1. Rusty Pick-Up
2. Head in a Jar
3. Broken Pencil
4. Baby Let's Go
5. The Backpack Song (Live)

These bouns tracks were digitally released in November 2007, in commemoration of the ten year anniversary of the original cassette release of Tales from the Trail. All are from the general "Trail" era.

Tracks 1-3 were recorded at home in Portland on 8 track during the summer of 1996.

Track 4 was written and performed with Stewart Lampe in spring of 1997. Stewart played uke and sang; Rob played bongos and train whistle and sang. The song was recorded on an old cassette deck, sometime after midnight, in a plaza outside of the sciences building at Linfield College. We had recently been removed from a warm classroom (where we had been quietly songwriting) and forced into the 30 degree night by an overzealous security guard, who recommended that we return to the dorms. As Stewart remembers: "Security chased us out of a building that we initially refused to leave. We weren't caught in the end, but i think our description was on a few notepads. I think Rob sucker-punched one of the guards in the side." Apparently, the guard thought it more appropriate that we spend our Saturday night getting drunk in our rooms like everyone else, rather than wandering around campus writing silly ukulele love songs about cows. (We improvised this little ditty that same night, in response to the incident.)

Track 5 was recorded live at the Catalyst, Linfiled College, in spring 1997. The performance was part of the "Sinfield Experience" group show.

 

 

 

1. Peter Denies his Father
2. The Letter
3. Carolina’s Gone
4. Froze
5. Pochomil
6. Cottonwood
7. Days of Smoke and Shell
8. Create Thyself Holy
9. Monument Row
10. Inspirational
11. Brandy Sipping a Parlour
12. What Breath?
13. What is One is One for All
14. Song for Rigoberto López Pérez

This album was recorded at home in Portland on 8 track in summer 2001 (except 1 and 9, recorded in fall 1999). Brian Hodson played drums on 3, 4, and 5.

 

 

 

Sea Level Records
album available for $12
(free shipping)

1. Prologue
2. Calico Waltz
3. Lamppost
4. Backwoods
5. Call to Worship
6. No Wings or a Barrel
7. Daguerreotype
8. Christmas Eve Ballad
9. One to be Returned By
10. Tempted by Kings
11. Tone-deaf Heifer
12. Neskowin
13. At the Amargosa
14. Christian Crank
15. Epilogue

This album was recorded at home in Portland on 8 track in fall and winter of 1998. About 50 copies were released in January 1999. It was later mastered by Jeff Saltzman and re-released by Sea Level Records in fall 2001. Jeff Jansen played banjo on 5.

 

 

 

1. Rocky Mountain Suite (Cold Nights in Canada)
2. Wildflowers in a Mason Jar
3. Eclipse
4. Come and Let me Look in Your Eyes
5. For Baby (For Bobbie)
6. Back Home Again
7. Aspenglow
8. Calypso
9. On the Road
10. Annie’s Song
11. Zachary and Jennifer
12. Wrangell Mountain Song
13. This Old Guitar

All songs written by John Denver. I recorded these at home in Seattle on 4 track in February 2001, after snapping up a stash of John Denver records at the Capitol Hill Value Village. There are rumors that a companion collection of Gordon Lightfoot covers, entitled “October Songs,” is in the works…

 

 

 

[ lyrics | images ]

1. On the Road
2. Home for the Holidays
3. Traveling Salesman
4. Less than Polite
5. Old Mexico
6. When I Talk too Loud
7. Too Soon to Tell
8. Head in a Jar (New Orleans Mix)
9. I’ll be Gone
10. Cancer Rings
11. Burning Coal
12. Whittlin’ Stick
13. Happy 4th
14. After Hours at the Moonlight Revival
15. Dustbowl
16. Here to Twin
17. Old Time

(hidden track on cassette release)
18. Radio Death (Yamhill Co. Love Song)

These songs were written in 1996 and ’97 and recorded here and there throughout that period. Stewart Lampe played organmonica on 7.

 

 

 

1. Clowns
2. You Better Run
3. Stronger Than Before
4. I Won’t Come Out
5. Amy, Leave that Boy Alone
6. What You Taught Me
7. Whittlin’ Stick (Cabin Mix)
8. Mac’s Paradise
9. Too Soon to Tell (Cabin Mix)
10. 2 Tone World
11. All Smiles
12. A Little Sun
13. Black Cat
14. Untitled 2

These songs were written and recorded in March 1996 in a mountain cabin near Concrete, Washington. Graham MacRae sang on 12. Stewart Lampe made sounds on 2, said things on 8, played organmonica on 6 and 9, and I think added percussion on 9.

 

 

 

Trailings (2007)
Songs for Rigoberto López Pérez (2004)
Fifty-Eight Now Nine (2001)
April Songs (2001)
Tales from the Trail (1997)
Party Favors (1996)

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