1:06

The recording quality is less than desirable.  It was recorded on an old TEAC 4-track cassette studio.  I layered four keyboard parts on top of one another.  Maybe more.  I really don't remember.

1:56

While holding onto an Ovation 12-string with an old Shure microphone perched near the f-hole, I was trying to set the recording volume to experiment with layering.  With my stubby little fingers, it's always been easier for me to hold down an open "C" chord.

I would strum the chord, watch the meter and then make adjustments with the hand I was holding down the chord with.  When I went to re-finger the "C" chord, my fingers laid across the wrong strings (this is why I was never known for my guitar virtuosity).  I had inadvertently fingered an Fmaj7.  Hearing the wrong chord, I quickly re-fingered the "C".  I loved the way to two chords went together and I fooled around with them awhile.

I wrote this song (such as it is) in less than ten minutes and then I recorded it.  It doesn't say much and doesn't really go anywhere but it's something to build on.  It's me on all four tracks, strumming the Ovation 12-string (does that mean I had a 48-string ensemble backing me up??) and four layered voices, all mine.

I had just finished reading a book about John Lennon when I wrote the lyrics.  I suppose that book helped, in some offbeat way, to inspire the lyrics and the melody.  I was under the influence (-;

2:53

I was playing in a little garage band in the mid-80's in Miami with a few friends.  We never really had a name to the band because we had no visions of playing anywhere.  Well, except for a few times behind the Ives Pub in North Miami Beach.  We did, finally, come up with a name (see "Northern Lights", below), but that was just cuz we needed to.

Mark Meloragno ("Markus Opus") played the lead guitar and helped to provide harmony vocals.  Chuck Wilson played the drums.  I did the acoustic guitar, bass tracks and lead vocals, plus some layered harmony vocals.

Very Beatle-ish, but I've always been strongly influenced that way.  "Tonight" is standard 60's love song fare.

4:39

"Brio" was Brian Boyson ... the drummer and founder of "The Band Ohio".  Besides being my roommate the past several months of my living in Lorain, Brio was also my friend.  He developed lymphoma during the year after I returned to Florida.  He lost his fight the following year.

In an effort to raise funds to help his family offset the costs of his medical care, the guys who remained in the band sought to stage a benefit concert in a well-known (local in Elyria, Ohio) ballroom.  My contribution was this song.

I wrote it for Brio.  I mailed copies of this song to the members of "The Band Ohio" to learn so we could play it at the benefit.  We performed it unrehearsed.  It was the final song performed that night. 

Recorded in a makeshift studio in the home of Don Benzing in Miami, Florida, I proudly boast (and name-drop ... I am not above name-dropping) the lineup of musicians who helped me to make this recording possible.

Tom McWilliams (from our old band "Riff Raff", later professional associations with Gloria Estefan and later with Jon Secada) provided the drums.  Frank Prinzel (I know there is more than I know, so I'll say that he worked on Don Johnson's album and other projects while working at the famed Criteria Studios in Miami, also from "Riff Raff" and "Critical Mass") provided the outstanding electric guitar work.  Rick Cortez honored the track with that smooth Claptonesque slide guitar work.  I'm responsible for the vocals, piano and bass guitar on this one.

4:45

We had no dreams of winning a recording contract.  Good thing.  We didn't win.  Well, at least we weren't disappointed.

We did it just so we could hear ourselves on the radio.  That was pretty cool.  This particular version of the song is the recording I made from the WSHE broadcast.  I know I have a cleaner original studio version around here someplace.  I swear ... one of these days, I'm going to figure out the necessity to label all several hundred of my old cassettes.

This recording was made in a condominium "makeshift" recording studio.  I remember the guy who owned the studio was named Honi (an Israeli gentleman as memory serves) but I cannot recall his surname.

Honi programmed in the drum tracks.  We were on a very tight schedule to get the song recorded before the contest was no longer accepting tapes.  Chuck was out of town.  Disney, I think.  We provided Honi with a practice tape and he programmed it in.

We layered stuff on top of that.  Mark Meloragno provides the guitar work and supporting harmony vocals.  K.C. Vinck provides the bass guitar tracks and supporting harmony vocals.  As for the lead vocal tracks and the keyboards, well, those are my fault.

For the purposes of providing a band name for the contest submittal, I simply took something from the headlines of that morning's Miami Herald, grabbed a pen and the tape case and scratched "MX" on it, jumped in the car and dropped off the tape at the radio station about an hour before the deadline.

"Northern Lights" is the testimony of an airlines pilot from the witness stand.  The lyrics are his response when asked to recount the events that led to a major crash.  Oddly enough, he was the only survivor.