Guitar driven rock story telling.

12 MP3 Songs
ROCK: Roots Rock, FOLK: Folk Pop

Details:
This incredible journey on the path of music started 4 years ago when I released my first album, "Mended Again", in 2003. My idea was to create a collection of my songs which I could listen to and say, "Well I finally got around to recording those songs...".

But those songs had other plans. Well known people in the music business, most notably Mick Jones, founder of Foreigner, encouraged me to keep going forward. Mick gave me a quote for my early website as did Calvin "Fuzzy" Samuels, bassist for Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. Mick said: "Eric got it right the 'first time', his many new listeners will appeciate his fresh rock attitude." When Fuzzy heard some of the tracks and found out that I was a teacher, he looked at me and said, "Mon, you been in d'wrong business." That was cool.

So I followed their wise advice and now 4 years later things have come so far and in directions I never could have imagined. The return tour this August '06 in Scotland for the Benefit of the Cairn Mhor Childcare Partnership of Fife is the best example of how far the songs have taken me on the path they seem to have chosen. We went to Fife to play for Cairn Mhor in August 2005, and it was like living in a beautiful dream the entire time. This year it was like a double dose of dream land...and some single malt doses too.

My Buddhist practices are interwoven with the songs and with the project. Lama Norlha Rinpoche, my teacher and Abbott of Kagyu Thubten Choling Tibetan Buddhist Monastery in Wappingers Falls, NY, blessed the project in its early days and gave it the Tibetan name: "Nyenpai Lugar Gatsal Ling" which means "Garden of Melodius Song and Dance". The essence of that blessing has become the hallmark every gig we play.

My second album,"Head Over Heels", was released in 2005. It received airplay in a number of European countries.

Now the project is on to the next level in so many ways. I recorded "Second Sight", in January at Tainted Blue Studios in Manhattan, www.taintedblue.com. Drummer Ron Thaler, www.ronthaler.com, who joined me for the '06 Scotland tour was producer as well as drummer/percussionsit. Bob Kaus is on bass and Oscar Rodriguez is incredible on lead guitar somehow balancing it with the busy schedule of his own project www.nakatomiplaza.com. Barry Salmon adds more virtuoso guitar playing to 5 of the tracks.

A partnership with The Duallist Drum Pedal company in Scotland is now in place, www.theduallist.com, and many other important relationships are in development.
Many musicians have guided me and set the standards which make the project what it is today.

But the most thanks go to the listeners and fans from California to New York and all the way to Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Scotland, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro...who have heard the songs, taken them to heart and brought them into their lives. Here are two most perfect examples:

1. When we played at The Stag Inn in Falkland, Fife in August 2005, an older man approached me and introduced himself as Jock Dunbar. He said, "They've been playing your cds here for the last two weeks. I was a shepherd on the Lomond Hills for 45 years...Your song titled "The Silver Shepherd" is the story of my life and I want to thank you for it." Not many things can equal that kind of connection and appreciation of the songs. You can see Jock's photo from this year's tour in the Photo Gallery.

2. Playing at The Stag Pub in Falkland, Fife in August this year, one year exactly from meeting Jock Dunbar, I was approached by a young man named Gavin. He said that he had heard us play the year before and had bought Head Over Heels. He had begun to listen to the 10th track titled "You Can Be" over and over again. He concluded that the song was a message to him that he could be more than a construction laborer so he enrolled at Glasgow University and was taking classes there. He came to the gig specifically to tell me that story. He knew the words to the songs, and when we played "You Can Be" he sang along and it was so incredible...Gavin's photo along with his girlfriend Rhonda can be seen in the photo gallery too.

This is the path the songs have taken me on, and I can only thank everyone, including you reading this right now, for listening to them, and by so doing encouraging me to stay true to the songs and continue on this path. Thank you. Eric

People who are interested in Tom Petty Lou Reed Dave Matthews should consider this download.