Last Night at the Big Top

After I finished college, I wanted to move to New York to become a rock star, so I needed a job that would help me put a little money in the bank. I ended up working on a cruise ship that did a couple of different routes in the Caribbean. Among one of the many characters that I met was a drummer named Jim. He was a nice guy, and really normal compared to most of the other cruise ship ilk. In my first couple of days aboard, he asked how everything was going, and I told him that I thought that this must be what a circus is like. He had sort of a funny look on his face and raised an eyebrow, and said, “Well, sort of.” And he proceeded to tell me about the circus that HE had played, the sort that is called a “Mud Show”. They’re called Mud Shows because they generally set up at the edge of a town in the dirt. And they don’t have the luxury of canceling due to rain. So if it’s been raining, and the dirt is wet, on with the Mud Show. Jim’s general sense was that the cruise ship thing was pretty normal – but if you want to meet some REALLY CRAZY characters, then you should work in a Mud Show. He had a theory that Mud Shows were the perfect place if you ever needed to placed in the witness protection program. You travel around a lot from town to town and you’re probably not going to run into anyone you know. In any case, the circus performers need to say goodbye to the town when the end of their run is over. That’s the Last Night At The Big Top.

What genre is your music? What music styles do you write?

Yes! Well, sort of. I’m comfortable writing in any genre, with the caveat that my music is going to have my own personal “filter” on it.

My instrument is piano, and my training is in Jazz. That said, I’ve written and recorded lots of other styles, like guitar-driven surf music, disco and classical.

I create the music for a funny and very violent (did I mention funny?) cartoon called "The Happy Tree Friends" a project I've worked on since 2005. This requires me to write in numerous styles, sometimes in the course of 1 episode.