1970 

back in 1970 I returned home after serving a 4 year stint in the Navy and on that day my best friend Mike Bunge (pictured on right here) picked me up at the SGFD airport. we’d shared much music and good times together throughout high school and a bit of college before my enlistment, and now back home I was anxious to share with him a batch of songs I had written while away. luckily he had the keys to a studio and within days we started recording some of those songs. on a few of those demos I was very…

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"Free Blind Mice" with Granny's Bathwater 

There was a time in the mid-seventies when Janet and I were living in an old secluded farmhouse off a dirt road outside of Clever, MO.  The OMD’s were starting to tour all over the place and it was getting to where I was traveling about as much as I was home.  Looking back now, that little farmhouse was probably one of my very favorite places to have lived. It was my first experience living outside of a city.  There were new smells in the air, new sounds to be heard and cool clear water from a…

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Memories of The New Bijou Theater 

 

When my good friends Curt Hargis and Steve Canaday said it was to be called, The New Bijou Theater, I was intrigued.  They explained the concept and where it was to be located.  They talked about all the touring bands and musicians they wanted to bring to town.  It all sounded really good to me, then somewhere along the way they mentioned that employees would be able to drink free beer while working.  Then after a few moments of silence, they asked me if I’d like a job. 

 

 

It was the summer of 1972…

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Don & Phil 

I was just turning 10 years old when I heard a song on the radio that looking back changed my life.  It was the Everly Brothers singing "Wake Up Little Susie" with their amazing two-part harmony and that beat, that rhythm.  I didn’t know what this new music was called back then, but it spoke to me and I was hooked for evermore.

 

In the early 1980’s I was a bit lost and uncertain about where to go and what to do since the OMD's were not really a cohesive unit by then, with certain members not wanting to…

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Headley Grange 

 

In the summer of 1973 we (OMD's) were a group of unknown hippie hillbillies, who were about to be made lords of an English manor. At least for a little while.

 

We’d just signed our record contact a few months prior and now we were being shipped off to England to record our first album. We’d been told by our label, A&M Records, that arrangements had been made for us to live in the small hamlet of Headley, which sits on the borders of Hampshire, Surrey and Sussex, about an hours drive south of London.

 

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On The Way To Windermere 

 

What do you have when you’re a songwriter in a band with two or more other songwriters?  If you were like me in the latter parts of the seventies, you’d have had too many songs just gathering dust.

 

I don’t remember the conversation per say or when the topic of doing a solo album first came up.  No doubt the discussion included my two managers, Stan Plesser and Paul Peterson, but I can’t say if the idea was mine, theirs or A&M Records.  But I do believe the idea came about towards the end of 1977 when…

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When Inspiration Strikes 

 

In 1980, I like a lot of people tuned in to watch and listen to Carl Sagan's "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage".  Many years later his words and spirit moved me to write lyrics for a song based around the Voyager missions and his description of Earth appearing as only "a pale blue dot".  Ever since watching that PBS series and reading the accompanying book I've found it hard to look at my daily life as being anything but insignificant in the vastness of a nights starry sky.

 

I recently came upon a YouTube…

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A Moment in Time 

 

The New York Times invited everyone with a camera, amateur or pro to join them on this Sunday, May 2, at 15:00 (U.T.C./G.M.T.), to make a simultaneous visual record “A Moment in Time” with the idea being to create an international photographic mosaic cemented together by the common element of time.

 

Just before 10 o’clock this morning I walked down to the river behind my house and shot this picture of a Canadian goose.  Having just finished watching the morning news about oil spills in the Gulf of…

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Happy 20th Birthday Hubble Telescope 

One late winters night Janet and I were driving back to our little farmhouse.  On the dirt road about a mile from our house was a nice big open field where we use to go watch thunderstorms roll-in during the summers.  But this was a rather cold night for anyone to be out in the elements.

 

As we topped a hill we noticed a car on the side of the road with its trunk flipped open and two young men standing there.  We thought maybe they had a flat or some other car trouble so me stop.  Turns out they were…

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Earth Day / Everyday / Giveaway 

http://www.earthday.org/

 

it was a long time ago and i can’t remember the exact time or place when i first became aware of what Earth Day was really suppose to be about.  or when it was that i first realized that i needed to be thinking about "life" as a much bigger circle than just what was happening right around me at any given moment. 

 

these many years later i feel much more tuned in to the nature world and i’ve come to respect and accept how it affects my life.   so in observance of this special…

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Some Things Old Are New

I'm posting a collection of old songs that have been lying around gathering dust.  Most of them are demos made years ago,  By going HERE you'll be able to listen to them while also viewing stories / lyrics and credits.

 

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