Inside Track: Open To The Dream
a prompt to soundtrack a supermarket tv spot turns into a meditation on time and place, and 3 great tracks
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
21 December 2024
GreenAcres, FL
Squeezed this recording in and among requisite holiday obligations. This track’s always cut right through me in the best way. Christmas songs are tinged with sadness. Not Frosty The Snowman, of course, but a lot of them. The nod to sadness, I think, is what makes so many holiday songs universal.…
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Someone To Watch Over Luna
This spaced-out Someone To Watch Over Me is a late morning take, on the heels of a night that saw Luna cluster 3 epileptic seizures between 8:30p and 5:30a. It was a long night. We were all a bit drawn.
inside track: canyon songbird #7
substack mirror:
In early May 2018 for a couple weeks, while I lived in LA’s Laurel Canyon, a mockingbird set up shop atop a utility pole just across Gould Ave from our cottage. He spent his time flitting and flipping on his perch, calling out across the hills for a mate.…
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into endless blue (20240518b)
a song about the gains in losses
Leaving New York Sessions
18 – 21 May 2024
1/2 way up the hill
is a long way down
to extend your horizon
to wave away clouds
into the great unknown
into endless blue
1/2 way up the hill
was the best we could do
where calm clear sky
is the everyday
no wonder the sun
yearns to steal away
into the great unknown
into endless blue
1/2 way up the hill
was the best we could do
echoes of times
when we were strong
swirled into good bye
after so long
what keeps you alive
is not the same
as what makes you live
or what flies away
Windfall (20240521a)
Leaving New York Sessions
Brooklyn, NY
21 May 2024
June 2024 marks the 20th anniversary of my 1st record, Windfall (https://thereflectors.bandcamp.com/album/windfall). With that album, I came into my own as a full-fledged songwriter, and fulfilled a lifelong dream to arrange and orchestrate my music into a sum greater than its parts.…
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Julie With… (Brian Eno Cover)
One of my fav Eno tracks off my fav Eno record, Before & After Science. Performed in an April 2021 livestream from my fantastic temporary living situ in the converted Hood’s Sarsaparilla Soda factory in Lowell, MA.
Amazing Grace (Leaving New York)
20240521.1803
One final ride on the Q, to and from my Brooklyn apartment of 17 years, through my home city of 30 years. On to the next, now, far away.
Recorded a bunch of tracks in the almost-vacated apartment leading up to my final departure, as I readied the space for a final showing and handoff to new owners.…
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Riding the D with Casey and Bob (20240519c)
Brooklyn, NY
19 May 2024
[aired] truth is a lonely cali
In a serene and random Creative Commons YouTube use this week, Truth Is a Lonely Place [Disquiet 0138] soundtracks a beach sunset at the 12:22 mark in a half-hour journey through California’s North Coast by videographer Michael Bonic.
The original track is off my 2014 record Particle Theory:
…and was composed in 2014 for the Disquiet Junto #0138 – Video Sonic Void.…
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the infinite dark
First new track in a while spilled out today, on the heels of my first couple weeks flying solo here in NYC (Cat’s away in Melbourne on Apple’s “Metropolis” for at least a year). A couple days ago, Luna underwent some demanding diagnostics that uncovered she has epilepsy. I’m still processing news and new routines.…
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because noting
tr: Because nothing is yellow, everything is green.
haha, at least everything’s not blue…
upon a glass road reflection
Artist Ward Spring paints The Glass Road to “Upon A Child’s Doll Reflection [disquiet0180-matryoshkamusic]” off my 2015 record Sunrise Highway.
…YouTube Liner Notes
Puddles everywhere. Certain angles are nice to ponder. The Upside Down. Although I am now dogless, I still go out for “dogwalks”. This scene was 7AM yesterday in the Union Bay Natural Area.
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Alley Flights
Youtube user Saboruchan takes us on a journey through a “virtually untouched” abandoned bowling alley in Haikyo, Japan, that opened in 1973 and closed in 2018. Through the modern miracle of a cc-by-sa-nc Creative Commons license, the scene is soundtracked with “Chasing Flight” off my 2016 record Almost X.
Saboruchan’s affection for the abandoned-in-state space and its lost localised grandeur resonates through the video.…
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Inside Track 003: This Time of Year (20221218d)
written: 20191113.0927
key: A
time: 3/4
one for the lonely
I set out to write a “holiday song” a few years back, even daring to dream of expanding the thought into an EP I would definitely call A Very Westy Holiday.
The EP’s still a dream, but I was home in NYC a couple weeks back, and dusted off the track, while also dusting off Jolie, my Gibson ES335 modded by Paul Schwartz of Peekamoose Guitars.…
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Inside Track 002: Need To Be
In 2018, my wife Cat costume designed the Amazon series Homecoming in Los Angeles, so we decamped Brooklyn for a 1930s cottage aerie perched halfway up Laurel Canyon. I couldn’t bring any guitars to LA, because when you pack for an 8-month trip, with no back-and-forths, hard decisions have to be made between fashion studio and music studio.…
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princess (sarsaparilla sessions 20220330.1)
recorded at the Hood’s Sarsaparilla Soda factory,
30 march 2021
lowell, ma
no princes in this city
no warnings about the wicked
just a princess and a quiet boysleep in a sleepless city
crystal in a concrete world
just a princess and a quiet boya silence passes through us
as our eyes meet on the subway
it wakes me with laughter as we sway with the train
a quiet moment of inspiration
just a boy
and his princessfaith in a faithless city
diamonds in a leaden world
just a princess and a quiet boy syncingthis silence given to us is simply to find
a quiet moment of inspiration
just a boy and a princess
from Windfall, released August 2, 2004
https://thereflectors.bandcamp.com/track/princess
Long Road Ahead (20221016a)
my most spun track on Spotify from my former days as The Reflectors. Written in 2008. Released in 2009 on my record Goodbye Monday Blue.
It’s all still true lol.
https://thereflectors.bandcamp.com/track/long-road-ahead
we got a long road ahead
settle down. settle back. settle in.
don’t you know that we’re gonna have to work until we’re dead?…
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