writing from the Pacific northwest, with a new album in escrow

Do you have any idea how much work goes into making a digital recording sound like it was recorded on an old Victrola? I do.

I am in stunning Port Townsend, Washington about 2 hours northwest of Seattle. Down the street is the Puget Sound, the other side, Canada. Victorian era gingerbread houses line the postcard perfect streets, and clouds disintegrate from Ansel Adams' best shot of the Olympia Mountains on the horizon. Not that I've seen any of this mind you, I've been at Treehouse
studios finally working on my second record.

A little background: last summer I was in Ireland for three weeks playing the dulcimer and generally oscillating between joy and pain. I play about a week of shows with a guy named Robert Force. Robert is the first guy to play the dulcimer standing up and with Albert D'Ossche toured the world playing as a dulcimer duo; they dropped a book in the seventies called "In Search of the Wild Dulcimer" that sold over 100,000 copies. Plus they were once booked on Hee-Haw, BEAT THAT!

While there, (Ireland not Hee-Haw) he said if I recorded a dulcimer record he'd produce and release it on Blaine Street records. So this is where I've been for the last week. Being gently pushed prodded and poked into what seem to be great performances. We've recorded 16 tracks, and we're gonna whittle those down to 12. No firm track list or title yet, but the tracks run a wide swath of folk music, from my own compositions, to trad folk and fiddle tunes and contemporary singer/songwriters, some more famous than others. ;-)

I plan to have the record available by the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival.

I am extremely happy about this record (despite having spent the last 20 plus hours straight mixing it), and couldn't wait to get back to town to tell you all about it. I am working on a new website, that will go live sometime early in May and it will feature new tracks from the record.

Also, I am finally getting back out on the road a bit. Playing in Worcester, MA on April 29th and back at the Postcrypt in New York, May 1st.: more on that next week sometime.

I know it's taken forever to put out record number two (how many of you even know that there is a record number one). Thank you guys who have hung in there. This may seem like a big departure from what you know me for, but it it's isn't really, not at all.

So with any luck I'll see you at some of these shows and y'all can hear the new (old) tunes.

Record announcement and the new blog.

I am in the Pacific Northwest: Port Townsend, Washington to be exact. This is just about as far away as from the America as you can get. Across the water from me is Canada. Which means at least the radio up here is fairly decent. I am here to record my first dulcimer record with Robert Force. Robert Force I met a did a series of dates in Ireland, he toured for years as a dulcimer Duo with Albert D'Osshe, he wrote a book in the seventies called "In Search of the Wild Dulcimer" it sold over 100,000 copies. He is the biggest Beta fish in the shot glass, and he's producing my record and putting it out on his label. He is Capt. Ahab and we are chasing the elusive white whale of inspiration. Chris Martin is engineering at tree house studios: two small shacks in the middle of the woods that you can call the Pequod. No he's not Starbuck, though' we drink that stuff all the time. and you I guess you can call me Ishmael. Tho' the crazy literary metaphors are just the side effect of being around Robert.