Solar Dog Music – The Beginning

A few years back I started recording some songs I had written while traveling through Europe after getting thrown out of high school for reasons I’m still not sure of to this day. I embraced the world of technology and bought myself a digital audio workstation after reading volumes of Sound on Sound magazine. As I started laying down a few initial takes of those dusty old tunes, I realized that I needed to start writing some new material. I found it difficult to play those old songs and re-discover the emotions behind their creation. So I took out my old leather bound notebook I’ve had around for years and started scratching down some ideas that I thought might be worth singing about. Needless to say, some of the words ended up lyrics to a few songs I felt had a more “current” energy that I could work with.

I began to track some demos of the new songs in the sparse moments I had to myself on weekends when I wasn’t working as a stock manager in the basement of a local clothing store. As I continued to attempt more recordings, stumbling around in the intensive audio world of Pro Tools, I realized there was a lot to learn about the recording process. Each recording became more of a document, or set of notes on the process of production, more than it was a song, and I would end up using these “notes” to attempt something different or better for the next recording. After many humble attempts I finally started to get the hang of it and discovered a sound I could work with.

A few years passed and I have been able to audition these recordings for friends and others who were interested in what I was doing. The feedback they provided was very important to developing my recording process, as I used their comments as feedback and tried my best to achieve what they suggested in the recordings. The learning curve winded further along and the process deepened. Eventually I was quite happy with many of the recordings I was making.

A few months ago I was inspired to brainstorm an idea for a new company. The act of creating music and capturing it in a technological medium that can be shared, uploaded, downloaded, remixed, reproduced and listened to has become such a huge part of my life. I decided that instead of taking a chance with some external force to determine whether or not I could create music (ie. Record Labels), that I would just continue to do it myself.

By no means am I a self-declared audio engineer, or music producer, or even a singer-songwriter. I can’t declare myself to be any one thing really. I never went to school for music, or sound engineering, or production… However, I have always been curious about these things and have a deep love for music. So I thought to myself “why not give it a shot”?

Having grown up with other musicians, producers and artists who have gone through the “proper” channels, I’ve always had the feeling that there is some unknown, secret knowledge that passed me by. However, in my experience it has always been the work of artists who did it by themselves (school or no school, proper or improper) that attracted me. I have never been a big fan of the system – the music industry. I’ve grown to understand the need for it’s existence and how to work within it, but never felt that I needed to be a huge part of it. That is to say, I’ve always had the intention of doing things very independently.

It is with this spirit that I quietly introduce (to those who are reading) the launch of this new company – Solar Dog Music. I hope to provide listeners with some memorable music over the years and also wish to expand my own knowledge by working with new artists and hearing new sounds. Maybe by the time I’m ninety I’ll have finally grasped that secret knowledge that has been kept unravelled, out of my reach and in the minds of enlightened people. Then I can finally say to myself that I know a little something more about music.