Log

Stardust. Today’s upload is a somewhat quirky cover I made around 2006 or 2007 of the jazz standard “Stardust,” a song I was borderline obsessed with at the time. Back then, I probably would’ve insisted—without hesitation—that it was the greatest song written in the 20th century. These days, I’m less inclined toward grand proclamations like that, but it still stands as an absolute songwriting masterpiece. One of the things I found particularly fascinating about “Stardust” is its original introduction—an extended, hauntingly beautiful passage that rarely appears in popular versions, especially those from the crooner era. In fact, most arrangements jump right into that iconic chromatic melody line, bypassing the intro entirely. Thankfully, my (totally legal!) Real Book included this overlooked intro, which I personally feel sets up the verse transition brilliantly. “Stardust” is simply masterful: its chord progression is extraordinary, and the way the melody weaves in and around these harmonies is something I’ve always found profoundly beautiful. In this particular cover, however, when the distorted guitars kick in, I was basically forced to simplify the harmonic content—distortion tends to muddy chords beyond basic intervals like fifths and thirds. But what’s remarkable is how well the melody itself implies the richness of the original chords, even with simpler accompaniment. Ironically, despite the somewhat pop-punk feel of this cover, I don’t have much affinity for punk music—or rather, it’s the punk ethos I’ve never resonated with, not necessarily the sound. But something about the raw, stripped-back style seemed to work here, even though it sharply contrasts with the gentle, lyrical introduction of my arrangement. Back then, I might have defensively called it “prog-adjacent,” probably because I was fronting an avant-garde progressive rock band and felt obliged to maintain my prog credentials at all costs. It does feature a few tempo shifts and time-signature changes—though, compared to the average miRthkon tune, it’s practically straightforward. This demo was never really intended for public ears. Originally, I’d planned to develop it into a proper miRthkon cover, but that never happened. Interestingly, Carolyn Walter—our longest-serving member, who played nearly every woodwind imaginable (except oboe)—once transcribed Artie Shaw’s iconic clarinet solo from his famous “Stardust” recording, at my request. I’ve always considered Shaw’s solo impossibly perfect—so perfect, in fact, that I’ve often wondered if it was composed rather than improvised. Recently, I even learned to play that same solo on guitar, and someday I’ll revisit this arrangement properly, incorporating Shaw’s solo in some way. Looking back at this demo, I’m amused to discover the distortion on my guitars was created entirely with Logic’s own built-in “Guitar Amp Pro” plugin—a pretty ancient amp modeler from the early 2000s that, surprisingly, still holds up quite well. I recorded the guitar parts on an Epiphone Dot Studio I’d recently purchased at the time, complete with truly terrible stock pickups, which I’ve long since upgraded. Yes, this recording has plenty of shortcomings—but apparently not enough to stop me from publicly sharing it today, so there’s that. Anyway, I’ve rambled enough. Click the link above and give a listen to my early-2000s quasi-pop-punk-prog take on “Stardust”—a candidate (perhaps) for the greatest song of the 20th century. Maybe.

Charlie - Score Video. Today’s archival entry is a score video for a short song called “Charlie,” written nearly twenty years ago. It’s a bit of an oddball in my catalog—not quite like anything I’ve written before or since—and the backstory is equally unusual. The song is named after a woman named Charlie, whom I met while being interviewed for a documentary. She was assisting the director at the time. Charlie was cute, smart, interesting, and after the shoot, I asked her out. Things quickly got complicated. The lyrics of the song pretty much lay it all out, but since we’re here, let’s dive into it. To rewind a bit: In college, I’d been in a serious relationship for about two years with a Chinese-American woman. Later, when I finished grad school and started my first job, my boss—who was Japanese-American—was married to a documentary filmmaker. A close friend of hers, a Chinese-American filmmaker, was making a documentary about white men who supposedly have an “Asian fetish.” Though I never saw myself as fitting into this category at all (case in point: I’m now happily married to an Italian woman), I guess having had a significant relationship in college made me a plausible interview candidate. Plus, I tended to be articulate enough and held some perhaps provocative views about cross-cultural attraction in general—not specifically related to white and Asian people, but just broadly. Anyway, the filmmaker seemed to think I was compelling enough on camera to continue including me as a subject in her project. Enter Charlie, who—unbeknownst to me at the time—was technically breaking the production’s rules by going out with me. Although, to be fair, we both tried convincing ourselves that it wasn’t exactly a date; we were just “being friendly” in a carefully ambiguous way. Unfortunately, her director saw things differently, and Charlie ultimately lost her job over it. (Yikes.) Before all that drama unfolded, though, I wrote this little song inspired by her and this peculiar, somewhat surreal experience. At one point, Charlie mentioned her favorite band was Queen, and you can probably detect some faint echoes of Freddie Mercury here. There’s a hint of “Killer Queen” in there, perhaps, although if anything, it feels more Beatles than Queen to me. Either way, it ended up being one of the shortest—and catchiest—pop tunes I ever wrote. Partly because I was so fixated on little details and chord voicings, and partly because I simply ran out of time. I wanted to finish the song before our next date, so it clocks in under two minutes. I’m especially proud of the thick, jazzy chord changes during the chorus—probably the most interesting thing happening musically in the track. Fun fact: Several years later, I recycled and reworked a couple of those chord changes in another song of mine, “Snack(s)—The Song!.” They’re not identical, but they definitely served as the creative starting point. So there’s your little easter egg of self-referential trivia for today. Anyway, here’s “Charlie,” fully scored for your viewing and listening pleasure.

miRthkon – (format). Today’s upload marks the arrival of my official feature film debut: the miRthkon movie, cryptically titled (format)—parentheses included, of course. About a year ago, I painstakingly divided the entire film into the 34 chapters that match the DVD and Blu-ray releases, and went ahead and remastered the audio from scratch. Truthfully, I was never fully satisfied with the original mastering—especially given how labor-intensive it was to mix from a 32-track recording of our performance at the 2010 CalProg Festival in Whittier, California. We hadn’t even planned on making a film, but somehow managed to capture this incredible live set in pristine, multi-track audio quality, complete with all 32 tracks individually recorded. The full story behind making this film is complicated, long, and at times grueling—I’ll share plenty of that saga in the extended notes accompanying each of the 34 chapter uploads. (format) represents the culmination of an intensive collaboration with Jarred McAdams, who was notably listed as a fully-fledged band member in the liner notes of our debut album, Vehicle. Some reviewers found this puzzling since his role—conceptual designer, text, and video—was atypical for a band member, especially since he didn’t perform live on stage. But Jarred’s contribution was critical: behind-the-scenes planning, conceptual input, his wizard-like prose skills, and especially his management of our live video projections, a multimedia element born from sheer necessity. miRthkon sets involved lengthy pauses between songs, mainly due to Carolyn needing to swap between her four woodwinds (clarinet, bass clarinet, tenor sax, baritone sax) with the complicated mic setup I’d built for her. Additionally, Rob and I frequently had to alter the overall tuning configuration of our instruments. Jarred and I devised a strategy of screening brief, silly, 45-second films to keep our audiences entertained between songs. What began as a practical fix evolved into a full-fledged multimedia spectacle. The 2010 CalProg Festival marked the peak of that evolution, with carefully orchestrated thematic depth, continuity, and ambitious integration of visuals—particularly during the five-song sequence forming the show’s conceptual “second act.” I’ll have more to share about the profoundly intense experience of making (format)—including how the stress of finishing the film eventually contributed to significant health problems during our subsequent promotional tour, forcing me to undergo emergency surgery in Chicago. It was a deeply unpleasant experience, made even more heartbreaking by the cancellation of several key gigs—including one in Denver with Thinking Plague, a band I greatly admire. But that’s a story for another day, or another page perhaps best suited to one of the many extended notes sections accompanying today’s ambitious 34-chapter upload.