What's New
Hello friends,
I am really excited about the turnout I have gotten for the web shows on stickam. I also have gotten a lot of feedback about the 7-9pm time being difficult for many to attend.
I am super excited to be able to share with you a little preview of my forthcoming album "Start Again Tomorrow." I have uploaded a clip to YouTube which has all the song names associated. See the end of this post to watch it.
Hello friends!
I know that it has been a while since I have had an update. I have been kind of disabled for the last several months by software incompatibilities -- Pro Tools essentially never supports new OS versions until 6 months after they are released (or something inane like that), but I had other reasons I needed to upgrade. So, I couldn't record -- couldn't do bedtime melodies -- couldn't even use my piano software :-\
I wasn't sure I liked this song until I heard him do it live with just an acoustic - then I loved it. So, I figured it out. I hope you enjoy.
Hehe all through this recording my dog was doing the most ridiculous things to get my attention (I hid the squeakers), and it just kind of struck me as ironic how not alone I was singing this song. Good stuff :) I hope you enjoy.
This is me, and my two brothers and father and my nephew Sammy. This is what happens when my dorky (but lovely) family gets together. Thought I would share. Sammy was freaking out and totally cracking us up hehe.
For all of the hundreds of songs I have covered of other artists, I secretly wished for the day that the cycle would continue on from me forward - that day has come! You rock Vily! :)
Hello friends -- so, I have some good news finally about my album. After a pretty intensive process of going through many thousands of files, I was able to reconstruct a large majority of the work that I thought I had lost in the studio. Woo! :)
Hey friends -- I just wanted to update you all on how things are going. I have restored a lot of files from my studio hard-drive pain, and I am hoping to get back into the studio soon and get the ball rolling on Start Again Tomorrow -- I'll keep you posted.
Hey everyone - Megan caught one of my songs from last night's performance on her little camera, so I threw it up on youtube. It's a cover I did of Radiohead's song "True Love Waits" -- first time I ever played it out. I hope you enjoy and comments are always welcome.
Hello friends -- it is St. Patrick's day so I did something I have wanted to do for a long time and recorded a cover of Sunday Bloody Sunday. This version is inspired by a bootleg of a live U2 show where they took it down to the bones. I did a little arranging to make it my own. I hope you like it! Comments are always welcome.
Tonight I made a video of the song "I just don't think I'll ever get over you" from the Garden State soundtrack. Enjoy :)
Hey all - I decided to take a much needed break from my album woes and do a new recording - this is a cover of a song by Emm Gryner called "Julia."
Hello friends -- here is an update on the recording of my record:
For months now I have been getting hundreds of fake registrations to my forum from spam bots on the internet. It turns out that in my attempt to manage those, I rejected a number of legitimate registration attempts.
Hello friends -- I just got my hands on a couple videos of a performance I did on a local TV show here called "Panorama." I uploaded them to my Youtube profile - let me know what you think. Hope everyone is having a very safe and happy holiday season!
Not sure if any of you have noticed, but I posted a bunch of my videos on YouTube, and it has been a pretty cool experience -- both in terms of people messaging me and people leaving comments. So, many thanks to the people who pushed me there.
So I may be realizing why some people always say their album will be out on X date, and then continually move that date forward six months at a time with sincere hopes that if they say it out loud, it might actually happen... :)
I think I am finally caught up on sleep enough after the frenzied rush to launch the new Ithaca College website. I am really happy with it how it came out though, and happy that I am no longer at work at 3am...
Hello my friends -- it was pointed out to me that I have been doing a pretty lousy job of keeping up with chronicling my album project. :)
After several weeks of putzing around trying to figure out what to do here, spending a good majority of that time distracting myself with friends and the entire season of Freeks and Geeks on DVD, I have decided to go into the studio to do my album.
Crossing a huge intersection in Tribeca with Simon and Leigh, I suddenly got an idea for my album's title: "Depth of Perception." I really loved it -- you may see it in some ID3 tags -- I even registered the domain name depthofperception.com in anticipation of using it.
My friend Jeff McCaffery said "I would rather call it a record than a CD ? because it really is a record of you right now."
I have made some changes to these songs since I first recorded them, so I thought I would put up versions that were correct. The childhood places is some pre-album work.
I will be performing an acoustic set at Juna's Cafe on the Ithaca Commons for a benefit called "Four Play" to raise money for a local feature film project about Ithaca and exploring love, sexuality, humanity and activism (more info). Show starts at 8pm - I play second or so -- I hope you see you there!
Some friends encouraged me to start a blog to chronicle the process of recording my album "Start Again Tomorrow." I have set this up, and since most of my attention is focused on the album right now, I figured it was relevant to include updates on the top right of this page.
I have quietly mentioned some new recordings recently in the forums, but thought I would post them here for those who are too scared to venture there.
Christopher and I also did this arrangement / recording on his visit here. We both love this Death Cab for Cutie song, and are excited to have covered it.
I never dared to take this on as a cover until my great friend Christopher was here with me to play the piano. We are happy with the outcome and hope you are too. It's just piano and guitar woot.
I am really excited to be sharing this new project. My friend Keiran and I wove together the Damien Rice song "Older Chests" and the Bob Marley song "Redemption Song" into one duet, and we are both very humbled and pleased with the outcome.
A quick recording of this song "Brightest" by Copeland -- it really moved me when I first heard it and just had to learn to sing it and play it.
I have been singing this song "Vincent" by Don McLean forever, and I truly love it. But, for some reason, I never recorded it until yesterday.
Maggie from Eskimo Friends recommended I cover a Coldplay B-side, and I fell in love with this one.
A sunday afternoon cover of Iron & Wine's cover of the Postal Service song
I wrote a new song this last weekend, and have a recording for you all to hear - I hope you enjoy it.
I posted all of the lyrics to my original songs from my "Music" page
My dear friend Stephania pointed out to me that my song "Fall" was featured on the Florn.net Podcast -- I'm very excited - thanks to Dan Adinolfi. I think that is my first podcast play!
After watching the video of Coldplay's "The Scientist" for the first time, I was immediately moved to sing and record it. I also had the pleasure of doing a little casual recording with my good friend Chris Schoch, and we captured Iron & Wine's "Fever Dream" -- enjoy :)
Video: Fall
This is a video I did while living at the Miller Inn
Watch the Video :: Comment on it
Recording: We Never Change
A quick iSight recording cover of the Coldplay song
Listen :: Comment on it
This is a short video taken by my friend Cate at a recent VoiceStream concert - it gets cut off, but it's cool - thanks Cate!!!
I will be doing two full acoustic sets this Saturday night at Night and Day Coffee in Mansfield, PA. The show will start at 7:30pm -- door charge of $2 for students, $3 for adults. I know that most of you are probably very far away from Mansfield, PA -- but on the off chance you aren't, I would love to have some friends there.
My excellent roomate Erik taped my show at the Nines, and I have prepared some videos for sharing. The quality isn't amazing, but they are fairly easy to download.
I will be doing an acoustic set this Thursday night at the Nines in Collegetown, Ithaca, NY. The show will start at 10pm, but I'll be going on a little after 11. I hope you can come out.
If you have any questions about getting there, email me.
I suddenly thought of this song that I hadn't sung since the eighth grade, and so I recorded it to capture the moment. Hope you enjoy.
Tonight I recorded the Jewel song "Foolish Games." If so moved, please comment on the recording in my forum.
My brother Danny and I took a moment while we were both home for the holidays to record this song - arranged by Simon and Garfunkle.
I have started adding what I am calling "Rough Draft" recordings to posts in the forum. They usually are very unpolished, or songs that I never intend to record "for real" -- but you may enjoy them. They will alwasy be posted in the "Music" sub-forum.
I've added a new site forum and I invite all my old and new friends to use it as a place to gather and chat about anything - doesn't have to do anything with me :)
This is a fairly straight forward recording as part of my larger attempt to record all the radiohead songs I sing. Enjoy.
This was recorded live on the television program "Panorama." Thanks to Jessica Sherlock who recorded and provided me with the raw tracks to produce.
I found this recording when I was looking through the versions of Motion Picture Soundtrack I have -- I honestly don't remember recording it.
This one is dedicated to Tom. A -- you made my year. A friend, Benjamin
Featured
One of my favorite collaborations ever -- the duet my friend Keiran and I created from these two amazing songs. View / Hear the Project
Original Songs (list)
Check out my home-made stuff.
Let Down (mp3)
An acoustic cover of the Radiohead song. Christopher Zemliauskas on Piano.
I'll See You Soon (mp3)
A cover of the Coldplay B-side.
Volcano (mp3)
This was recorded live on the television program "Panorama." Thanks to Jessica Sherlock who recorded and provided me with the raw tracks to produce.
No Surprises (mp3)
A cover of the Radiohead song.
Such Great Heights (mp3)
A sunday afternoon project - a cover of the iron & wine cover of the postal service song :)
Comfortable (mp3)
A cover of the John Mayer song "Comfortable" for my sweet friend Court
Sharing
I am making all of my recordings free and downloadable from this site. If you like what you hear here, do me a favor and share it with some people who you think might appreciate it. I also invite P2P users and PodCasters to redistribute/play any of my music. If you feature any of my music on your site or podcast, drop me a quick email to let me know, and I will mention it here. Thanks for your support!
