There’s no other way to say this. I need to change.

According to every spiritual tradition I’ve ever come across, the point of life is to transcend the selfish, animalistic side of human nature and become a different order of being – service-oriented, humble, compassionate, accountable and tuned into the mystical, unseen side of life. In the presence of this type of transformed person, the human spirit is naturally magnetized and attracted – it hums with recognition and says ‘that’s it – I’m home.’ Even the most damaged, corrupt person has that subtle tuning fork somewhere inside them that knows what’s up.

No matter what’s happened in my life, I’ve never lost that attraction to a higher reality. My disillusionment with the Church as a teenager didn’t manage to snuff out my intrinsic sense of wonder and curiosity. Neither was my total lack of a responsible father or male role model quite enough to embitter me towards all authority… almost, but not quite. I still knew I wanted an Obi-Wan Kenobi in my story. I still had at least the desire to believe in something – the future, a sense of purpose, something Good.

That flicker of desire has led me into some incredible mentorships and experiences – artistically, personally etc. I’ve made huge efforts to cultivate and make space for this stuff. But when it comes down to it, where the rubber hits the road, my idealism hits a hard limit. And the limit is ME.

As Woody Allen once said: “I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member.” And no matter how much I want to be Bob Marley, I’m actually more like Woody Allen. Isn’t that a bitch?

But it’s true. I can imagine incredible things – the transformation of consciousness on the planet, the culmination of all prophetic vision, the evolution of humanity into a highly advanced race of Mother Theresas spreading goodwill throughout the universe… as long as I’m not involved. No matter how well-developed my imagination is, and no matter how far my adventures take me, my knee-jerk reflex in the arena of spirituality is to be an observer, a spectactor – a fanboy of the Divine. I’m the guy who hikes all the way to the lagoon and then doesn’t get in the water. “No, you guys go ahead. I’ll just be over here, in my knee-socks.”

Examples: Meditation. Does it make sense? Heck yeah; the whole world would probably change overnight if people would actually sit down and reflect for 15 minutes a day on what they’re really about. I encourage anyone to try it and watch what happens! Do I do it? Nope. Never have.

Therapy/12-Step etc: Does it help? Of course; there are countless stories of people overcoming insane obstacles through counselling of all kinds, including trauma therapy and AA, which if my Dad had stuck with it, I’d still have a Dad. So where do I sign up? Ummmmmmm….

Last one – health & healing. Is food medicine? Are we really what we eat? Are there ways to bring the body into balance, freeing up energy and resources for a longer and more fully-lived life? You betcha! Not only that, but if we were concerned about our holistic well-being, 3/4 of the world’s most evil industries would be brought to their knees, starting with tobacco, alcohol and genetically modified food. What’s not to like? Now can you point me to the nearest KFC??

We could talk about finances, organization, healthy boundaries, you name it. My point is, it has come to my attention that this pattern is creating serious dissonance in my life. Being in the bleachers isn’t cutting it anymore. And as I enter the realm of bringing my music and creativity into the world, developing friendships with far-flung folks everywhere and trying to share something authentic, my capacity for small-talk is almost nil. Especially in a blog. So here it is: the messy truth, me in the frying pan of the soul, trying to work it out. I’m sure I’ll still find time for the occasional random comment about what’s on TV or a 5-page treatise about the merits of a certain guitar or amplifier – but the truth is, that’s not the real story here.

I need to change, in order to believe in change. And I need to believe in change.

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Hey out there… just thought I’d post a general update before kicking things up a notch in general in this here site.

First of all, the album has been mixed. The past year has been a major re-adjustment back to LA life – even though we’ve been living in the woods – and the various gigs and situations around here have taken a front seat to getting my own thing together. Of course, you eventually realize that this process could go on Forever. So you just stay up late and do whatever it takes to focus on your love project.

Thanks to Jon Rezin for staying on my case, and getting me closer and closer to having my work out there where it belongs. Jon and I have gotten things sounding nice and fat, and in the next few weeks I’ll start previewing material and working on some YouTube action for your consideration…

So, summer in LA. I wonder if this is the last normal summer of my life. At this time of year, for people who actually have a finished project to promote, there are 50 places you could be on any given day, among lots of sweaty people with a guitar in your hand. That sounds great to me. Onwards & upwards!

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During my time in LA, I had the pleasure of forming some musical partnerships that will be around for a lifetime. Looming tall among them are the members of my band, Heliotrope, which went through several incarnations but always included bassist Pancho Tomaselli and drummer Paul Gonzalez. Together we explored radically different kinds of music, pushing each other into uncharted territory where rock, funk, electronica and world music collide. At our gigs you were as likely to hear an obscure Stevie Wonder cover, a high adrenalin Latin jam, a sample-fueled, Portishead-inspired modern pop song, or a Hendrixian guitar blowout. After we included Colombian percussionist Shangó Dely, there was a much stronger African element in the mix, and Eli Brueggemann brought layers of deep texture and searching jazz sensibility with his virtuosic keyboard playing.

Whether playing ambient instrumental music in Woody Harrelson’s “O2 Bar” on Sunset Blvd while patrons got high sucking on hookahs – of oxygen – or doing our full-band thing at the über-eclectic Temple Bar in Santa Monica, we always found a way to win over audiences with our telepathic band interplay and our sheer love of music.

It was always our strength and our weakness: we wanted to play everything. But each of us agrees that it’s some of the best fun we ever had, and always look for any opportunity to play together again.

So… why “Heliotrope?”

Well for starters, it’s the name of a street in my old neighborhood of Koreatown. Every time I passed the street sign I thought, that’s a band name right there. (Many would later disagree, chiding us with alternate names like Helicopter, Hovercraft, Hello kitty and so on. We stood our ground of course.) But the actual meaning of the word is even better: A heliotrope is a particular flower, but more generally any plant or flower that follows the sun across the sky, literally facing it and turning as the sun moves… then turning back around at night to wait for it to rise again. What could be cooler than that?

Anyway, I eventually had to get out of LA to get some perspective, but the more time goes by, the more I feel it’s important to get this music out there. I’ve assembled the recordings we made together and made them available as an mp3 album download here on the site (click the music tab and look for Heliotrope). Hope you enjoy the tunes…

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People have been asking me for a long time why I don’t have an album out. Or a couple of albums. Or, say, eight or nine albums. It’s a really good question, since I’ve been producing other people’s projects for 15 years and constantly writing my own songs, performing them… even recording them. Man, if I had a dollar for every time someone asked me “Is that song recorded?”…

Well, it recently dawned on me that I could have a dollar for every song I record, and that I’d rather make my living with a guitar in my hand, telling my own story instead of someone else’s, traveling with my family instead of sitting in a studio all day (and all night). The last time I saw Carlos Santana, we had just performed together and he said, “when are you going to stop hiding behind guys like me?” (How’s that for an Artist’s Way moment?) Anyway, as usual, the man had a point.

I’ve been working on my own project, on and off for about four years. It started out as a basement experiment in a little backhouse we rented on the outskirts of Los Angeles, continued throughout our year in Mexico and really picked up during the dark, rainy winter on Vancouver Island. I started finding sounds and lyric ideas unlike any I’d created before, and for the first time I felt like my music felt like more than the sum of its influences… I could hear the Saskatchewan prairie boy in there, as well as the multicultural West Coast experience that was my life for a decade. It felt like the truth was coming out.

Actually, LA figures highly in the theme of this record… at least leaving LA. I had reached a point in my life where the noise of the music industry was louder than the music in my head. It was time to get out of that environment for awhile and be around something completely different, be unaware of the Billboard 200 and who was hired and fired at which record company. I found a lot of things to love about that city, and spent a lot of time unearthing every shred of authenticity I could find there, but it was time to move on.

That word: authenticity. The search for it is pretty much the subject of the whole album. All the songs are in some way about getting out of a haze of ideas that come from who-knows-where, and finding that authentic core that feels like home… even if in my case ‘home’ meant not having a home for awhile.

So to answer people’s question: why no album all these years? Honestly, there was no album because I found creative ways not to do one for a long, long time (more on that later). And now there’s an album. All the support from loved ones and colleagues, and from myself, is paying off. I’ll keep posting as it gets closer to release… right now I’m doing a few extra guitars and getting ready for the final mix. Shouldn’t be long… hold me to it!

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