Tastiera

Hear Bead Rag Guns (2011)

I never expected this one to take nearly three years. After Decades, I figured the next album would be out there before the end of 2009. It certainly can't be because I'm lazy. I've been lazy for 42 years and counting, and none of my other albums took nearly three years to create. Apparently I had some additional living to do before inspiring the music and lyrics. And I couldn't do "Turning the Answer" until right around now anyway. So I guess it all makes sense. Right?

Right.

This is the first music I've created on a Mac. Hopefully that plug will get one of my songs into an Apple commercial.

Right.

If you click on the album art, you'll find yourself on a page where you can decipher the lyrics, read a brief blurb about each song, and hear all the songs for free - streaming only. This album is also now available for CD and electronic purchase at CDBaby.com, as well as iTunes and several other online distributors.

Decades (2008)

This album has politics aplenty.  It also has a song littered with the f-bomb, a personal first for yours truly.  It pays homage to the venerable Jägerbomb.  It suggests the Earth will be better off without us, right after it talks about the grandeur of our personal achievements.  It touches on death, and love, and the importance of simple things.  But what I'll remember it for the most is that it finally convinced me to buy a Mac.

Let's face it, no operating system is perfect.  And I was very happy with the three albums up to and including this one, which were all done on a Windows box.  And frankly, I don't think Vista was ever that bad for a normal user.  Problem is, as you are probably now painfully aware if you've read enough of these blurbs, I'm not a normal user.  So when you hear me screaming on "BSOD", know to the deepest reaches of your soul that I was NOT pretending.

All the songs on this album are available for free streaming by clicking on the album art. This album and its individual songs are also available for purchase at CDBaby, as well as the following digital distributors: iTunes, Amazon, GreatIndieMusic, PayPlay, and Tradebit.

Stratospheric (2007)

Asthma medication has advanced tremendously since I was a child.  I was in the hospital every month in fifth grade because of cold or flu induced asthma symptoms.  But today, I am able to live life as freely as anyone else.  And, as an apparent side benefit, the hallucinogenic effects are now strong enough that I actually think my music is worth paying for.

I almost reached that level of delusion on A Little to the Left, but apparently the dosage wasn't high enough. In accordance with increasing my chemical intake, I've also convinced myself I put a lot more work into Stratospheric than on any previous album, probably by an order of magnitude.  Care to join me for a puff of Advair?  The music's fine up here.

Anyway, this album's got a little bit of everything: a schizophrenic lead track, a song about nothing, two songs with music that date back to 1987, a tribute to a triatomic molecule, and a musical fusion of hockey and sex.  Now that's what I'm talkin' 'bout.

All the songs on this album are available for free streaming by clicking on the album art. This album and its individual songs are also available for purchase at CDBaby, as well as the following digital distributors: iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, GreatIndieMusic, Napster, PayPlay, and Tradebit.

A Little to the Left (2005)

With Release lifting a huge weight off my back, now it was time to get more serious and have more fun, all at the same time. A Little to the Left began a transformation of Tastiera into what it is today, which is really a rebirth of what it was in 1991, with a more modern edge.

This one wasn't without its own catharsis. "I, Masochist" and "Thanks Bye" were a result of some of the same mistakes I'd made over a decade earlier. But "I, Masochist" also represented the most musical experimentation I had ever been willing to do to that point, and that has opened all kinds of doors for future Tastiera endeavors. Worse yet, putting this album together also created enough momentum to launch the Tastiera website. And to complete the trifecta from Hell, the Newsletter.

Again, sorry about that.

Well, not really.

All songs in this collection are available for free download or streaming.

Release (2004)

As appropriately named as Broken World turned out to be by accident, Release was appropriately named on purpose.

This was learning how to do it all over again, with simple music, simple lyrics, half the songs being a decade or so old, and really no idea how to use the the digital audio tools at hand. But none of my songs have ever sounded as good to me as the first time I completed a draft of "Butterfly". By the time this album was completed, I was playing music consistently again, I was playing hockey again, and I was out in the world making new friends again. "Release" doesn't even begin to cover it. It didn't mean much to most of the world, but it meant the world to me.

All songs in this collection are available for free download or streaming.

Broken World (1993)

Only now does it fully hit me, how appropriate the title of this album was. And not in the way I had originally intended.

In late 1992, while I was recording this album, on an innocent night out in Boulder, I met the woman who would later become my ex-wife. Now let's get something straight here right now. Everything that led to the "ex" part was just as much my fault as hers, and I still deeply hope she finds happiness in her own life. But this was the beginning of a series of bad decisions that nearly killed my passion forever.

I actually like the music on Broken World (with the exception of my runaway attempted vibrato on the vocals), but it would be the last Tastiera album for nearly a decade. I let music, along with other things I had come to love, like hockey, slowly disappear from my life, until all that was left was working and sleeping.

In all seriousness, if anyone is reading this, and you see this happening to yourself, for Pete's sake, snap out of it.

All songs in this collection are available for free download or streaming.

Echoes Through the Mist (1992)

After Infinite Regression, my 22-year-old head got big again, and I decided Tastiera was good enough to buy a thousand-dollar synthesizer. That's five times more cash than I had spent on any preceding piece of equipment, and a good part of the reason I ended up moving back into my Mom's basement after less than a year in an apartment. It was a good synth (Kawai K-4), but it was also a bit spacey by nature, and so Tastiera took on an entirely different sound for Echoes Through the Mist.

This was an upward-looking time in my life. I had started grad school, and was excited about my career possibilities there, plus I made a lot of good friends then that I still stay in contact with today. My other friends were branching into their various pursuits, and I was once again breaking up with someone, but I still felt pretty optimistic about the future. See the blurb for Broken World to learn how that turned out.

Do a shot first.

All songs in this collection are available for free download or streaming.

Infinite Regression (1991)

After slacking from a technical standpoint on Sax and Violins, I went back to my "where there's a will, there's a way" approach to recording on Infinite Regression. All things considered, both technically and musically, I personally think this was the best Tastiera album I ever made.

That statement would floor you if only you knew how hard it is for me to take a complement from someone else, much less my idiot self (see?).

This whole album had a saturated, filled-out feel to it, which I've been trying to recreate ever since. That's probably why Stratospheric and Decades have so damned much compression on them.

This was around the time where social commentary began to dominate the topics of Tastiera lyrics, and love songs (and the closely related but infinitely more interesting breakup songs) began to take a back seat once and for all. Between that and my high nasally vocals, everyone around me decided Tastiera sounded more like Rush than anything else. Except that Rush didn't suck and was rich. (see, there I go again)

All songs in this collection are available for free download and streaming.

Sax and Violins (1990)

Sax and Violins, and everything after it, almost never happened. I was feeling pretty good about music after Pink Noise, and after listening to some four-track work done by a friend of mine, I decided to get a four-track recorder of my own. That was supposed to be the beginning of a whole new world for me, and at first it was: a whole new world of frustration.

Up that that point, every album I'd ever recorded, from Velvet Cockroach's Duh to Tastiera's Pink Noise, was held together with duct tape and chewing gum. I had been bouncing tracks off of boom boxes and consumer stereo equipment for over five years, and I was looking forward to finally having the opportunity to use some higher-end equipment. Along the way, I forgot the most important part of recording an album - getting the most out of what you've got. I guess I figured the four-track would do all the work. I almost gave up. In fact, at one point, I think I uttered those words - "I give up!" I'm pretty sure there were a couple of adverbs in there too.

I was a f-cking brat.

Anyway, I really wasn't doing much else with my life at that time, so I went back to it. By the time the album was done, after a year and a half of hair-pulling, I didn't even care (there's the whole brat thing again). It wasn't until just a few years ago that I started to appreciate it a little bit more. Quite a bit more, in fact. And now I really wish I hadn't been such a brat back then, or I'd have salvaged "Voyager" in time.

And then again, ah, if only that was the worst mistake I made back in those years...

All songs in this collection are available for free download or streaming.

Pink Noise (1989)

At least until Release some fifteen years later, the greatest catharsis I ever got from making an album came from Pink Noise. A few songs on this album were written around the same time as those on The Full Spectrum. A few more were written in the fall of 1988, when I was in love for the first time (or so I thought, which is all that counts, right?). The last few songs were written after we broke up, at the end of 1988. In fact, the whole first "side" of this album - from "Delirious" to "Blue Zephyr" - basically tells that entire story. The second side is more about looking into the future.

This album also marked the first appearance of the Tastiera "T-wings" logo. That started with a drawing I doodled up in some class, where a piano key was turning into a bird and flying away from the piano. Seemed innocent enough at the time, but now the T-wings are tattoed on my shoulder for the rest of my life. Doodling is dangerous.

All songs in this collection are available for free download or streaming.

The Full Spectrum (1988)

In 1988, the Velvet Cockroach era ended, and theTastiera era - wow, that's a lot of "eras" - began.

I started writing the first songs from The Full Spectrum, and in fact from the follow-on Pink Noise, in early 1988. Most of the recording was done in the late summer, right before I started my sophomore year in college.

The big thing to do at the time was going to a bar called Pogo's on "the Hill" in Boulder. Dollar pitchers before 9, crappy pool tables, and all the alternative music I could dance badly to. How that inspired the music on The Full Spectrum, I'm not sure. But I am pretty sure will I never pay a dollar for a pitcher again.

All songs in this collection are available for free download or streaming.

Unreleased Singles (1992)

All of these songs were created in collaboration with Tony Hanuman, a good friend of mine since high school. In the early 1990's, we toyed with the idea of getting a band going and trying to play the local clubs. Right around the same time, I was struggling with whether to stay in grad school and continue into a career in satellite remote sensing. If I had quit school, you'd have probably never heard from me again, but since I decided to stay, I ended up making enough money that I could record music whether people liked it or not. Sorry about that.

Tony is silly talented as a musician - he played keyboards and saxophone on the tracks listed here. He ending up joining another band, and they made some good music, but only for a short while. He hasn't played in years now, but I work on him when ever I get a chance. Last I heard he got a grand piano for his birthday, so maybe something'll come of that.

It was usually pretty easy for Tony and me to come up with new material just by jamming, and that's how all these songs were created. I'll close with some trivia: if we'd have gone the band route, it would have been called "Milk and Fish". Don't ask.

All songs in this collection are available for free download or streaming.

A Velvet Cockroach Christmas (1988)

There is something magical about Christmas. No other holiday feels quite as warm or peaceful. This will not do, and we have done our best to destroy it.

A Velvet Cockroach Christmas was released at the height of Velvet Cockroach's popularity. Fully five or six people knew we existed, and at least half of them didn't vomit profusely when listening to our tapes. After that, it was your prototypical VH-1-style fall from grace. We decided to murder each other, and it was only because there were an odd number of us in the band that i am alive to write any of this.

Since this album was completed in the fell winter of 1988, a number of people have approached me, asking whether there would ever be a sequel. Right before i gave each one of those people a noogie with a bottle opener, I explained that a sequel was unlikely, as that would have violated the artistic vision we had when we made the original. Then I laughed because I knew the person didn't care at this point, or at least that is how I interpret the phrase, "Augh! stop sticking that bottle opener into my skull!"

People are the same wherever you go, when you get right down to it.

All songs in this collection are available for free download or streaming.

More Velvet Cockroach (1984-1988)

It was a dark and stormy night. Okay, it was Algebra 1, in the spring semester of my freshman year in high school, circa April 1984. Eight years of piano lessons, a perverse sense of humor, a Casio keyboard from my most recent birthday, and an intense desire not to do algebra conspired to bring about the most significant musical event of our time.

Okay, the most significant musical event at that precise instant in time and that precise location in space.

Yes, that is the moment Velvet Cockroach was born. Motivated by exquisitely pure sloth, i mapped out over a dozen songs, most of which were 95% grounded in the available drum patterns on the above-mentioned Casio keyboard. Unforgettable classics such as "Sambady Do Da Samba" and "Let"s Watch Nova While We Do the Bossanova" should provide a clear indication just how much of my own musical creativity actually went into that first album, poetically titled Duh.

Velvet Cockroach would perpetrate thirteen more albums before imploding in flames, from which Tastiera would rise like a Phoenix, or perhaps an ill-tempered sparrow. I've occasionally (well, okay, once) been asked where I came up with the name Velvet Cockroach. Well, the "Cockroach" part came from the notion that cockroaches would be among the creatures most likely to survive a nuclear holocaust, an uplifting thought in the final years of the Cold War. To this day, i have no idea what the "Velvet" part means.

You won't find many Velvet Cockroach songs here. I'll leave it to you to decide whether there's anything wrong with that.

All songs in this collection are available for free download or streaming.