I’ve been playing music on the side, in a semi-professional, AAA-ball type manner for a while now, but I have never recorded original music and released it. I’ve recorded lots of little bits, back in my four-track days, and more recently via my beloved Voice Memos app. But I’ve never packaged it up and been part of any kind of release, any kind of music “publishing,” if we stretch that phrase to mean making that music publicly consumable. 

But now that’s changed. I’m 1/3 of a new band here in Jackson, MS named The Metrocenter, and we have released our first single, “Transcontinental Breakfast.” Here it is on Spotify. Here it is on Bandcamp. The robots tell me that it is available on many other online platforms, but I won’t do the tedious work of linking to all of those. 

I’d rather not classify or attempt to explain this music. I find most music criticism overdetermined, and I find almost all self-explanations by the artists themselves distracting at best, actively detrimental to the listening experience at worst. (They sell the same self-mythologies as the author profile.) I’ll only say these are instrumental songs. 

Okay, I’ll allow myself one attempt: “It’s like jazz, but without the annoying parts.” 

More to come (he said hopefully, optimistically, trying to will it into being). 

Credits: Denny Burkes on drums and engineering; Jakob Clark on bass and electric guitar. I’m playing Fender Rhodes and a Mellotron sample. 

Is it possible to hear the Mellotron and not think distantly of the Beatles? I think not. The way a Hammond organ always connotes the church, even if obliquely, I think the Beatles “own” that primary sound reference.

p.s. Of course you can follow us on Facebook and Instagram, too.