Hi friend,
I’ve started a new podcast series featuring field recordings I have collected over the years. I’m releasing the first one today.
It’s from a gig I played at Brain Dead Studios in Los Angeles for Heavy Water Coffee in March 2024. The recording is unedited and features over two hours of ambient guitar music and neighborhood soundscapes.
I am excited to release this but also a bit reluctant. Sharing anything creative can feel like giving up a part of yourself you can’t take back. Still, I think this is pretty cool and I hope you like it.
I am excited to release this but also a bit hesitant. It’s not perfect, and sharing anything creative can feel like giving up a part of yourself you can’t take back. Still, I think this is pretty cool and I hope you like it.
So grab a pair of headphones, click play in the header above and carry on livin’ as you listen. You can find it streaming on other platforms as well.
I found that the most interesting moments to me were those in between the music.
I’ve been recording since I was a teenager. I remember trying to make my first voicemail greeting on a Nokia flip phone. I was really stuck for what to say, so instead, I recorded a scene from an episode of Seinfeld I was watching in my room. It was the one where Kramer sells his life stories to J. Peterman. (Season 8, Episode 21: The Muffin Tops). That recording stayed on my phone throughout high school, and I listened to it whenever I needed a laugh.
I bought my first field recorder, a Tascam DR05, after college, when I was 21 and working at Guitar Center. I used it all the time while experimenting late at night in my room, playing my guitar in open tunings.
Those recordings helped me remember moments I liked that would eventually become songs. I’d take it around with me, to the kitchen, out to the porch or down to the creek behind my house. Often I’d forget to turn it off, letting it record until the batteries died.
When I’d listen back to my recordings, I found that the most interesting moments to me were those in between the music. The hum of the refrigerator, birds chirping outside or a lawn mower in a distant yard. My fascination with field recording had begun.
On a winter afternoon many years later, while I was home visiting my parents for the holidays, I found a box in the back of a closet with the Tascam recorder and an 8GB SD card still inside. I was intrigued and grabbed it some fresh batteries.
When I played it back, I heard a lot of bad songs I wrote in my early twenties, along with a few practice-space sessions for bands I started but never finished. What really struck a chord though, was hearing things like my family talking in the background, the ambiance of my old Brooklyn apartment, and the voices of friends I hadn’t heard in years. It took me back to such specific times and places.
I bring a recorder with me almost everywhere I go now and have grown rather obsessed with capturing everything around me. When I’m on camping trips, I leave a rig out overnight to record the morning birdsong. While hiking, I catch the beat of my boots stomping on the trail. My girlfriend even made me a shirt that says “Always be Recording,” and while traveling for work, I like to walk around different cities listening for unique sounds to sample.
Creating is a challenge that I struggle with. Holding back, instead of letting go.
I’m always recording with the intention that it will be something after it’s done. I have so many now, as if I have been hoarding sounds like a squirrel with nuts for the winter. But winter hasn’t come and I don’t know what to do with all of this tape. The thought of listening back through it all and organizing feels really daunting and I think it’s stopped me from putting things out in the past.
But the other day, while looking for something else on another old SD card, I found this recording of a 2.5-hour set I played at a coffee shop pop-up at Brain Dead Studios. I’d forgotten all about this night, so I threw it on and let it play while I was working.
It’s not perfect; I make mistakes, but I really enjoyed listening to it, and I realized that there is never going to be the perfect project. I’m not going to find the time one day to go through everything and organize it into some grand opus, and there is never going to be the exact right time to release something like this.
So I’m practicing a "better done than perfect" mindset and hopefully, making my 21-year-old recording-obsessed self proud. We hope you enjoy!
“You know, I never thought he'd be able to recreate the experience of actually knowing him, but this is pretty close.” - Jerry
