origins and the album

about 8 years ago (!) i started making sounds to accompany productions of my plays. when companies were too cheap to hire a real sound designer, i tried my hand, mainly because sound was so important to the plays. but from that developed a whole another project. i started thinking a lot about these pieces as existing on their own outside of the plays and so began occurrence. the first thing i began was something called the stairs project. when i was a kid -- age 8 -- i was alone with my grandmother when she had a massive stroke. i was alone with her and i had to call 911 and all of that. it pretty much screwed me up for a long time. i wanted to create a sound piece about that experience. but i didn't want to do anything that would be too "literal." so i put out a request to friends asking them to send me sounds: musical, otherwise, anything. and from those sounds i would create something. i worked on that for awhile and then put it on hold as i started writing and recording more traditional songs, still using samples and keyboards. eventually those projects merged.....