Hi everyone and welcome to my new website!

Since familiarity with graphic design is not one of my many talents, I got our wonderful Jonny Kui (who most of you probably know as the honorary Bering Strait member) to create this hang out place for us. Thank you Jonny for being such a great friend!

I’m so excited that the album is finally ready and pressed! It took two years of relaxed and pleasurable labor and sometimes I think that we let it go on for so long because everyone enjoyed the process so much. Anyway, I wanted to talk a little bit about the work that went into it and about the people who made this album a reality because the space for the “thank you's” on the back of the album cover is always too small.

I’m gonna start with my friend and musical guardian angel, Kathy Sacra-Anderson. This album was her BABY from the very first note to the very last letter on the cover. (She put way more energy into it than I did) Musicians often need a push when it comes to taking their thoughts and making them tangible and Kathy was the person who provided a generous kick (and many more) that jump started “Cheap Escape.”  She single-handedly organized everything that had to do with getting my publishers Ray and Doug Johnson interested in funding this project, picking the songs, finding the musicians and booking the studios. Then, she sat in the control booth when I sang and played, encouraging and giving friendly advice. It’s safe to say that without Kathy’s enthusiasm I wouldn’t have a reason to be typing this right now.

 We were fortunate to find just the right musicians for the project. Strangely enough, these incredibly talented people who have played with everyone and seem to have heard every note in every possible combination, found my songs interesting and got excited and created magic that I just can’t describe. I remember driving home from the very last tracking session (I think it was in early March of 2007) after recording the instrumentals for “Cheap Escape”,  “Dear Diary”,  “Something I Never Knew About Love”, “Fatal One Day”, and “Real Fight” and thinking that I would buy these tracks if I heard them playing in some music store, just as they were ― they were that awesome! Tommy Harden, Alison Prestwood, Billy Panda, Bob Britt and Michael Rojas gave me a wonderful gift that day― I heard the music I had always vaguely imagined somewhere in that space between my guitar and my voice, coming out of the speakers of my Chevy. Then there was this incredible part that Steven Sheehan played on “Matches” that I will never figure out and all those magical moments scattered through the album courtesy of Chris Leuzinger, Mike Noble and Gary Prim. Thank you guys, for taking me and my music seriously!

 Then, of course we had to mix and master the whole thing. I’d sneak into the studio for yet another listen with my not-yet-two-year-old in tow and watch Dave Mathews patiently endure her attempts to rearrange the faders on the mixing board, Needless to say, it took us a couple of months but at least now we know that loud noises are not harmful to little children…Dave applied his own creativity to the process; playing with the sounds and nixing parts he didn’t like. He even added some subtle noises and one very loud gun shot that I didn’t consent to (who can guess which song it was?). And then we asked Luke Wooten to master the whole thing. (Luke recorded Bering Strait’s album “Pages”) and he laid finishing touches on those two incredible years of procrastination in under two hours.

 Anyway, this is going to be the end of my essay for now. Now that the album is done I can begin to think about the next stage of the process ― going out on the road again, and I miss it!