Crazy Nephews
My brother, Christofer, called Sunday morning.
"Dude, is there any way you can watch the boys this afternoon?" he asked breathlessly. Jen took Ella to the hospital. I'm running up there to meet her."
My pointer finger was on their Upper West Side buzzer fifteen minutes later. I could hear Ethan and Edward's tiny feet scurry on the hardwood above me as I climbed the four flights of stairs. I knocked on the door to the sound of giggles. The door swung open mysteriously to an empty hallway.
"Boo!"
The boys leapt from behind the ...
Golden Slumbers
Last night, just before her eyes turned heavy after her traditional page and a half of reading, I slipped a pair of Sony headphones onto Abbi's belly, and pushed play.
I was running two hours behind my "Forever Young" recording schedule when singer/songwriter Misty Boyce finally took her seat at the piano. She banged out "Morning Has Broken" with just seconds of practice in three takes. Moments later, we began recording our cover of The Beatles, "Golden Slumbers."
"Do you think I'll be hung in effigy if I added an extra chorus?" I ...
… But Now I See
Jamie Leonhart and I arrived to our "Forever Young" recording session a few minutes early, so set out for a cup of coffee.
The sun was broken free of the weekend's snow-choked clouds. The trickle of melting snow hummed beneath the rumble of passing subways, far off-music and a faint inkling that birds were beginning to return from their winter hideouts.
Galuminum Foil Studio sits at a crossroads of Brooklyn neighborhoods south of Williamsburg's newly-gentrified lofts and studios, north of Bed-Stuy's Marcy Projects, and west of Bushwick. ...
“Forever Young” LP Due This Fall
I began recording my eighth studio LP (and sixteen solo album overall), "Forever Young," Saturday night in Brooklyn. The ten-song LP is scheduled for a fall release.
Though the idea behind this new record gestated slowly, it ultimately came together pretty quickly. It starts, I guess, with Ethan.
My brother's first son, Ethan, was born seven years ago this June. I was eager to expose him to the joy of making music from the start. I bought him bongos, a piano and guitar all by his first birthday. Few things have made me happier in ...
The Wave
Funny story from Dominican Republic. Sort of.
Our hotel, Casa Colonial, was wedged in the middle of Playa Dorado, a World Bank-funded hotel, golf course and mall development roughly half-way between the Puerto Plata Airport, and Puerto Plata itself. Again, I can't say enough nice things about the hotel itself, and particularly the staff. Playa Dorado, was oddly-contrived (horse-drawn carriages to shuttle pedestrians the literally dozens of feet between hotels, for example) and antiseptic, though. It took me less than twelve hours to ...
Baby, Light My Way
The twenty-week ultrasound is the big one; organs are measured, digits are counted, gender is determined (if you're interested in that sort of information).
Our appointment at New York-Presbyterian (the neonatal unit is located in the historic Lying-In Hospital dating back to 1799) loomed large on our calendar for weeks. That it marked the edge of our long-planned "Babymoon" -- one week in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic booked long before that island shook in sympathy with Haiti -- only added to its heft.
My brother encouraged us to ...
“Hope For Haiti Now” Behind The Scenes
Some twenty-four hours after its original airing, and some 150 miles from the earthquake's actual epicenter, I finally watched the "Hope For Haiti Now" telethon.
Like most of these sorts of live productions, it's rare that I actually see the event itself.
Friday night, I was at Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, one of four locations for this ambitious, last-minute, charitable broadcast. MTV News was conducting interviews in New York, Los Angeles and London, then serving them unbugged, unflagged and unbranded to the world's press. ...
“A Holiday Benefit, Vol. 3″ Release Party Is Tonight!
Twelve hours from now, "A Holiday Benefit, Vol. 3" will be in full swing at Pianos! Which is a good thing; I don't think I have the energy to do yesterday over.
I tucked all sorts of small tasks into my already busy day at The MTV: gathering 826NYC materials, a final email to all of the performers, lyric sheets for our big finale ("Christmas Is The Time To Say I Love You," what else?).
At 7:45, I raced straight from work to Sirius Radio headquarters there across from Radio City Music Hall. I spent about fifteen minutes on air with ...
“A Holiday Benefit, Vol. 3″ Video Premiere
Comprising twelve tracks from some of New York City's finest emerging artists, "A Holiday Benefit, Vol 3" is a seasonal charity compilation spanning the delicate (Bess Rogers' "Little Saint Nick”) to the downright bombastic (Bryan Dunn's "Don't Believe In Christmas") with a dash of holiday hilarity (Casey Shea's "The Chipmunks Song”) in-between.
In addition, the contributing artists deliver a raucous cover of Billy Squier's classic, "Christmas Is The Time To Say I Love You."
The charity CD release party is set for December 16th at ...
Serious (Christmas) Business, Baby
There's a chance I may be getting overly confident in our collective abilities, but we always seem to pull it off.
I've only been in the studio twice this year, in both cases recording cover songs for compilations albums. In May, the guys and I covered The Nadas' "Feel Like Home" for the band's fifteenth anniversary "Crystalline" album.
Yesterday, Chris, Tony, Ryan and I repaired to Serious Business Studios once again, this time to track our "A Holiday Benefit, Vol. 3" contributions: Chris was tracking The Ramones' "Merry Christmas (I ...
