This is the jacket I wore for most of the days I recorded my E.P. No Regrets. Every morning putting it on was a reminder to trust my creativity and it served as a comfort item during the long days. Hopefully it can do the same for another creative in the future. I hand-painted this size large jacket in my garage, a few weeks before we recorded the record , right after I finalized the cover design of the three-shape logo. The E.P. features four songs, Algebra, No Regrets, Dodgeball, and Party On A Yacht. Three of the songs are represented by shapes, with the Blue triangle being the yacht, the red circle being the dodgeball, and the green square being the calculator. Then I painted the E.P. title, No Regrets in white. Lastly, I wrote each of the song's names on the bottom of the jacket, including my song Split which I originally thought would be the fifth song, but later decided to release separately. Split was represented by the lines going through all the shapes. This piece is very important to me it is a tangible representation of the project I am most proud of. Every time I see, or wear it I am brought back to the recording sessions of the project.

This is a hand painted and silkscreened show poster by artist Sam Farrell onto which I penciled notation for a few of the melodies on the record.

I kept this empty Hennessy bottle from Naughty by Nature’s Daytrotter session. I’d never bought Hennessy and still don’t know its taste. I flew the legendary group in for a pre-Christmas charity show at Rock Island Brewing Company to fund winter beds and coats for in need area families. They only asked for flights and hotels and played for free, which still amazes me. They brought this bottle to the Sunday recording session—maybe it started full, maybe not. Vinny, a die-hard Giants fan, got visibly upset during the game over his Giants on the field performance and might’ve polished it off because of that. It wasn’t me. Now I’ve got the intact bottle and cap as a souvenir.

Here's a test pressing of Budos Band VII, our 7th album. Our friends at Vinyl Ceremony produced the entire vinyl run and supplied these test pressings. We pulled a handful aside to create custom artwork on the normally blank white label in the center. Our drummer and percussionist teamed up on the illustrations; this copy features a skull hand-drawn by our percussionist, Rich Terrana.

The Ghostnote. The in-betweens. The absolutely essential, yet uncelebrated means to the end. I have always felt more comfortable working in a behind the scenes role. I feel that I am a bit of a ghostnote myself. I have been working on what is now Ghostnote for the last 20 years - I didn't know it at the time, but it's clear to me now. I’ve always felt drawn to helping improve the creative experience for my friends. In 2020 when everything shut down, my musician friends suffered the most. Digital platforms thrived, and some of my friends saw success. But we all missed that real-world connection. I dabbled in interesting new technologies, like immersive audio and digital collectibles, but never felt really strongly about those mediums. That dabbling made it clear to me what was missing - something tangible you could hold in your hands while experiencing a moment. This is exactly what has made the vinyl medium a classic, and still relevant today. I've loved being there. Those recording sessions when the music comes together - that sticky mojo. I’ve never been able to fully describe or manufacture that mojo, it just happens when people get together, and make things matter. Lyric sheets, broken drumsticks and music video props - I've discarded so many things we've taken for granted - something tangible, unique and personal, tied to that mojo moment. The Ghostnote hat is me drinking my own kool-aid. It's me looking back at all of the hard work my friends and I have put into this creative life. The messy means we experienced are surely something else, when you hold them in your hands, realizing what they collectively became.

This is a sound/sculpture collaboration I did with ceramicist Nicky Kriara from our installation “Sandness: Between Land and Sea”. It was a week long artist residency at the Sou’Wester Lodge in Seaview, WA where I composed pieces that lived inside each ceramic piece, as well as a soundscape that played during the installation. The exhibit was based on inspiration from looking at grains of sand through a microscope. Included is a mini media player loaded with the compositions. (Headphones not included.)

I launched Daytrotter on this heavy white 2007 Apple laptop. For about five years every band email, 4,000 essays, and all behind-the-scenes work in Rock Island came from it. It’s now dead, but its worn keys, crumbs, and coffee stains mark a unique piece of Daytrotter history—I always run laptops until they die, and there’s only one of these.

This is a #1 of 5 test pressing of The Budos Band’s 4th full-length album “Burnt Offering.” The handwritten description on the sleeve focuses on the first track “Into The Fog.” Overall, this was an incredibly important album for us and a real turning point for the band creatively. We recorded it over the summer of 2013 and it was the first record that we recorded on our own, outside of the Daptone’s House of Soul and the production and tutelage of Gabe Roth. It was self-produced (with Tommy Brenneck taking the lead of course), recorded at Dunham Studios on South 11th Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

This is the jacket I wore for most of the days I recorded my E.P. No Regrets. Every morning putting it on was a reminder to trust my creativity and it served as a comfort item during the long days. Hopefully it can do the same for another creative in the future. I hand-painted this size large jacket in my garage, a few weeks before we recorded the record , right after I finalized the cover design of the three-shape logo. The E.P. features four songs, Algebra, No Regrets, Dodgeball, and Party On A Yacht. Three of the songs are represented by shapes, with the Blue triangle being the yacht, the red circle being the dodgeball, and the green square being the calculator. Then I painted the E.P. title, No Regrets in white. Lastly, I wrote each of the song's names on the bottom of the jacket, including my song Split which I originally thought would be the fifth song, but later decided to release separately. Split was represented by the lines going through all the shapes. This piece is very important to me it is a tangible representation of the project I am most proud of. Every time I see, or wear it I am brought back to the recording sessions of the project.

This is a hand painted and silkscreened show poster by artist Sam Farrell onto which I penciled notation for a few of the melodies on the record.

I kept this empty Hennessy bottle from Naughty by Nature’s Daytrotter session. I’d never bought Hennessy and still don’t know its taste. I flew the legendary group in for a pre-Christmas charity show at Rock Island Brewing Company to fund winter beds and coats for in need area families. They only asked for flights and hotels and played for free, which still amazes me. They brought this bottle to the Sunday recording session—maybe it started full, maybe not. Vinny, a die-hard Giants fan, got visibly upset during the game over his Giants on the field performance and might’ve polished it off because of that. It wasn’t me. Now I’ve got the intact bottle and cap as a souvenir.

Here's a test pressing of Budos Band VII, our 7th album. Our friends at Vinyl Ceremony produced the entire vinyl run and supplied these test pressings. We pulled a handful aside to create custom artwork on the normally blank white label in the center. Our drummer and percussionist teamed up on the illustrations; this copy features a skull hand-drawn by our percussionist, Rich Terrana.