A Thousand Days
Updates
Sometime in 2006, perhaps this very month, I sat in my attic apartment in Madrid and wrote "Wildfire." Like many songs, it was something about time or its passing by on our lives, and like all of them it was composed primarily through the guitar melody. It became one in a 100+ songs I have written over the years. Meanwhile, I was playing in cafes, bookstores, and bars, and whenever I got the chance I recorded drafts, using a cheap PC wand mic and the free editing program Audacity. On two occasions, once in Boston, once in Madrid, I recorded in a more professional studio, but those sessions were never my strongest, mainly because my performing was still an early work in progress but also because I approached the format as though I were playing a live show instead of methodically, patiently searching for sound, track by track, layer upon layer. I began developing that more thoughtful, searching, layering exploration around the time I wrote "Wildfire," and my early Audacity recordings served as a rough road map.
Some fifteen years ago, I decided to record "Wildfire" again, alongside a couple dozen others. I had moderately upgraded my recording kit, but it was still far from ideal: basic home recording gear and an on-the-fly setup in my tiny studio apartment in Kent, OH ("Studio 248" I would call it). Yet, my search for sound was sincere, and I believed that within those recordings was still the crystallization of something meaningful, maybe even beautiful in moments. If I had captured a whisper of beauty or a glimmer of art in a soundbite or two, I felt those recordings worthwhile pursuing. For the next 10 years—amid full-time teaching, a spouse living in a different state, and all the other craziness of life—I off-and-on-again mixed and mastered them myself. Yet, I was never satisfied. I didn't have the expertise or tech to polish them, and they were never good enough to release beyond a draft stage.
Around Covid, I started seeking out professional help, and about two years ago I discovered that an immensely talented producer—a fellow explorer of sound whose musicality manifests through skill and soul—had a studio 10 minutes up the street. After our meeting, I sent Chris Keffer my best attempts at mastering, and when he sent back his versions, I knew I had found a music partner. It seemed serendipitous. So, over the past two years, Keffer and I have been patiently, tediously running back through tracks upon tracks, re-editing and squeezing out the very best we can from them. Sometimes, it felt like exhuming warm clarity out of a cold mist given the embedded limitations of my home recordings, and sometimes I joked that I should call the album A Thousand Tracks because there were just so many of them.
In this way, A Thousand Days is some 20 years in the making, and though that road is long—much longer than I'd like to spend on any album—I am pleased to finally release it to streaming services today. The album carries 7 songs, each with two versions: my original acoustic rendering and then a "+" version with invited musicians adding their personal take (recorded in Keffer's Magnetic North Studio, Beachwood, OH). I am so grateful to Christabel Devadoss (piano), Caroline King (accordion), Moss Stanley (keyboard), and Opus 216 (strings: Brian Slawta, viola; Trevor Kazarian, cello; Ifetayo Ali, cello)—so appreciative that these incredible Cleveland-based musicians have joined me. If you listen to nothing else but one song or you only have one half hour to test this album out, I strongly recommend the "+" versions, they infuse beautiful strokes giving each song a unique touch. Nevertheless, when I decided to invite other musicians, I couldn't just make that the album. As a tribute to all those years working with these songs, I had to keep the acoustic versions that faithfully represented my initial, intimate recordings. Imperfect as those “Studio 248” sessions are, they exhibit the core sentimentality, and I believe each version carries its own weight, its own place in the search for sound.
Should you join me at the end of this journey, I could recommend your favorite headphones and a quiet evening, maybe out for a walk or in a lounge chair at dusk. A bottle of Spanish red or a gin & tonic have also worked well beside them. Or not, you decide. In the meantime, to my website, I'll continue to post album information, including photos and videos (mainly from Keffer’s studio… sadly, I do not have a good photo or video of my Kent "Studio 248"—in a way, it would just be a disheveled studio apartment showing my workspace as a literal box table, worn office chair, and condenser mic hanging from the ceiling with a bread twist tie).
And now that this album is finally being sent to the wider musicsphere, I can also move on, to recording many of the other songs I’ve spent years drafting, searching for sound. Be on the lookout for “Something So Inviting” in the not-so-distant future (i.e., hopefully not 20 years this time…).
***Many thanks to Christabel Devadoss for supporting me along the way and for the album photography and design—the front/back covers so wonderfully reflect the album’s vibe.
24 Oct. 2025
