Album Notes

"Swinging good times are contained within this roots rock full-length album. Jim Salinger’s real shining light is his guitar playing." - Smother.net

After blazing through five years of drunken backyard barbecues and college festivals with the Philadelphia punktry rock band Lynwood Skynwood, Jim Salinger was ready to forge into new territory. For this he moved to Los Angeles and began writing more personal and introspective acoustic songs as part of the duo PT. Jim's vocal style quickly developed until it was unique enough to be defined as his own, somewhere between the likes of Lou Reed and Paul Westerberg.

By the fall of 2003, he was ready to record his first album, the songs for which would be culled from the enormous catalog of demos he had been compiling. Fortunately at this time, Jim was also introduced to producer Ronan Chris Murphy (King Crimson) who had just opened Veneto West, a new recording studio less than a mile from Jim's home. The conditions could not have been more perfect.

"Down By Fire" was recorded over a two week period in Murphy's unfinished studio. The album's title and Jim's art direction for the cover is a nod to the wildfires that ravaged Southern California during the same two weeks. Casually over this smoldering fortnight, an eclectic handful of musician friends stopped by to build upon Jim's initial vocal and acoustic tracks with their pedal steel, percussion, bass, mandolin and handclaps. The result of these "Cozy Sessions" (named after the studio's neighborhood bar, The Cozy Inn, pictured on the album cover) is an impressive album of emotionally-driven americana indie pop songwriting that is generating admiration from L.A. to Philly and beyond.