Woodwind Making, Blues, Old Time, Celtic, Gospel, Jazz, Good Writing, Politics, Unix Hacking, Wireless, Photography, Humanity, Gender, Things with uProcessors...
Music
That's my living, Jake. Once on an extended gigless period I decided not to play at all, to feel what it was like. Two days in, I bought an electric bass "just for fun". Music is oxygen. I like Robben Ford, John DeLancey, Mahalia Jackson, Ray Charles, Oscar Peterson, Evans Brubeck and Monk, Pine Top Perkins, Phillippe Entremont, Alfred Brendel, the great folks in Piffaro, any band with Judy Hyman, Alexei Ogrintchouk, The DuFay Collective, Mitch Woods, Aretha Franklin...
Movies
Singin' In The Rain, Lord of the Rings, Brazil, Time Bandits, The Usual Suspects, Contact, Elizabeth, Sleepless in Seattle, Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, Naked Gun 33 1/3, The Matrix series.
Television
Lost, Gray's Anatomy, Seinfeld, The Simpsons
Books
Anything by Alastair Reynolds, Betty Smith's "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn", Dostoevsky's "Notes from The Underground", Booth Tarkington's "Penrod", Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Grey", Jorge Borges, Isabel Allende, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Steiner's "Treblinka"...
Heroes
Any person who acts where others are passive, John Knowles (the musician's musician), Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, Leslie Feinberg, Neils Bohr...
... where you can find ordering information for Canis Publishing's music books and recordings made by the bands The Latter-Day Lizards, Bare Necessities, Dark Carnival, Yankee Ingenuity, Big Bandemonium, Childsplay and others, MIDI files of tunes and examples from my books and other sources, a selection of music, shareware and computing links, promotional info in case you want to know a little more about my professional life, biographical stuff if, for some inexplicable reason, you're curious about my personal life, and even more.
Major influences on my sound include Mary Bergin, Otis Spann, Bob McQuillen, Oscar Peterson, Doc Watson, Emmy Lou Harris, Glen Hardin, Floyd Cramer, Gordon Peery, Selma Kaplan, countless Mariachi bands, Mahalia Jackson, Protestant Hymnals, Frankie Gavin, Kevin Crawford, Pine Top Perkins, Chris Norman, Planxty, Lynn Jacquin, Cathie Ryan, Bill Coulter, Phil Wiggins, Piffaro, Martin Hayes, Eddie Zervigon and countless others whose ideas I have stolen, reworked, incorporated, imported, avoided or imitated...
Who I'd like to meet: Simone de Beauvoir, Hugo Chavez, Galileo, Tolstoy, Jennifer Boylan, Petrarch, Barbara Tuchman, Hillary Clinton and Karl Rove for lunch, God, Jesus and Mohammed, Caligula (from a safe distance), Christine Jorgensen, Marcia Ball, Cate Blanchett, Helen of Troy
Peter!!! No tune I've ever written even vaguely compares with the brilliance of the Calypso Reel. I would like to just once witness a no-holds-barred, tune-writing smackdown with you and Turlock O'Carolin. I would be in the front row, gnawing on a scrap of rusty bacon.
Peter, I was thinking about you and so I said to myself, "why bother with any meaningful correspondence when I can just post a comment like this?" and yet in spite of this, in spite of what happened last year, and the year before, and you burning my house to the ground and stealing my car and collection or rare mink coats, in spite of everything, I miss you, godamnit.
hey Peter! Great to hear the lizards again tonight, and nice talking a bit. Hope to find myself in a corner with you again sometime. It's so fun to play with you! - Eric M.
Hey Peter, nice to see another familiar face around here! Hope all is going well in your various pursuits, and hope to get in a jam with you at some point in the not-too-distant future. Take care...
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