a flea!

"The World Is Upside Down"

Pretty self-explanatory. Title says it all. This is the first of several songs on the album with me tootin' my own horn--also known as a saxophone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxophone. Sax is a joy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_rabbits to play, and has always come quite easily to me; unlike guitar http://www.guitarworld.com/article/100_worst_guitar_solos, which I've never really enjoyed playing. I'm playing my old Selmer Mk VI alto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selmer_Mark_VI, and also my new to me, but old and very rare C-Melody model http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_melody_saxophone, which I found at a tag sale http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_sale a couple years ago. It plays beautifully, but had been in storage, and has a strong smell..kinda as if it had been sharing its case with a hippy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippy for the last 30 years. It reeks of stale Patchouli http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patchouli and weed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marijuana. But perhaps the remnants of those herbs helped me find some sweet melodies for this tune. The song starts off with the sax and then has a sax solo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solo_(music), right after the middle 8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_8.

Lyrically I was stumped for a 2nd verse until late in the recording process--seems as if I'm always on a plane back from the midwest, I came up with the lines "When those who need more, are left behind, by those who don't need another dime". They fit perfectly.

For the arrangement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrangement, I chose to keep the drums http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drum_kit out until the 2nd chorus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refrain. This keeps the song more intimate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingerie on the verses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verse-chorus_form, and maybe helps give more insight http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Insight into the lyrics.

Enjoy clicking those mice.

"Where You Are"

Recording "Where You Are" was satiating. The way I record most songs is I write them, then I do a scratch track at home. I put a scratch lead vocal, and some cheesy drum, bass & keyboard parts down just to help me fill in around it with backing vocal and musical parts. Even though these scratch tracks are rarely heard when the final mix is complete, I always make sure I'm recording everything as if it will be heard...especially the lead vocal. That's because, as most musicians know, the first few times you sing a new song, your voice is expressing the lyric closely to how you were feeling when you wrote the song. It may be a year or so before you replace the original demo with the "real" thing, and by then you will feel completely different, perhaps even distant, from where you were when you wrote the song. You can never really recapture that honest, almost innocent, first vocal. So, the main lead vocal on this song, (the track is doubled for most of the song--we can discuss "doubling" another time if you'd like), is the one I originally laid down for the scratch version, because when it came time for overdubs, that track was the one that best conveyed the lyric.

Dave (Beyer- drums) immediately took my scratch drum track and brought new ideas to it. He politely asked me as we began the session for the song, if he could add this hit or that skip to the beat--I loved them all, so of course I agreed. Same for Mark on bass. He took my scratch bass track and made it his own in a big way. The results are one of my favorite recordings I've ever done. As the track progressed, it started to feel in places more and more a bit like the Beach Boys to me, (actually I think several tracks on this CD have Four Seasons/Beach Boys moments), so I just kept building on that as I layered the vocals and the surrounding overdubs and counter melodies.

The mix was about as complicated as mixes come. It was a tremendous amount of work to get everything to fit in its little spot so you could hear each, and not have one overwhelm another. I ditched some parts I had tried out in favor of parts that just had to be heard. "De-mixing" if you will. It was much trial and error and judgement calls. But as happens more often than not, after about a million little tweaks, it all suddenly came together one day. I'm very proud of this arrangement and mix.

Lyrically I'm leaving this one to the imagination, (or the private investigator), inside each listener.

As I was searching around for the perfect album title, 'Where You Are' was on the list. I was leaning towards it, but didn't want to commit until I heard final mixes of the songs in their proper order. Then I worked up the artwork for the cover, dropped it in there with the photo, listened to the CD, and it all made sense. It couldn't be a more perfect way to tie in all the songs, the messages, the place I was, and am with these songs. There are many layers to the songs and title, which is what I enjoy in art. It can mean something to one person, and something completely different to another. I live for double and triple meanings, and new things absorbed on subsequent plays. I think the cover photo is rich with meaning, and only helped by the title.

"Emily Standing"

A co-write/co-production with the iconic Mr. Parthenon Huxley, http://parthenonhuxley.com/, this sweet little ditty was a joy to write and record. I flew down to D.C. where Mr. Hux now lives, and we cranked out several songs. This one I felt most fit my new album, but the others are very strong and will pop up somewhere someday I'm sure. I had several ballads (no really? I'm shocked) in competition to make the final cut for the album, but 'Emily' was a bit different, and I think made for a better overall record by including it. This is the only track on the CD that wasn't cut in L.A.

For the lyric I drew on several past experiences, 2 specifically, but a few more popped in there and kind of melded all together. In this case the name was changed to protect... well you know the rest.

I could listen to the outro a hundred times in a row and not tire of it--always a great sign. I just love the interplay between Parth's dirty guitar and my sax. For some reason the outro reminds me a bit of the outro of one of my fave all-time recordings, "Space Oddity" by Bowie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byIIKilWSGc. As we were mixing I pushed the reverb up as high as possible as the outro faded to give it more of an 'Oddity' feel. We actually cut two different final mixes of the song--one with the sax and one without. For this album I chose the one with the sax.

For the vocals we used pretty much zero amount of reverb, which made it much more intimate. Parth and I have a nearly 15 year battle going on over the use or misuse of reverb, but we always agree when it comes time for mixing. I want to be buried in reverb, or have it surgically implanted in my neck, he's a "dry" kinda guy. You know, that kind of explains our different personalities as well. Hmm.

"It's A Lonely World"

I had a fab time putting this one together. It's such a simple little pop song really, written in just an hour or so while sitting at my piano on a beautiful summer day, and thinking about how when we were kids we would never let a day like that be spent inside, yet it seemed I didn't see kids outside playing much anymore.

I started it with just a banging piano and a single vocal, a lonely singer, but soon the singer realized that as lonely as the world seemed at times, he could find odd solace in so many others feeling lonely too. It's a pretty big club. So as the song grew, I wanted to have it get happier and more hopeful, with all the lonely people joining on the outro, single bell hits, and of course a crying, melancholy saxophone.

I've always been a big fan of the Stylistics and the Bee Gees, both of whom I channeled for this one for the falsetto choruses. I think the auras of Brian Wilson and Carole King also snuck into the studio while I was arranging the track--I hear a bit of both. One of my fave parts is the outro where the chords change to jog back and forth between major 7s. I really thought about extending the outro to about 10 minutes to just keep building the production to a crazy climax, but luckily smarter heads prevailed, self-editing kicked in, and I ended it after a minute or so.

I kept the drums out until the 2nd chorus, usually a no-no for pop radio, but I thought it was more poignant to keep the singer relatively alone as long as possible. I made that call on the spot in the studio. Dave (Beyer-drums), came in right at the top on our first run through. I then called down to him (the drum room was downstairs so I had to use the talkback mic to communicate), and asked if he would try and sit out until the first chorus. It worked so well that after the next take I asked him to sit it out until the 2nd verse. Eventually I had him just sit there and twiddle his thumbs until chorus #2. As soon as he came in I looked at Mark (bassist in the control room with me), and we both knew this was the right call. The scary part was that I was committing to this because I didn't save any of the takes where he came in earlier. Good thing it worked--it always seems to. Mark came in at the end of the first chorus, which created what I think is a beautifully sparse 2nd verse.

I adore this song. It's so close to me, as all of my babies are on this new album, and I think you're a-gonna dig it too.

Trivia: I've gotten in trouble before by holding parts out until later in the song. I did so on "Arianne", and was almost talked into having everything all come in right at the top. Record company promo people thought radio would not wait for the song to build into a proper hooky chorus. The old phrase is, "Don't Bore Us-Get To The Chorus", but I come from the musical arrangement school of build build build--keeping it small at the top so you have somewhere to go. In fact, when they were releasing "Arianne" as a single, we actually went back into the studio to edit the first chorus to include Parthenon's answering vocals, which I had held out until the 2nd chorus on the album version. I think they spent around $5000 just to do that.

"Satellite"

This is a song I had running through my head for a long time before I finally decided to sit at the piano and flush it out. I wasn't completely sold on it to be one of the featured ballads on this album until I heard the bass and drums put down. The track suddenly came to life, causing the lyric to as well.

The intro is a bass solo over the pumping piano chords--very pretty stuff. Really the bass is featured throughout the song, as it mostly stays in its high register.

Someone who had heard an early mix remarked that the outro background vocals sounded like the Pips, of Gladys Knight fame--boy did that make my day!! I don't hear it, but I loved hearing it!

My Selmer Mk VI alto sax is also featured prominently on the song.

I ended this one without resolving the final chord. When we were laying down the basic tracks in L.A., I made the decision to just end the tune on the "up" chord, and leave the listener hanging. Then I had Dave (Beyer-drums & percussion) throw in a nice conga slap a few seconds later. Not only did that turn out to be a nice way to end the song, it was a great lead-in for the next track on the CD. Yes, I think of that stuff all along during the recording process. Everybody's obsessive about something--with me it's recording.

I debuted this one in Japan as part of the New & Improved "Karaoke Kyle" part of my live show.

Lyrically a couple people have asked me if it's about someone who died, or if it's a religious/spiritual song-- I'll leave that answer to the listener. It is what you think it is when you hear it. I do think it's hopeful and positive, and maybe might provide some comfort depending upon where you are in your life when you hear it. Then again, maybe it's just another 4 1/2 minute pop song.

"Goin' Down"

This is the 11th hour song that fought like heck to make the cut. As the deadline date for me to submit the masters for the CD was looming, I didn't have all the lyrics done for this one, and thus not all the vocals. I just loved the groove and the energy, though, and felt that it was a needed uptempo track for the album. I also felt a real connection to the lyric. Duh, I wrote it, though I probably shouldn't be so free to admit that.

So I did what I always do when I need a lyric tout de suite--I took a long drive listening to just the track on an endless loop in my car's cd player. By the time I had arrived back home, I had the missing words and cut the vocal that night. The lyric on the bridge really rang true as I was in a frenzy to finish the record.
"I'm busy, dizzy, in a tizzy..."

I've never performed this song live, so it will be new to everyone; everyone that is except the redhead that jogs past my studio window each evening, no matter rain, snow, sleet, or gloom of night. I'm fairly certain she can hum the melody quite easily by now. The song is currently bubbling under the Hot 100 in her head.

I had an entirely different melody in mind for the verse--a very bouncy, peppy one that would've required a LOT more words. It wasn't out of laziness, swear, but I felt the album was already quite bouncy and could use a half time lead line, rather than one that rhythmically followed the beat up and down.

I also struggled with the line, "See the starling, happy flying", only because European starlings are thought to be invasive nuisances rather than beloved birds to be immortalized in song. But just because they were uninvited winged guests a century or so ago, I hold no animosity towards them, and am quite certain they are happy as they fly.

The starling made the cut, as did "Goin' Down".

"Sakura Lullaby"

Not much more can be said about this little song. I began writing it as my first trip to Japan was winding down a couple years ago.

When we recorded this the production was fairly big and full, but as it came time to mix and I started pulling up each track individually to eq them and set levels, I realized how beautiful it sounded without all that extra stuff. So I de-produced it a ton. You can't imagine how many tracks were muted for this mix. I think that let the vocal pop out much more, and made it a bit more heartfelt. I saved the big stuff for the big ending. I've always loved false endings, so I was happy to find a song on this album to have one. Perhaps someday I'll release the full-on version somewhere.

There are also plans to have my friend Tsutomu -the man who took the cover photo for "Where You Are"!, sing this in Japanese over my tracks. Actually I was originally going to attempt to sing it in Japanese for the "Sakura Lullaby" EP/CD, but it proved to be a bit more of a challenge than I had expected. I really believe I can do it, but I would need a pronunciation coach with me in the studio.
Maybe we'll have to fly Tsutomu over to Pie In The Sky Studios, or else next time I'm in Japan we can cut it there. I think I dig the latter idea more!

"On My Ride"

One of the songs that no one's heard, that I have yet to play live, and the one that definitely contains one of my most favorite moments on the entire album.

Literally written on a couple bike rides I took to quell a mind storm that was brewing, the recording came out sounding free and breezy, just like how the bike rides felt. I think the common thread of this new album is that I didn't think too much--I just wrote, sang, and recorded, and this song is probably the best example of that. In a moment of silly perfectionism, I thought about a few re-writes on a couple of the lyrics on the tune, thinking all might not be visual enough. But this newly discovered free part of me won out, and I decided that since the lyric brought me to a specific place, I was confident the listener would eventually find that place, or their version of it, as well.

My favorite part of the recording is the bridge. I love bridges of songs--I think that's because there are no rules, no confinements, you can just take the song wherever you'd like, as long as you can find a way back to the main body. This one took off and felt like it naturally wanted to keep going, so much so that I actually cut and pasted it to itself to double the length. This meant I had to do some manipulation of the original bass, drum, and piano tracks that had been laid down with only one 8-bar bridge. After extending it and adding the flute solo, I added the "summer never ever ends" backing vocals on both halves, tying the sections together. I was tickled purple by the results. I just love this bridge. It sounds very late 60s/early 70s to me, which is of course my favorite time period for pop music.

When I was putting together the running order of the CD, I originally had "On My Ride" up a few notches, maybe track #7 or so, but when I tried it in slot #10 it just fit so perfectly as a lead in to 'Petals', and being preceded by 'Sakura'. I think lyrically those three songs belong next to each other.

CD Packaging

Over the years I've heard the complaints about removing the shrink wrap and the top spine from cds; I've seen the pain people, including myself, go through trying to get a cd out of its wrapper. I've also seen the waste of all that plastic in cd packaging, which contains mostly UNrecyclable products. 

So with all of that in mind, and after testing out many samples from several different companies, for this CD I went with something called an EcoWallet. It's made from recycled paper products. The only plastic in the new cd package is the CD itself. I'm hoping we can soon find a way around that as well. I did have to have half the CDs ordered shrinkwrapped to meet retail requirements, but most of the mailorder ones were not shrinkwrapped. 

But apart from being a bit "greener" than previous releases I've had, this one just looks and feels sooooooooo much nicer. I love the packaging. The artwork pops out, and it looks and feels like an old LP. I hope you dig it as much as I do. By the way, I have to use the word "dig" at least once a day or else I might be in danger of losing my cool musician membership card. 

Here is some info about the packaging for the new CD: 

• All the board and paper packaging is printed on 100% Green Forestry Practices certified stock. Green Forestry Practices certified means they don't promote forest monoculture, clear-cutting of virgin, old-growth timber, nor contribute to other destructive forestry practices. 

• Vegetable-based inks were used. 

• The plant we used recycles all of the scrap polycarbonate, board, paper, and other industrial waste that can be effectively reused. 

• The CDs were manufactured in New Jersey, so shipping distance was minimal. By efficiently manufacturing and printing in a local facility, rather than farming out the work all over the country and even all over the globe, which is a standard practice for many of the brokers who predominate in the independent disc replication industry, we cut the carbon footprint of this project by a substantial amount. This was one of the most important things we took into consideration when choosing a manufacturer. 

All of this meant the album costs increased, but when balancing that with how sick I would feel seeing all of the plastic on my previous CDs, I had no other choice. I couldn't be happier that we chose this method. I can't see myself going back to plastic jewel cases. 

I feel like you're going to have nothing to surprise you now that I've told you about the songs and the packaging, but hopefully when you get Where You Are, there will still be some surprises left for you.