The Trip to Sonic Ranch

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The First Album: Rolling Stone

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Here’s a link to the album: https://open.spotify.com/album/1zvsrwVznYIHwDRah2G4RZ?si=x8aykK_GSB-6er74szpF-A I’m in the studio at Sonic Ranch right now and I sat Colby down and asked him his version of the decision to make that first album. Turns out it’s a lot like my version. We were at Bucer’s in the late summer of 2019, post gig. Not drunk but we drink a reasonable amount at every gig to stay loose. Combine that with the tired satisfaction of just sitting down after finishing, before breakdown. He says I was adamant about touring (I don’t remember being that adamant, but I am an engineer and terrible at gentle communication. With me it’s all blunt force trauma verbiage).  Me: “Let’s tour.” Colby: “Not without an album.” Me: “So let’s make an album.” Colby: “Ok.” It’s basically us sitting there double daring each other into an album.  Great. How, and where do we make an album? It’s really weird how providence works.  Colby was at his buddy Alex’s bachelor party (a Beta ...
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The Groove

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I've been asked a few times to explain why Colby's song "If I Were the Devil" is getting more than 6 times more listens than his second best song "Dying Breed". Likewise, I've wondered why Colby's second album is getting so much more traction than his third or fourth albums, even though the third and fourth cost much more to make and have had the benefit of so much more media funding. The second album cost only $2k to produce and has probably made more than $500,000 in streaming income.  The third cost $20k and only "Honky Tonk Kevin" is in his top ten list of songs currently being listened to.  The fourth album cost around $150k and none of the songs have entered the top 3 on Colby's listens list, even though they have received enormous advertising benefit.   I've contemplated this question for almost two years.  At first, my vanity lead me to believe that it was my input in post production on the second album that made the differe...
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Finally Learning How to Play

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By this time I'd been thumping along for a few years now and had played in a small variety of bands. Then along came Simba What can I say about Simba.  His name is actually Humphrey.  He called himself Simba because it suited him better.  He was raised in Kenya and schooled in English schools -- highly educated and spoke English far better than almost everyone in Idaho.  A genuinely beautiful man with his lanky, Jimmy Hendrix-ish frame, rich coffee colored skin, perfect ball-shaped afro and an impeccably trimmed beard after the Greek fashion that came to a flat point an inch below his chin.  When Simba first looked at you, you were sure you were the only human in the world that mattered to him at that moment.  Quite a presence. Paul introduced me to Simba, who was looking for a bassist.  At the time I only had the big blue acoustic, so that's what we went with.  Just me, Simba playing guitar, and Paul on the mandolin at first.  It took ...
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