• Light Your Way cover art - watercolour painting of tulips

    As part of the indie rock band Beige Shelter, we were approached to write a new song for a youth gang prevention event. Although we declined to perform for the event, we realized our new song was also a great message for mental health awareness and conversation. My friend and Beige Shelter frontman Adi Aman had [...]

  • A yellow flower in the snow

    I met singer-songwriter Shari Archinoff at one of my meetup groups. Shari plays piano, guitar, sings, and lives in the same neighbourhood I grew up in. The first time we met, I came up with a simple chord progression on the piano. Shari developed lyrics and a melody for a song about moving on from [...]

  • performance of song for video

    Through co-hosting the Songwriter’s Meetup and Song Talk Radio, I get to meet many singer-songwriters in and around Toronto. Some of them have written original Christmas songs, including Carmen Toth’s This Christmas I’m Giving You Love and Melanie Peterson’s Santa’s Sleigh. Themes of peace and love tend to come up, as is typical of many holiday songs. [...]

  • Beige Shelter album release November 14, 2016

    I first met singer-songwriter Adi Aman, aka Beige Shelter, at the Songwriter’s Cafe meetup. He appeared on Song Talk Radio in 2014. His songs instantly appealed to me for their 90’s alt-rock inspired style, and his often spiritually deep lyrics. On Song Talk Radio, I recall commenting how his songs are actually about something. Last [...]

  • panspermia

    I has previously heard the idea that life on earth may have originated by some organic goo being deposited on our humble little planet by a meteor or comet. Recently I found a youTube video that explained that while indeed speculative, the theory is given the perfect name: "Panspermia." It's one thing to write a song simply [...]

  • The latest Song Talk Radio backup band jam session was for my own song, I Never Write Her a Song. We rehearsed for a couple of hours, and then performed about three takes for the video recording. Thanks to the guys who put their hearts and souls into the performance, especially David St Bernard who took [...]

  • As hosts for Song Talk Radio's 2015 Holiday Show, we were challenged to write a 60-second Christmas song in the days leading up to the show.  I decided that in order to get a song done quickly, it would have to be rap/spoken word and I'd need to come up with lyrics first.  I started [...]

  • On November 24, once again I appeared on Song Talk Radio as the featured guest.  I spoke with Bruce and Phil about three of my latest songs, and in a special twist, Sonja Seiler joined us as co-host and co-writer of one of the songs.  We talked about collaboration, anthropomorphism, and whether or not I [...]

  • red rose on piano

    My wife asked me why I never put her in a song, or one of our experiences, into a song. Good question. After much pondering, I thought it might be good to go all meta and write a song about how I never wrote her a song. And of course, in keeping with the meta [...]