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I may be the last person to post a Best Of list, but better late than never. Here are some of the sounds I was digging in 2011, alphabetically.

Adele‘s 21 was the runaway pop smash of the year, and for good reason: The talent, material, and delivery are all top-notch. This record will continue to sell for decades.

The  Beastie Boys returned to form with Hot Sauce Committee Volume Two, their best record since Hello Nasty, maybe even Ill Communication. They also produced two of the strangest/funniest music videos in recent memory.

Following the breakthrough success of Brothers, Ohio duo the Black Keys returned with El Camino. Co-produced and -written by Danger Mouse, El Camino is an exercise in Big Dumb Rock that’s half as long but twice as awesome as its predecessor. Also: another killer video.

Charles Bradley‘s No Time for Dreaming is another soul-funk gem from the house of Daptone, this time starring a dude in his 60s who sounds like he’s inhabited by the ghosts of Otis Redding and James Brown. (He just so happens to be one of New York City’s foremost JB impersonators.) It’s his first album, and it’s a knockout.

Saying goodbye to a legend like Glen Campbell ain’t easy (he’s battling Alzheimer’s and will retire from the music business at the end of his current tour), but what a terrific farewell record he’s left us in Ghost On The Canvas.

I wasn’t nuts about the entire album, but Coldplay‘s “Paradise” was one of the most repeatedly satisfying singles of the year. We must have played it a thousand times in the tour van last fall.

The King Is Dead was the most straightforward Decemberists record since their first EP. And as much as I have enjoyed their rock operas, it’s nice to hear them singing simple songs again.

I’ve been a Joe Henry fan for a long time, so it’s no surprise that I loved his latest, Reverie. But this, perhaps more than any of his albums, could be the one that publicly seals his reputation as one of the great songwriters of his generation.

PJ Harvey has yet to make a bad record, but Let England Shake is her best in 10 years. What an artist.

Watch the Throne was pretty good.

Turtleneck and Chain was even better.

Anytime there’s a new Low record, I’m happy. C’mon is just gorgeous.

Mirror Traffic was the best Stephen Malkmus record since Pavement split up. Go Jicks!

I’m still mourning the breakup of Kim and Thurston–and the possible end of Sonic Youth!–but on the plus side, there was the mostly acoustic, Beck-produced Demolished Thoughts, Thurston Moore‘s unexpectedly tuneful and pastoral solo album.

On first listen I thought Radiohead‘s The King of Limbs was already better than Amnesiac. After sitting with it for the better part of a year, I think it might be even better than my initial assessment. While rhythm takes center stage, the songs are excellent, and the band continues to expand their sonic palette. I can’t think of another band that has remained so interesting after this many years. Also: Thom Yorke dancing.

The hardest-working band in late-night TV also made the year’s best hip-hop album: The Roots got into the concept-record business with Undun, and it’s dark, heavy, and worthy of dozens of repeat listens.

My friend Luther Russell made an ambitious move, releasing a full-on double album titled The Invisible Audience. It’s worth every second of its running time. From roots-rock to blues to power pop, this dude is a walking jukebox.

Ron Sexsmith consistently delivers great albums, and Long Player Late Bloomer was no exception.

Black Up, the debut release from Shabazz Palaces, was strange and savory, featuring some of the weirdest soundscapes in rap this year.

I’ve never been a huge fan of Paul Simon as a solo artist, but So Beautiful or So What is just stunning.

Strange Mercy, Annie Clark’s third album as St. Vincent, was another mix of orchestral textures, sick guitars, and one of my favorite voices in all of music.

The second tUnE-yArDs record, w h o k i l l, truly needs to be heard to be understood. Bursting with creativity. (And saxophones.)

Tom Waits made a triumphant return with Bad As Me, his first album of new material in seven years. It’s by turns beautiful and beastly, much like the man’s career as a whole. Easily ranks among his finest work.

Wand, from former Shudder to Think singer Craig Wedren, gets my vote for the year’s most criminally overlooked album.

The Whole Love was Wilco‘s most Wilco-y effort in a while, in that it had a little bit of everything that the band does well. Mostly, it was just a pretty record.

The self-titled debut from Wild Flag was everything that could be expected from a band that features members of Sleater-Kinney, Helium, and the Minders. Riffs galore.

Wye Oak‘s Civilians is just great indie-pop. And sometimes that’s all I need.

It’s almost a new year. I’m not about to say this was the best year ever, but I also can’t get behind everyone who’s saying it sucked. Personally, I got to play more music this year than probably any other year of my life, and that’s all I could ever wish for. I spent almost four months on the road in 2011. Joined a bunch of bands (and had one break up, but such is life). Released a new album, and got at least one more ready for the world. Met enough cool people to last several lifetimes. Not so bad, all in all. I welcome 2012 with open arms, in the hopes that all of these successes will multiply and flourish over the next 12 months.

Regarding touring: I had originally intended to blog thoughts and images from the road. Really, I did. But my spring solo tour came after three solid months of contacting bands and venues, booking and advancing shows, plus all the stuff that goes along with releasing a new record (album art, publicity, etc.). And my relationship with writing had been soured somewhat by a freelance job that owed me a ton of dough. The last thing I wanted to do was sit in front of my laptop and barf up more words. So I took a few months off. And then a few more months.

Then, the fall tour with The Morning After Girls came and went, and I realized I’d just been tweeting the whole time. Unfortunately, any kind of tour recap would be redundant, if not impossible, at this point. But I will say this: The stress and lifestyle of touring can bring you to your lowest point, but it can also lift you to your highest. Those high points are why I do this: the validation provided by someone shouting “yeah!” among the applause after a song; a sweet personal note on the mailing list after the show; the brief emotional plateau that comes from knowing you’re doing what you do at your best. Here’s hoping for another 50 tours.

Rather than wax nostalgic about individual moments–because that could take forever–I’m simply going to list the names of the people who made my 2011 a truly terrific year, whether they were integral to my creative growth or a super-fan who came to every local show, whether they lent a hand with load-in or let me crash on their sofa. The order is almost totally random. If I missed anyone, it was very much unintentional. It’s a very long list.

KFM, Ariel Hyatt, my brothers in the Morning After Girls (Sacha, Martin, Alex and E.J), Andrea Kremer, Keith Hosmer, Jason Schultz, J. McCarron, Adrian Cohen, Will McCranie, Seth Faulk, Jonathan Lam, Matt Krahula/Nightmare River Band, Rebecca Rosenkranz, Jason and Kevin and Derek (Soren Well), Adam Greenberg, Patrick Bower, Darren Will, Luther Russell, Mark Connor, Ben Karis-Nix, Eric Halder, Sarah Clark, Scott Smith, Terry McClain, Nathan Glass, Tom McWatters, Bob Buckley, Albie Von Schaaf, Tess Collins and all at McGeary’s, Brett Portzer, Ryan Slowey, Troy Pohl, Matt McWatters, Felipe Torres, Roger Paul Mason, Alan Foreman, Kristin Sidorak/Violet Trouper, Jody Stephens/Ardent, Joyce Linehan, Joe Pernice, Paul Melancon, The Black Tag, Josh Bloom/Fanatic Promotion, NBC10 in Philadelphia, WNYC, Eli Asher, Josh Henderson, Melissa Tong, Noah Hoffeld, Dan Loomis, Chicago Acoustic Undergound, Fearless Radio, Ninelle Efremova, The Hounds Below, Dead Meadow, Harper Blynn, Levi Weaver, Jennifer Gilson/The Living Room, The Deli magazine, Chris Cogott (love the cover tune), Phantogram, Prince, Billy and Maria Nicgorski/The Cobbs, Rob Campanella, Prescott Kagan, Sam Libretti, Adam Long, Chuck Oney and all at Bethel Road Pub, Alan Lewis, Bengt Aleksander and Action Camp, Anthony Johnson, Jason Falkner, Jen Raines, Christian Bland, Alex Maas, Louise and Jade and Rose in Tucson, Nadia Kazmi, Andrew Vehlies, Jimmy Gnecco, Eliza Hittman, Scott Cummings, Paranoid Social Club, Sloan, Chris and Dave at WEXT, Greg Haymes/Nippertown, Metroland, Billy Kekevian/PhillyVenues.org, Kuki/the Dearloves, Vintage Thrift, Make Music New York, Fifth Nation (Music and Julia), Elias/The Flying Eyes, Otis Taylor, David at the White Mule, Michael Jones/WUSC, Josh Roberts, Matt Gross/A Heart Is A Spade, Brett Rosenberg, Tom Pappas, Mike Caffrey, Converse Rubber Tracks, Lorna at the Listening Room, Hyoejin Yoon, Fiona Silver, Heather at the Triple, Mark Connor, Jay Martin, X-Ray Eyeballs, Eddie/Awendaw Green, David at Village Tavern in Charleston, Uncle Mountain, Janine at Lulu’s, Madeleine Wright, Fitz at Republic Coffee, Pam at the Naked Bean, Hanna Unverzagt, Laura Thomas/ComboPlate Booking, Caritas of Austin, Jen DaRe and ATN Showcase, Invisible Children, Charlene Kaye, Megan Cox, Damian David, Mike Giblin/Parallax Project, Craig Marshall, Jessie Torrisi, Backwords, SuperHappyFunLand (strangest venue ever), Becky Middleton, Megan Slankard, Tori Sparks, Aficionado, Summer People, Devin and all at Blackbird Buvette, Laura Baboulis, Lonna Marie/UGA, Casey Reed/Half Windsor, Jennifer at The Beat in LV, Mark Fribush(!), Ben at Hidden House, Keith Caruana, Ryan Lukas/The Big Nasty, all at the Motley/Scripps College, Lestat’s, Soda Bar, Sharon Van Etten, Marko Shafer/Hotel Cafe, David Poe, Bleu, Graham Colton, Shawn & Jen, Linnaea’s, David and Margeaux, Caitlin Roper, Taylen, Janis Logan and all at Vintage Wine, Julie Westlin-Naigus, Uncle Joe and Aunt Tammy, the folks from Bill’s in Yakima, Everyone in SLC, Mary Emrich (happy birthday!) and family, Walnut Room Pizzeria, Olivia & Kayla, all at Mercury Cafe, Dechen Hawk at Laughing Goat, Mule/The Longest Day of the Year, Steve Jamrozy/Side Door and Flat Iron in Omaha, The Humbugs, everyone at Cause, Taylor Dahlin, Vu/WeHeartMusic, all at Indie Coffee in Madison, Wisc., Alex and Kim and all of Suzuki Beane, Trolley, all at Brillobox, PGH Punk Rock Karaoke, Aamco in Pittsburgh, Margie Rosenkranz/The Eighth Step, Jenifer/Market Market Cafe, Amber Rubarth and Jim Bianco, Erin Pihlaja, Sean Rowe, Chris Cornell, Drome Sound, Filter magazine, Jay Space, Scott DiPatria, Rob Turner, Xemu Records, Spindrift, Troubadour Dali, Shawn/Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor, the Vandelles, Julian Woolsey/Perfect Prescription, Chloe Ryan, Anna Hergott, Heather Hennessey, Douglas Nelson, Millie/Sounds Australia, everyone at the Basement/Graveyard Tavern (ATL), Black Box Revelation.

You are champions, one and all. See you in 2012.

So, picking up where I left off: It’s the beginning of 1996, and the two other members of my band have just quit, leaving me a solo artist for the first time.

With the prize money from Norman’s participation in the TicketMaster Music Showcase, I purchased my first 4-track recorder, an Yamaha MT44D machine with a tape deck and mixing board (separate machines, mounted in a rack-style unit).

It was a monster, weighing about 20 or 25 pounds, and some kind of internal electronic glitch caused popping noises in about 80 percent of my recordings. But those recordings were instantly better than the ones I’d made on my old boombox. This also allowed me to exercise my one-man-band chops, as I was now able to overdub drums, guitars, keyboards, and vocals. I experimented with bouncing tracks back and forth to see how many guitars I could put on one song. The degradation in sound quality was noticeable, to say the least.

The solitude didn’t last long, though. I played a handful of open-mic nights and solo-acoustic gigs at local coffeehouses like Caffe Dolce, Norman’s old stomping ground. But within a few months I was itching to make rock music with a band again. On a lark, I got in touch with the guys from the band Nickel Social, who had appeared on the Bump Into Fate compilation with my old band. We had met a few months prior at one of the Paint Chip Records showcases; I recall being impressed by their drummer, Anthony, and thinking how I’d like to be in a band with him. As luck would have it, the guys were looking to make a fresh start with a new singer-songwriter. And so, after barely a season out of the game, I started a new band with Anthony, his brother Mike on bass, and John, the guitarist. We started playing shows within weeks, at first under the name Sucker. When I expressed my distaste with Sucker–a name which I had selected–Anthony demanded I at least write a song with that title. From there forward, the band was called Kid Dynamo, and “Sucker” was my mom’s favorite song.

Kid Dynamo’s time together was brief but productive. In June 1996, we cut a four-song demo tape at DMS Studio in Albany, in the basement of Arthur Scott Verner‘s Clinton Avenue home. (Scott was the bassist for soon-to-be Paint Chip darlings Queer For Astro Boy.)

We sold that tape at shows and handed it to whatever semi-famous rock bands came through town. But for all our efforts, things never really took off. I thought we had something going for us, but then it was only my second real band.

The whole time Kid Dynamo was active, I continued to regularly play the Thursday open-mic night at Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs (which I’d been doing since high school) as a solo artist–and still using the name Neon, which I’d adopted during my first year of college. It was there that I met some of the best songwriters I’d ever know, including a very young Brett Rosenberg (who was just as prolific and talented then as he is now), and Rich Baldes, whose voice and songwriting reminded me of March-era Michael Penn. (It didn’t hurt that he played a spotless cover of “No Myth” from time to time.)

At the start of 1997, I heard that Dominick from Paint Chip Records was planning another compilation, this time focusing on solo artists. Never lacking for ambition, I worked up a cassette of some non-Kid Dynamo songs I’d been working on and mailed it off to him–just some simple vocal-and-acoustic things played into a hand-held tape recorder. He chose the two songs we ended up recording (“Remains of a Heart” and “Struck Out”), and the following month we returned to Hyland Recording in Albany to put them down on glorious 2-inch tape. The rush to the studio was because I had to have my tonsils removed soon after, and I was paranoid about what might happen to my voice. (Never once did I consider that it might improve!) The recording of those songs was one of my favorite studio experiences–Dominick and I worked extremely quickly and creatively, and the results still stand up to anything I’ve done since. (Though I’d probably re-track a few vocals if I could.)

Because of my impending surgery, Kid Dynamo went dormant for a little while. For good, actually. I had been wanting to replace our guitarist for a little while, and the break seemed like a good opportunity to do so. Meantime, I’d become interested in starting a band with another songwriter. I phoned Rich Baldes, who I’d met at Caffe Lena the previous summer, and suggested he join the three of us in the band. What I didn’t know until later is that, while I was at home drinking milkshakes, he had cut a few songs for the Paint Chip compilation with my drummer, Anthony. Small world.

And so, the Explosives were born. As a collaborative effort, the band got off to a strong start–Rich and I wrote a few songs together right away, the first co-writing I’d done since one or two songs in high school. We got some decent gigs opening for touring acts at the Albany clubs, and a bunch of solid local press followed.

Late that summer, Sink Into Solo was released, and Rich’s and my songs, respectively, opened the disc. (Those were followed by a pair of tracks by Brett Rosenberg, one of which I co-produced.)

We also recorded a bunch of 4-track demos in my parents’ basement, which we used as a means to secure out-of-town gigs in New York and Boston. One memorable NYC gig had us at the world-famous CBGB on New Year’s Day, coincidentally on the same bill as our Albany colleagues, the Vodkasonics.

The following spring, we returned to DMS to track a four-song EP. (The two songs on which I sing lead are available on Young Man Volume One.) It took several sessions to get the songs sounding right, but we were proud of the end product and excited to finish and release it that fall. And the gigs were getting better: In September, we scored an opening gig for indie-rockers Lotion at legendary NYC club Brownie’s, followed by a hometown bill with the great power-pop bands Sloan and You Am I. Unfortunately, the latter would be our final performance. Some petty personal nonsense got between me and Rich, and just as quickly as it had gotten off the ground, the Explosives crash-landed. Rich went on to form another great pop band, the Day Jobs (with Mike, the Explosives/Kid Dynamo bassist). Eventually we made nice, and I even spent some time playing guitar in his new band. Life is full of surprises.

After the Explosives split, I swore off rock bands for a while, played some solo gigs here and there, and then started working on Tiger Pop in July 1999.

And that’s basically the ’90s in a nutshell. (A suitcase-sized nutshell, anyway.) The Internet will tell you the rest.

For more about Young Man Volume One, check it out on Bandcamp.

I released a new album this weekend.

Young Man, Volume One is a collection of studio recordings I made with my early rock bands between 1994 and 1998. It’s a bunch of tracks pulled from different compilations, demos, and unfinished projects. There’s a long blurb on the album’s Bandcamp page that explains the motives and production details behind the album. What follows should explain these years in more detail.

I played drums in a few bands during high school. For one of them, Love Buckets, I wrote and sang a few of the original songs that we played in between AC/DC and Alice in Chains covers. We even recorded an “album” on a borrowed 4-track machine.

But Norman was my first real band.

The summer after my first year away at college, I got a phone call from a high-school friend. She asked if I knew anyone who might want to try singing with her friends’ band. I joked that I’d be into it–the joke being that I’d never fronted a band before. There was much laughter on both ends of the line.  But I kept it in mind, and at the end of the conversation I circled back around to the idea. Within the week I was standing in a garage in Burnt Hills, New York, with three total strangers, attempting to be a lead singer and guitarist in a rock band when I had no real experience doing either. I remember we played “Molly’s Lips,” the Vaselines song as covered by Nirvana on the Incesticide LP, about 30 times because it had two chords and lasted about 95 seconds. We jammed on a few ideas of theirs, and a few of mine. It went well. We decided we would play again.

The name, Norman, was branded soon after. I once said in a radio interview that it came to me in the shower. Allow me to de-romanticize the story: It’s not the name of my schlong. Rather, I had the thought of giving the band a proper name, to be just a little quirky, and this came from sounding out different ideas. Maybe I was trying to discover a name that had just enough of the same letters as Nirvana to look and sound familiar. And hey, quirky was in at the time: Weezer’s Blue Album was Norman’s bible.

I wrote a bunch of songs and brought in a few more from my past (“I Believe” was originally a Love Buckets song), and we started playing out soon after. Dan, the original second guitarist, left the band after just a few gigs–I don’t think he actually quit, more like he took some time off and never came back. Meanwhile, Randy (bass) and Dave (drums) learned songs almost as fast as I was writing them, and we quickly had a full set of original material. In December 1994 we went to Hyland Recording in the big city of Albany for our first studio session, a four-hour block of live recording that yielded our first four-song demo tape.

People responded. Putting it all in perspective, a shitload of cool things happened to us that year. The very first review of our demo was a glowing piece by Steve Ferguson (now known as Stephen Clair) in perhaps the best independent music publication Albany ever had, Buzzz. We got airplay and played live on several area radio stations, and cut a TV segment for a public-access show in Vermont. We even got noticed by Dominick Campana, whose Paint Chip Records was the preeminent local alternative-rock label. We were invited to be on his forthcoming compilation CD, the third in a well-publicized series.

We cut our two songs for the compilation (“Tourniquet” and “Over My Grave”) that July, back again at Hyland Recording, but this time on the 24-track, 2-inch tape machine. Norman was just a duo for this session, as Randy had to leave town suddenly. I played all the bass and guitar parts while wearing a wrist brace–because I’d fractured my hand being a jackass a few weeks prior–yet somehow I avoided having any major performance problems. Dave nailed his parts like a total pro, right down to the wood block (it was used to simulate the rim shots in “Tourniquet”). I loved being able to multi-track and harmonize my vocals–I had attempted stacking vocal tracks in my home-recording experiments, but never with such fidelity and possibility. It felt great.

Meanwhile I had submitted our demo to as many of the various showcases and festivals as I could find, and we made the cut for the first round of the TicketMaster Music Showcase, at Bogie’s in Albany that September. There were A&R reps from a few major labels at the show–labels still had A&R back then–and they apparently liked us because we were advanced to the semifinal round. In Tampa, Florida. All expenses paid. Holy. Shit. Dude.

We played a bunch of shows on our home turf that fall, from Paint Chip showcases at Valentine’s to acoustic shows at Caffe Dolce in Schenectady, our regular hang and the site of the first Norman shows. Then in November, we boarded a jet plane and headed to Tampa–Ybor City, specifically–for the Ticketmaster semifinals. We shared the stage with a bunch of great bands, including Goud’s Thumb from Portland, Maine, and a Florida band called Bloom, which we found funny because Albany’s chief alt-rock act at the time was also called Bloom. And we got to “rub elbows” with some “industry people.” It was a lot to take in for three kids from the suburbs.

We didn’t win the showcase–I recall being down during and after the show, probably because of a muffed note that nobody outside our band would have noticed–but I think the exposure to the industry and the thrill of playing such a prestigious event got to me. Something big could happen for the band if we just worked our tails off. I was certain of this. On the flipside, and in retrospect, I was hugely ambitious and difficult and not terribly self-aware. I figured we could be signed within a year if I just wrote more songs and pushed the guys extra hard. (In those first few post-Cobain years, that really wasn’t so far-fetched. After all, Candlebox had a hit record.)

So that’s what I did. I pushed and pushed and pushed. I booked more gigs, wrote more songs, expected more and more out of my bandmates, and never stopped to see where their heads were at.

We returned home from Tampa and immediately played the release party for Bump Into Fate, the Paint Chip comp, at the old QE2. This show sticks out because, as I recall, we played one of our best sets. I’m also fairly certain that was the night I first met John Delehanty, with whom I’d later record Tiger Pop and part of Mix Tape. (He’s the only QE2 soundguy I can remember.) After that, there were just a few more gigs on the calendar before the new year.

But the tension between me and my bandmates was growing. Eventually it was bound to break. I had developed a nasty habit of pointing out mistakes onstage, and at what would be the final Norman show, at Valentine’s in late December 2005, I said some stupid shit on the microphone about some missed bass notes. As we were about to exit the stage, Randy threw his instrument into the air, watching as it fell and smashed on the tiled concrete floor below. It was the end of the band, and the last time all three of us were in the same room. (Coincidentally this was the same gig where I met the band Nickel Social, from which I’d poach three members to form Kid Dynamo some months later.)

Dave and Randy and I were just a bunch of kids, and kids tend to treat each other like crap. There is no doubt I was a jerk to my bandmates on numerous occasions, in the supposed name of music. Randy’s unease was visible for some time, but I never bothered to ask him about it. I was too busy worrying about my own universe, while Randy bottled up emotion until it was unbearable. I remember saying to him, immediately after the bass-smashing incident, something along the lines of “I hope you plan to have that fixed by next week.” Which is a shitty thing to say in that situation. But all I could think about was the next show. Because that show could be the one where something big happens to our band. Because the band was the only thing in the world that mattered to me–even if it destroyed a friendship.

I’m reflecting especially deeply on this right now, not only because I’ve been listening to Norman’s music ad infinitum for the last few weeks, but because I’ve just this week had to leave a band for basically the same reasons Randy left mine. Playing music is supposed to be fun. It’s about connecting with one or more people, and finding common ground through sound and rhythm. But when one band member is a total control freak, the whole thing gets too mechanical. It stops being about a connection and becomes more about routine. And when those control issues extend beyond sonic and aesthetic decisions and begin to manifest themselves in abusive language or behavior, it’s damaging to the project and everyone around it. It doesn’t matter how good that person is, or how good they think they are; that person is unhealthy to be around, and the high road is to get the hell away from the toxic situation as quickly as possible. In this case, it was a stubborn-headed guitarist who refused to accept responsibility for his actions, and who lashed out at whoever tried to call him on his bullshit. That’s probably what Randy thought about me at the end of Norman. Life’s got a funny way of making its point.

Anyway, it’s never fun to quit a band, but this time the decision was easy because the majority of us were in agreement: Stand back and let the guy burn bridges. Time has proven that those of use who want to move on to better things, will, and hopefully the bridge-burner will learn from this experience.

I know I did.

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I’ll jump back into the 1990s for volume 2.0 very soon. In the meantime, does anyone want to hire a drummer?

Below is an essay, for lack of a better word, that I wrote about the lead-up and making of Tiger Pop Ten. It’s half-history lesson, half explanation of motive. You’ll see parts of this borrowed for various press releases and biographies, but this is the full text. Hoist your reading glasses!

- – -

It started as a joke. (Sort of.)

When I recorded my first solo album, Tiger Pop, between the summers of 1999 and 2000, I set out to make the best record I could, to reproduce the sounds and ideas in my head as accurately as possible. I played all of the instruments myself out of stubbornness, but also out of necessity. I guess I thought I had something to prove—after years of making 4-track demos in my parents’ basement and burning through three bands with little more than a handful of demo tapes to show, I felt it was the time to put it all out there.

But I hadn’t given much thought to how the songs would be reproduced in concert. When the album was released, the solo-acoustic arrangements of these now rather lushly orchestrated songs were enough to get me by on the club circuit and gather some steam in the local press, but it seemed obvious that the songs needed a rhythm section to really come across live. So I went recruiting.

Keith Hosmer and I had been friends for a few years and we had a fair amount of common ground musically, and he and I started working out some songs on two guitars. My then-girlfriend worked with a kid who claimed to play bass; Ryan Battle joined us, and stayed in the quartet version of the band until late 2002. The newly minted Suggestions played one gig (the Tiger Pop CD release in Dec. 2000) with a dude Keith only ever referred to as Drummer Guy—and then that guy vanished. Literally: He left armloads of drum hardware at the practice space but we never heard from him again. (We heard later that he’d left town for a family emergency and simply did not return. It happens.)

I met Jason Schultz at a gig at the old Lark Tavern the following month. He and Keith had a gig with the funk band they played with on the side, and they asked me to play a warm-up set. As soon as I finished, Jay approached me and handed me his business card (“Jason Schultz, Drums”). Within weeks he knew every beat of every song and had purchased a vintage Ludwig kit to be more like Ringo. You just can’t say no to a guy like that.

As we played together and became better friends, we would often kid around about re-recording Tiger Pop. Having the Hosmer-Schultz rhythm section (Keith moved to bass when Ryan left) behind these tunes gave them a new life. Some grooved differently, while others sounded like entirely different songs. To cut a new version of the record would have been cost-prohibitive (and kind of uncalled for, right?) but it was an attractive idea—it certainly appealed to the part of me that doesn’t know how to settle on “finished.” The idea stuck in the back of my mind, and we even briefly experimented with such a project when we re-recorded “Changing Your Mind” for the Suggestions Mix Tape EP. At some point I said that we would redo the full album someday for the Platinum Edition, and that was that.

The Suggestions cut an album in 2004, the story of which warrants an essay (or more) of its own. We played our last gig in 2007 after three years of only intermittent activity. Keith relocated to Chicago, Jay to Denver, and I got married and moved to New York with my new band, Maggie Mayday, in tow—only to see the band splinter soon after. Another one bites the dust.

By early 2010, Tiger Pop had been out of print for nearly five years. I had long promised myself (and whoever reads my tweets or blogs or what have you) that I would reissue the album for its tenth birthday. I set about trying to make this happen by setting up a campaign with fund-raising website Pledge Music. My original plan was to tack a few lost tracks and new recordings onto the original disc. I had always wanted to try adding string accompaniment to a few tunes, especially “Masterpiece,” which wasn’t originally on Tiger Pop but was written just as the album was completed. (I had always considered it more of a piece with that album than Mix Tape, where it originally appeared.)

Roughly around the same time I launched the Pledge campaign, I got a call from Jay, saying he’d be back in the Northeast for a few weeks in the summer. We discussed the idea of doing a Suggestions show and possibly some recording. I batted the idea to Keith, who seemed into it. I booked a show, as well as a few days at our friend Brett Portzer’s studio in Albany. Brett’s involvement was a natural fit: He helped put together the original Tiger Pop artwork, and recorded and/or mixed a number of Suggestions tracks over the years.

In July, we got together at Jay’s old house in Vermont to rehearse for our long weekend, and we sounded as good as ever, if not better. After playing our first show in three years we headed to Brett’s place with just a few songs in mind. Quickly, we got on a roll—thanks to my ability to function on little or no sleep, and to engineer Ryan Slowey’s incredible patience, I left town a few days later with eight songs all but finished. The music was coming with a natural ease. The strange goal of making a new Tiger Pop was within reach; this idea we thought of as a goof so many years prior was coming to fruition. And while the Pledge campaign didn’t raise quite as much as I’d hoped, it was almost made up for by Brett allowing me to basically live in his studio for next to nothing. Can’t thank him enough.

In September, I booked a session in New York with Jenn McCarron and Meghan Tully, the rhythm section from Maggie Mayday. We recorded the remaining three Tiger Pop songs in one afternoon. Adrian Cohen, who I had worked with on a number of previous projects, agreed to record some piano and arrange the string parts I’d been dreaming about. A few favors were called in from musical acquaintances, to add some color here and there. The estimable Troy Pohl, a close friend who I’d worked with on an as-yet-unreleased new record, said he’d mix and master the project.

This time, I could say we made it. Tiger Pop Ten is a celebration of the musical and personal relationships that went into it, something we can all share as a reminder of our time together. And as indulgent as it seems, it’s in no way meant as a replacement for the original record. It just so happened that we were able to make this quickly and cheaply, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. It’s just another step on the long path.

Coincidentally, it ended up being a damn good record. Without road maps (the original Tiger Pop sessions were quite carefully plotted) the songs found their own identities. They’re still part of my DNA, but they’ve also become their own beings. The rhythmic shifts, the changes in phrasing, the occasional altered lyric—all of those things were what the songs called for at this time. A great deal of what you hear on Tiger Pop Ten is what was played live in the room(s), while the vocal tracks were largely first or second takes, with minimal fussing.

So here you have it—them, rather. Two different versions of the same album: one recorded over 12 long months by an ambitious 20-something looking to make something of himself; the other recorded in a few weekends by a group of friends whose collective talents made everything a breeze. Maybe we’ll do it again in 10 years.

JB

Jan. 2011

So, I was hanging with my friend Adam last week in Chinatown. He told me he had submitted his latest record to the Music Genome Project–known better by its public face, Pandora Radio–and he was curious to see what artists their complex mathematical equations would link to his music. I told him that my latest record, Get Through, was on Pandora, and naturally he went to his iPhone to see what my name would bring up.

Now, I’ll be honest–I’ve done this before. In the past, I’d found that my “station” would play me (obviously), ’70s arena-rock (Frampton!), and some deeply obscure power-pop and geek-rock acts. (FWIW, without Pandora, I might never have heard Bowling For Soup’s “My Wena.”) The complexity of Pandora’s equations always befuddles me; their Prince station recently played Rick James‘ “Give It To Me Baby” (sure), followed by an Earth Wind & Fire track (I get it) and Christopher Cross‘ funktastic 1979 jam “Sailing” (wait, what?!)

So I warned Adam as to what he might expect. Sure enough, after one track from Get Through, we got a live track from Kansas, followed by an obscure power-pop band (I didn’t write it down, sorry), and a solo tune by Vince Neil. As in, Motley Crue facelift frontman Vince Neil.

I’ve never been so excited about being linked to another artist. Not because I’m any great fan of the man’s work, but because I love the idea of some unwitting Motley Crue fan having the exact same “wait, what?!” moment when one of my tracks comes up on their personalized Pandora.

The song? Studio-polished rock-radio fare. But on closer inspection, we noticed that it was accompanied by possibly the worst album cover art ever:

“It looks like a liquor ad,” said Adam.

But wait, there’s more. Tattoos and Tequila is an album of cover songs, we discovered. (Plus two originals, one of which was the bland modern-rock tune we heard that evening.) And it comes with an alternate cover, just as awful as the first.

But wait, again: Turns out the CD accompanies a new, “tell-all” autobiography by Mr. Neil, that bears the same title as the disc. (Or vice versa. Whatevs.)

Which leads me to wonder if Vince has ever read The Dirt, especially considering he “co-wrote” it. How do you out-tell-all that?

So, to anyone who accidentally came across my music via Pandora (and especially via the Vince Neil station), welcome! The hair-metal section is right over here.

I’m in the throes of tour booking. Currently planning a spring trip that will be my longest ever–down the East Coast and through the Southeast, a week in Austin for SXSW, across to Los Angeles for a bit, up the West Coast, and back across the states. If anyone wants to help book a show or a house concert, please get in touch.

Sending out dozens and dozens of booking e-mails also means staying up way too late and watching old horror movies. Tonight’s selection is Italian director Lucio Fulci‘s 1981 zombie gorefest The Beyond (aka Seven Doors of Death). I really wasn’t all that freaked out until the tarantulas started eating the dude’s face. (The scene is on YouTube. Look it up. I’m not about to make you watch it.)

The trailer from the recent US DVD release is below. The original trailer isn’t embeddable, but you can see it here. (Warning: It’s rather graphic.) If you’re a fan of gratuitous gore, this is about as good as it gets. They don’t call Fulci the “king of the eyeball gag” for nothing.

I spent a good chunk of the 1990s listening to the music of Matthew Sweet, and another significant chunk trying to ape his songwriting style. Regardless of whether I ever succeeded at that, Matthew was, and still is, a huge influence on my work.

And now he makes pottery.

Thanks to Steven Page for the tip. Now go buy his album.