Album Notes

After performing to support "Mono Is King!" as a solo act, it became confusing to people who would hear me sing and play guitar by myself and then buy my record and hear a full band. After a single I released in 1999 called “The Silver Record” (a 7-inch vinyl project named for the silver label that would go on the records), I set out to record something that sounded exactly like what you heard in the coffeehouses I was playing at the time. Just guitar and voice (side one) and piano and voice (side two), continuing the concept of album sides as complete thoughts like I did with “Mono Is King!”

I pay homage to my home of New Jersey on this album with a song on side one, which tells a bitter story about a trip to the south, and with "Mother Leeds" on side two, which is my retelling of the legends of the Jersey Devil and the way they are visited upon a character with nothing left to lose.

"Pull All The Plugs" is exactly what the title says, an acoustic album. The songs are about extraordinary characters that could soar if not for a certain lack. I ran the gamut from hopeless to hopeful. The lyrics foreshadowed events of my life more than they reflected them, which still chills me when I listen to this record, since I know how the story ended.

This album features "Ordinary People," which I’ve long thought to be my best song to date, nestled comfortably into side two. Some electric ensemble versions of these songs exist, but they don’t capture the same passion or that absolutely perfect autumn day when we took the picture for the cover.