On the Cusp -1/22/97
Another song that I could have easily forgotten about -- but listening to it again recently made me think it was worth unearthin.' Not the kind of thing I normally do -- maybe that's why I like it now.

Fish -11/16/97
It was a dry year as songwriting goes. But this tune is a winner, I think. I like this: "open up your mouth and everything comes out; your half-digested version of everything that ever was." The main guitar part for the whole song is three tiny notes -- yet, as simple as the part is, it's not easy to play the same short figure over and over for five minutes straight. More songs started coming after this; many still don't deserve to see the light of the day, though...

I remember doing a lot of my four-tracking, including this song, in Keeta Speed's (the band I was in at the time) basement rehearsal space on Hester Street in the Lower East Side. That place was crawling with giant cockroaches.

Sad But True -12/20/97
It took about two years to get into my songwriting groove after moving to NYC (so much stimuli to absorb!). This was the first inspired song I'd written in over a year and it opened the door to a bunch of other pretty good songs that would come out of me in '98. I love all the hard-panned guitars.