Photo by Pamela Murray. Click for high-resolution version.

Every so often, I add a demo or live recording to Soundcloud. All songs are released under an Attribution/Noncommercial/Share Alike creative commons license, so feel free to listen to, download, and share them as you see fit. Enjoy!

1. Was The Moon Too Full? (live with Tracie Potochnik) - 2012
   

   I wrote this song for the 'Four Corners' series at the Mediator Stage in Providence on an assigned theme: "The Moon Is Too Full." The song was written as a duet, and I asked another Rhode Island-based singer/songwriter, Tracie Potochnik, if she would sing it with me, which she kindly agreed to do. Since it's the debut performance of a new song, and it was recorded using my phone's 'Memo' function, it's a little rough around the edges, but I think it sounds pretty good. It was recorded on June 14 2012.

2. Codependent (live with Matt Everett and Mark Milloff) - 2012
   

   This was recorded April 7 2012 at AS220 in Providence, when Matt and Mark sat in on a few songs with me. Based on this experience I asked Matt to be in my band.

   A different recording of this song (with Chris Monti playing slide and providing backing vocals) is also on my 2011 album 'Circumstantial Evidence'.

3. Time To Break Up The Band (live) - 2012
   

   This was recorded live at AS220 in Providence on April 7, 2012.

4. Watching Killer Robots Eat Your Head (live) - 2006
   

   This was recorded at a house concert in my apartment on April 8 2006. There's a lot of noise and it's not a super high quality recording, but I like listening to it because it reminds me that there was a time when 'Watching Killer Robots Eat Your Head' was a singalong, which is something I would never, ever, have predicted.

   A different recording of this song can be found on my album 'Mistaken Identity'.

5. Kitten Knitting Blues (demo) - 2005
   

   This was recorded on January 15, 2005. My friend John Laviolette wrote the lyrics to the song for me, and I then made the recording. I should probably re-record it sometime now that I have a better setup ...

6. From Your Neighbors (demo, nsfw) - 2012
   

   This song was written and recorded for the Spintunes songwriting challenge (it was four the second of the four rounds that make up the challenge) in February 2012. Unusually for me, the song contains a lot of swearing, so be warned!

   The challenge for this round was to write a Valentine's Day song for someone who is not your significant other. It was by far the most popular song I wrote for the challenge and I think it holds up well, though due to the swears I am unlikely to play it in many live settings.

7. Socks of Quarters Blues (demo) - 2006
   

   This is a combination of lyrics written by various people. I recorded it in early 2006, a few weeks after I got an accordion for Christmas, so the playing on this is pretty rough, but I like it anyway.

8. The Limit (for Kate H.) (demo) - 2006
   

   I recorded this in May 2006 for my friend Kate H.'s birthday -- she's a math teacher at a local high school. That last verse was a challenge to write!

9. I Wear A Croth (demo) - 2006
   

   This is a song written by me and some livejournal friends in September 2006. It's a minor key parody of Johnny Cash's 'I Walk The Line'.

10. Oil Price Blues (demo) - 2006
    

    In around September of 2005 I was approached by a friend who was looking for someone to write a protest song about high oil prices, and after some thought I came up with this and emailed him the lyrics. I don't think I ever heard back from him about it, but a year later I was asked to participate in a show where I was supposed to perform 'songs of social consciousness' and I revised the lyrics in preparation for it, though I ended up not playing the song. I did make this recording, though, and I'm pretty happy with it.

11. Blue Yodel #∞ (T for T-Rex) (demo) - 2012
    

    I wrote these lyrics as a goof on August 1 2006, never intending to do anything with them, but in the end I have played them at a few shows, and now there's this recording too, which was made on March 29 20112. It's a parody of Jimmie Rodgers's song 'Blue Yodel #1 (T for Texas).

12. Pickle Postcard (demo) - 2005
    

    This was written in January of 2005 for a friend. At the time, I would sometimes write songs for people based on one or more of the interests listed in their Livejournal accounts, and two of her interests were 'pickles' and 'postcards'. The recording was made a little later, in June of 2005.

13. The Ascot, Pipe, and Smoking Jacket Song (demo) - 2010
    

    This song was written for Don Tassone's 'Four Corners' series at the Mediator Stage in Providence. Each month four songwriters perform four songs each in the round, with one of the song on a theme picked by the previous month's audience. This time, the theme was 'The Ascot, Pipe, and Smoking Jacket Song'. I wrote it in September 2010 and made this recording in early October.