Megaphones EP

Megaphone I: Running Red Lights

Megaphone II: The Thinnest of Threads

TransCanada

Korsakoff

“Megaphones” was released in May of 2022 and features the incredible talents of Ruhee Dewji on saxophone, Rachael Cardiello on viola, violin and vocals, Alex McMaster on cello, Amelia Shiels on French horn and vocals by Shannon Roszell, Shane Rosenberg and my sister Andrea. The strings and pianos were recorded by Graydon James at Typewriter Studios and the record was mixed by Ron Hawkins.

I started recording it to be released as a two-song 7” vinyl record, and I may still put it out like that someday if I ever have an extra couple thousand bucks.

The two Megaphones are sister songs written after a good friend of mine called me saying that they felt they’d “reached their shallow end” and thoughts of suicide plagued their mind constantly. I was around 20 at the time and very depressed myself and it felt really daunting and urgent to have to try to convince someone I loved that life was worth living at a time when I didn’t even really believe it myself.

TransCanada is a song from the legendary Constantines out of Guelph, Ontario. Ruhee and I used to do a cover of it on banjo and acoustic guitar, almost as a joke because the Cons are such an amazing electric guitar-driven rock and roll band. I guess this was kind of a joke too, covering it with grand piano and saxophones and tubas. I’ve been working on a stop-motion animation music video for this track but it may take the rest of my life to finish it.

Korsakoff is a song for my dad.

Mountie Quarters EP

Dandelion Seeds

Rocky IV

Rocky III

My Heart is a Bird

“Mountie Quarters” was released in January of 2017. It’s a collection of modern folk songs, I guess. I wrote the Rocky songs while wondering about who the folk heroes of today might turn out to be in a couple of hundred years, like Johnny Appleseed or Paul Bunyan. At one point I figured I might write a song for each Rocky movie, but so far I’ve only done III & IV.

The EP was made in my bedroom for about six hundred bucks and it sounds like it was made for about four hundred bucks on account of I had no idea what I was doing.

Even so, I am very proud that we were able to make something like this out of almost nothing at all and I learned a lot about arranging and recording. Incidentally, the only instruments to appear on all four tracks are kick drum and tuba. Make of that what you will.

Maybe some day I’ll get this remastered if I can ever find the old files that were used to make it but I probably can’t.