Album Notes

I first started recording the Mindfire Tapes in Santa Cruz during the Fall of 1995.

I had been writing and recording music for years, but I felt like I was stuck in a rut. I had yet to capture the music as it was in my head. I had the idea of using my four track as a canvas that I could use to record anything- fragments of melodies, collages of sound effects, conversations, etc. Stuck in my little cockroach-infested apartment, I started recording these pieces at the rate of four or five a night. I labeled each tape "Mindfire."

The cockroaches were crawling inside my four track, my dingy apartment fell to pieces. After two years, I had recorded over two thousand Mindfire songs. My four track fell victim to a flood, marking the end of the Mindfire Tapes in 1997.

I moved to San Francisco in 1998 with the hopes of releasing a full length album of the Mindfire Tapes to a mass audience. I picked the best 21 song fragments and put them in chronological order. The album came out in the Fall of 1999 and a successful tour on the Pacific Northwest followed.

I'm very proud of this album- I think it really captures the music I was hearing in my head. This was music that was recorded out of desperation and a sense of immediacy, without thought of its commercial value. I hope you enoy it!