Jazz metal? Nu-metal jazz? Your call. This beast arrived as I was testing out a newly purchased microphone: the MXL R-144 ribbon mic. I played the E7#9 at the tempo and rhythm heard in this recording, and lightning struck! I put it together with another riff I’d been toying with and the music just about wrote itself. Members and fans of the Wisdom clan will note that the descending-by-minor-thirds tonal centers of the main theme was stolen from "Busy Signal." Want to hear more music like this? If you wish to continue with something metallic and jazzy, try "Mamajuana."

Wisdom existed for about a year, maybe a year and a half, from 1969-1970. It reached its peak in the summer of 1970 when Glenn Lyons (guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, alto sax, vocals), Jeff Wheeler (guitar, keyboards, electric violin, bass guitar, vocals), Michael Barber (bass guitar, keyboards, guitar, vocals), Scott Kistenberger (drums), and Douglas Baldwin (guitar, bass guitar, percussion, vocals) rented a house outside Boston, Massachusetts, and composed, recorded, and performed all original music. The tale of these five wizards coming together, gradually drifting apart, and reuniting thirty-five years later is a monumental and iconic one. Sooner or later I'll get around to telling it, too. In the meantime, I've recorded one of the few songs that escaped recording thirty five-pus years ago. Postmortal Postman was composed by Jeff Wheeler (1969-70) with additional lyrics by Douglas Baldwin (2006), performed by dB with a bit of Wisdom; massed violins were generously performed by Mikki Kirdahy.

This creature made itself known while I was on vacation with my family in the Dominican Republic, December 2008 (the Melia Caribe Tropical in Punta Cana – email me privately if you wish for more info on this paradise resort). I brought a cute little “travel studio” to practice with (Steinberger guitar, Alesis GuitarFX, and Zoom 201 drum machine) and lo! “Mamajuana” began to emerge. After we got home, I spent an hour or so programming the song’s form into the drum machine, then a couple of hours finalizing the melody, recording, mixing down and burning to CD. The drums are the Zoom 201, and the two guitars and bass were recorded simply as instrument > Boss GT-8 > Korg D1600. There is no “mastering” of this track in the traditional sense, other than a touch of room reverb. Oh yes, the melody/lead guitar employs a Visual Sound “Angry Fuzz.” Whompa bompa, thank you mamajuana. Some unsolicited comments from Ethan Meixsell: "Very cool, angular stuff. Reminds me of Thrak-era King Crimson. That lead tone with the Octavia-like effext at times sounds like an overdriven Rhodes, at others sounds like a constipated Jeff Beck, all with groove and swagger. Very nice stuff here."

A nod to Frank Zappa's "Ship Ahoy" by way of a patch I created on the Boss GT-3 multi-FX pedal. The original guitar track was recorded around 2005; when I unearthed it, I discovered that I had MIDI-synced the original drum track (which kinda stunk) using the recorder's MIDI. It was not too hard to whip up a new drum track, add some trancy bass, and - here you go!

I composed this for one of Korg's "Guitarville" projects, and you can probably find the first version I recorded somewhere in the Korg Guitarville archives. That would have been around the summer of 2005. In July of 2008 I revisited the recording. I cut-and-pasted the form, re-recorded the melody guitar and remixed it. Sweet Hollow Road is near the Korg headquarters, and when I was a teen-aged boy, I would often ride my bicycle there. The music reminded me of flying, as bicycling does to a boy. Just a few months after I wrote this, Leon Mladinich, father of my boyhood friend Charles, passed away. Leon loved aviation and flying. He was buried at a cemetery on Sweet Hollow Road.

"Keeyater" was written under the influence of Korg's Mini-Kaos Pad. I was working with the Mini-KP in order to contribute to the Korg "Guitarville" newsletter, and while messing with the Mini-KP, this piece lept out. It lept out so fast, I could barely write it down fast enough. On June 15th, 2007, I posted a contest: 1) The improvised section in the middle follows a form made famous by Miles Davis. Can you name the tune? 2) What is the intervallic relation between the tonalities of the head and the improvised section? Anyone who can answer BOTH of these questions will receive a free copy of my book, "Play Guitar By Ear." Ultra bonus question: Can anyone name ANY OTHER PIECE OF MUSIC that follows the same form as that of the answer to Question #1? If you can turn me on to ANY OTHER PIECE OF MUSIC with this form, I'll send you a free copy of "The Coyote Loops! Dress Rehearsal, April 2005" AND "looper's Delight Compilation Vol. 3!" A bargain at half the price.  The contest ended on June 30th, 2007. There was one winner, Germany's Tilman Dehnhard, and he nailed it perfectly. He wrote: the piece is "so what" and it is a tritone apart (ab minor) from the key of your theme (d minor). another piece using the same chord structure is impressions by john coltrane.  Tilman got the book, the CDs, and my thanks.

This is the third track from "The Coyote Loops! Dress Rehearsal April 2005." Keep in mind that this is part of a continuous performance, of which almost seventeen minutes have already passed. Consider how this track morphs into "The Long Dance" and you will get some sense of how the entire CD sounds. The one-minute sample occurs between 3:40 and 4:40 in the track.

I've been performing "The Long Dance" since about 1985. This performance is the fourth track from "The Coyote Loops! Dress Rehearsal April 2005." The preview gives a taste from 0:00 to 2:30.

This is the seventh track from "The Coyote Loops! Dress Rehearsal 2005." The sample snippet occurs from 4:00 to 5:05. "Oh!" said the blind man. "An elephant is very much like a rope!"

One of my first reggae songs, written about 1973. This performance is by the Skydogs, about 1976. Douglas Baldwin - guitar, lead vocal Stephen Ramirez - guitar, background vocal Wayne Brusseau - bass, background vocal Scott Kistenberger - drums, background vocal Bill Grillo - drums, background vocal

Probably written about 1975. I remember the car I was driving at the time, which inspired the opening line. This was recorded by the Skydogs on the same day in 1976 as "The Bone Song." Listen to Wayne Brusseau's absolutely killer bass and the groove of the drums and congas. There is an updated version of the song (updated in 1978 or so...!), recorded in higher fidelity and with a better chorus lyric, which I may post at some point as well. Douglas Baldwin - guitar, lead vocal Stephen Ramirez - guitar Wayne Brusseau - bass, sadly inaudible harmony vocal Scott Kistenberger - congas Bill Grillo - drums

Written by Michael Barber at the time of the last oil crisis (1979), this song is as sadly relevant today as it was then. Michael performed this song as part of his "Strawman" show in the 1980s. He writes: "I read a book called 'Songs of the Bards of Bengal' - translations of songs improvised by mendicant mystics on the streets of 18th century Bengal. One line, attributed to madan, stuck in my head: 'I hear you call, my Lord, but I cannot advance; profits and teachers bar my way.' " A Certain Coyote was lucky enough to play rhythm guitar on this track. To hear more of Michael's music, you can go to his MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/thestrawman.