Born in Midwestern U.S., Joel first learned the word
"ocean" from an orange Speak 'n' Spell one cold
Christmas day in the '80s. The angled glow-green
letters with the queer, patient voice of the toy sent
him into a kind of wondering dream. Ocean. It was
something he had heard of before, he thought. Maybe
from television where one could sometimes find
broadcasted pictures of California. He didn't know it
yet, but he was going to meet an ocean in person one
day, and write a song about it.
As Joel grew up his teachers frequently observed he
had a tendency to stare out the window and daydream.
When at last he graduated from a University he
continued to follow his dreams right to the edge of
North America where there lay an island city called
Manhattan. He took what work he could find among the
lights and edifices on the crowded little island,
first in offices of the financial district downtown ,
and then on the fashionable floor of a bistro in the
East Village. Somewhere between the wordless waiting
at 3 am for home-bound subway trains and the din of
car alarms set off by thunderstorms, Joel lost the
thread of his dreams. And he didn't even notice until
a day when fate dropped a postcard into his mailbox.
Sent from a dear friend on holiday in Amsterdam,
the postcard--suspended by hand comfortably within
Joel's gaze--began to resemble a window, or perhaps a
door into another world, the world of dreams. Upon
stepping through the door (Stepping through that door
was not quite as simple as putting his foot or even
head through the postcard, but required a series of
banal steps involving ticket offices, bus rides and
other fossil fuel consumption, lots of waiting in
non-descript rooms. The door which opened upon the
world of dreams, however, was quite real.), Joel found
himself in the city of Galway, Ireland holding all his
posessions in his two hands and having an acute panic
attack. Five minutes later he was uttering a seamless
stream of words into the reciever of a public
telephone, describing his helplessness to his mother,
who listened patiently a half a world away. Suddenly
he ran out of words, his voice stopped, leaving only
the silence of oblivion. "Well, I guess that's why
you went," she said simply over the hiss on the
receiver. There seemed to be nothing more to say, so
they hung up.
Turning away from the telephone to face the green of
Eyre Square, Joel stood a moment before separating one
of his feet from the concrete and placing it out in
front of him. Shifting his weight forward, he then
repeated this procedure with his other foot. Thus he
discovered--for the first time, it seemed to him--how
to walk. The more he employed this new discovery, the
more beautiful people and places came into his
experience. He stayed on a small island called Inis
Mor in the hospitality of a wonderful friend, playing
guitar, writing songs, reading books, singing. He
walked into the ocean and out again. He walked
through Paris, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Wales, and in
Liverpool he used walking to board an orange and white
aircraft that took him to Barcelona, Spain. He walked
across Spain, getting up early before the sun and
watching mist roll off of distant mountains like
silken broth boiling over the side of a pot.
His pilgrimage--particularly in Spain--taught him
confidence in playing music for others. In the
eveningtime he would sit in a common area, singing
songs with his guitar, and people would gather around,
and listen. Never particularly good at making
friends, suddenly he seemed to be making many of them.
He went south and studied Flamenco technique with a
teacher in Seville, and wrote several songs as well.
He returned to Ireland again, and there realized that
he wanted to learn how to record his songs. He bought
a ticket back to Kansas City where he got to work
performing and recording. It took him a year and a
half, but he has finally released his debut album,
titled Gold in the Bargain Bin.
The album contains work written from 1998-2003 in a
variety of settings, from his childhood bedroom to
apartments in Seville, Queens, Ireland, Illinois etc.
One was written in Loose Park. They deal with love,
alienation, fear, joy, but most of all dreams and the
strange sense of humor life seems so often to require.
Joel sings his little heart out.
Joel continues to live in Kansas City, playing coffee
shops, bars, restaurants, retirement homes, special
events, weddings, etc. He reports he is very well at present, and thanks you for being so kind to ask.
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