"Glider"

hey there...
whew.
I know it took too long, but it is finally finished. "Glider" is my 4th CD release, and i promise not to wait so long 'tween cds again. Yes, my name is on the cover, but it wouldn't have been completed without the band and many other musicians. Eddie and Jimmy, of course play on a lot of it. Every time i go into my studio with those guys, i am reminded what great musicians they are and just how much they add to the songs i write. Nick is new to the band, but we did get him some tracks, and he was great, as well. I wrote a number of songs with the guitar player for the Smithereen's, Jim Babjak, who played his trademark guitar on a whole bunch of tracks. He even brought in his drummer, Dennis Diken on "Needle in my Vein". I'm honored. Even members of previous lineups of my band were on hand...Jeff Rataski, Damian Fontana, Kenney Petersen, Bob Romanowsi, and Pete McGinley all played on "Glider". I'm really lucky to have so many talented players to work with. Greg Felise, who played with us for 7 years, from 1997 to 2004, is playing bass on some of the songs too. Other musicians include Kurt Reil and Vince Grogan from the Gripweeds, and Rob Pokol, our roadie from a few years ago. I even convinced the very busy Trevor Dalton to sing and play the kazoo !

I re-vamped my studio from my old analog system to a computer based program called Nuendo. I'm very old school and resistant to technological change but Rory Daniels convinced me to get with the program and record on this format. I'm so glad i listened to him, because he was right, and now i'm addicted to recording in this fashion. Thank God i have both his phone numbers cuz without about 140 phone calls to him, i'd still be in the studio trying to just turn the thing on ! Eddie too, had to come over and rip the computer apart time and time again to keep it working. I'm clueless about that stuff, so it's important that i keep these computer-savvy guys around ! (At one point, something crashed on me, and we had feared the worst...that ALL the songs were lost somewhere in computer heaven (hell, actually), and Eddie, Tom Robbins, & Joe Huybens saved me and found these songs that were years in the making!).
After this project, Jimmy, Nick, Eddie, and myself are going to dive into working in the studio as a unit, from start to finish. The touches these gentlemen put on my songs are so good, that i'm looking forward to producing music with them as a team.

I hope you enjoy the songs on "Glider", it's an album that's very close to me, and i'm very proud of it. Let us know what you think, tell your friends, and spend some quality time with the lyrics as well as the music....
no one's perfect, and there very well may be stuff on it that you think sucks. (hope not, though!)....any feedback is good feedback, and is of great help to an artist like myself who wants to grow.

We've decided that we're going to be playing a lot more originals at our shows from now on. We've been putting more of them in the sets lately to great responses, and we want to go further in that direction than we ever have. The release party is on Friday, November 19th at Bar Anticipation, in Belmar. We're doing mostly originals that night, new & old, including some that we've never played live before. That will be the first day you can buy "Glider", however we're already getting advanced orders through our website and P.O. Box !!

Well, that's it for now. See ya soon...
Peace,
Mike