Here’s a fun and frightening little slideshow for The Little Red Ball’s adventure at the Asbury Park Zombie Walk last weekend. I had a zombie blast doing the music for it!

Have a safe and fun Halloween, and don’t forget to brush your teeth afterward!

Oy, another month goes quickly by. I’ve been very busy working on some other musical projects lately – most notably composing music for a murder mystery musical by the ultra-talented Joey Madia – and so I have neglected this space once again. I promise to get better.

In the meantime, there’s a song and a video up there that I made for the world-traveling Little Red Ball…I hope you enjoy it!

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I was very excited when my friend Ellen Luckett Baker asked me to do the music for the trailer of her new book 1, 2, 3 Sew. She’s amazingly talented and imaginative, and discusses really cool crafty things at her blog, The Long Thread. Plus, we like a lot of the same kinds of music, so I knew it would be a fun project.

The book trailer is above, as is the song in mp3 format that you can download and keep in your sewing basket for quick access whenever you need accompaniment for your spontaneous dancing. Ellen’s doing a giveaway of her book, but hurry as you’ll need to enter by this Saturday, June 18. If you run with a sewing crowd, please feel free to share this information (and the video!) wherever you feel appropriate.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention to you that I absolutely love doing this sort of thing, so if you’ve got a project that needs music – whether whimsical, sinister, or sedate – please contact me. I am, after all, your man (as Leonard would say).

Hey, come be a friend at the Facebook Page and a get an exclusive and FREE EP!!

Here’s the video for The Little Red Ball that the Meet Me at the Gulf of Mexico song was used in. The pictrues were taken mostly in Gulf Shores and Orange Beach AL, with a couple thrown in from the Pensacola FL airport.

Above is a promotional trailer for the wonderful film MHz (Megahertz) from Jordan Graye and Anam Cara Productions. If you’ve been following along here, you’re probably aware that the movie’s about Nikola Tesla and troubled disc jockey Brigh Montgomery as they unravel their tangled energies in an otherworldly dimension.

As well as paying respect and homage to the eccentric Tesla, the film explores themes of energy and forgiveness, and the effects they have on ourselves and others. Quite thought-provoking really, and enlightening if you’re curious about the science of physics in a spiritually lit sort of way. The film’s making the festival circuit now, so it’s not available outside of that world yet, but a website has been established at teslaflick.com and I encourage you to keep your eye on it.

If you’re curious, I edited the trailer using iMovie (which comes standard on every new Apple computer, meaning you could do this sort of thing yourself if you wanted) and scored it using Logic Pro (not standard on every Mac, but it’s a more robust version of Garageband, which is included with every Mac, so again…you could be doing this sort of thing as well if you wanted).

Here’s a little player if you’d like to listen to my full score for the film. Please feel free to download it in its entirety for free, and as always, sharing with friends is appreciated!

You can hate me if you want, but Catcher in the Rye is my least favorite book by J.D. Salinger. In fact, it’s not even one of my favorite books by anybody. And yet, oddly enough, Salinger is one of my favorite writers.

Certainly I recognize the importance of Catcher in shaping the lives and outlooks of any number of angry young men (and, perhaps, the women who love and hope to understand them), and I realize too the profound cultural impact it’s had. However, it seems to me that Salinger was just warming up with that one.

I was sitting on an airplane once, reading yet again my worn paperback copy of Franny and Zooey, when the gentleman next to me said he had heard Salinger had only written one good book, that Holden Caufield one. This was probably twenty-five years ago, and the man appeared to be about the age I am now, though much more successful judging by the fabric of his suit, the shine of his shoes and the length of his belt.

I looked at him with every intention of explaining why the other books were at least as worthy of the praise – my God, the spiritual themes, the poetry, the letters, that wedding, the soldiers, the bathtub, the apartment buildings, the cigarettes…Seymour Glass, of all things beautiful and holy – but all I said was, “No, the others are really good too.”

How could I explain to him the magic and power of that slim little book I held in my hands; the way, after each reading, I’d slid into a cocoon of sorts, a place not completely unlike Murakami‘s deep well where time and place and I were indistinguishable, and from which I emerged each time with renewed vigor and creativity as though I had indeed been a caterpillar waiting to blossom into a colorful butterfly, now free and vividly alive in the world – in it and of it – embracing and lifted by the spontaneous and erratic breezes of life? “No, the others are really good too.”

That’s all he needed to know, and probably all you need to know too if you haven’t read them. So do. Please.

Now J. D. Salinger has died and the irony is that we may see more new work from him than we did during his lifetime, if the rumors are true. And I hope they are.

RIP, Jerome David Salinger.

9 Stories
He gave me Nine Stories by Salinger
And I gave them all to you
Will you think of me every time Seymour dies?
Because you know I was over that line

I’ve been dreaming
I’ve been dreaming
I’ve been dreaming about bananafish and you….

Here’s a video with the 9 Stories song and some drawings by Tom Hachtman:

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Some will say 2009 was a good year, and others will say it was a bad year. Me, I hardly noticed it, slipping by as quickly and subtly as it did. Plus – just as many folks give up meat or smoking because they’re bad for you – I’ve been trying not to let too much concern about time into my life. I mean, what is it anyway? We’ve done well to control it with calendars and clocks, but we haven’t actually tamed it, have we. I imagine it feels it’s the one that has us trained, if Time could think such a thing or anything at all. And perhaps it would be right….

The alarm clock rings. Time to get up. There’s a traffic jam. I’m gonna be late for work. Lunchtime? I’m feeling hungry. Five o’clock whistle blows. Yabba dabba doo, time to slide down that dinosaur! Dinnertime. Bedtime. Does anybody really know what time it is?

Well, whatever. It’s time to say goodbye to 2009. Celebrating that with a video for my song Say Goodbye, which I pulled together in iMovie with various clips from Megahertz, the wonderful movie you’ve heard me speak about that concerns Nikola Tesla and a soul-searching DJ in the after-life. Keep an eye out for it…it’s coming soon. You should download my score for it here for free. You can also download Say Goodbye and the EP it’s from for free, but you’ll have to enter your email address to join my mailing list. I’d explain why I think that’s a great deal, but dinner’s almost ready so I’m running out of time.

I hope you enjoy the video, and here’s to a splendid new year for you & yours. Happy time traveling!