Jonathan Montgomery Pollock

2/8/2020: Tracking THE "Basics" for A new Ralph Covert Album!

Gee but it's great to spend a full day in the studio tracking a live band! Saturday's session proved to be what Abraham Maslow classified as a "peak experience." Ralph, Brian Sheridan, Tom O'Brien, and Chris Weng all brought their A-games to Waterdog Studios and laid the foundation for six new or previously unrecorded Ralph Covert tunes. There was a great vibe in the studio, and their musical togetherness made my job as engineer exceptionally easy.

2/2/2020: Ralph Covert & Michael HArtigan - Behind the scenes of "Here and gone and Back Again"

Here is a short behind-the-scenes video of a "musical experiment" we conducted in 2018 at Waterdog Records. Michael Hartigan scored a lovely arpeggiated accompaniment to Ralph Covert's song "Here And Gone And Back Again," but what began as a simple song demo turned into an exercise in instrumental counterpoint. Though we adhered to the written arrangement, we ventured to be spontaneous (and unorthodox) with the instrumentation. Please enjoy our creative process, from the initial brainstorming session to composing the musical arrangement to creating the final recording. Engineered and filmed by Yours Truly.

Instruments used: Martin T-18 Tiple; Wurlitzer Butterfly Baby Grand electric piano; Cable-Nelson baby grand piano; Gretsch Sho-Bro resonator guitar; Music Man StingRay 4 electric bass guitar; Ghanaian marimba with PVC resonators; Baldwin Fun Machine polyphonic synthesizer; Wurlitzer 4100 tube organ; Carmella De Luxe accordion.

1/16/2020: Outronaut - "Go Meekly"

Here, have a spritz of playful effervescence! "Go Meekly" is Outronaut's cheeky homage to our favorite space-age pop pioneer and high-functioning paranoid schizophrenic, Joe Meek. Mixed and mastered by Doug McBride at Gravity Studios. Slideshow by Steve Gerlach. Engineered by Yours Truly at Waterdog Records.

12/14/2019: DEpravos De La Mour - "Radiance"

Here is one of my favorite Depravos De La Mour tracks, "Radiance." A bleak jazz-noir lament, featuring the wistful vocal stylings of Louie Herscoe. Mixed and mastered by Danny Shaffer. Slideshow by Steve Gerlach. Engineered by Yours Truly at Waterdog Records.

12/2/2019: OMG! You Guys! We're on tV, you guys!

My wife Amelia and I were on The Travel Channel's Hometown Horror, in Episode 5: "Three Ring Terror!" The show explores small towns across the U.S. with dark, haunted, and otherwise weird history, and our episode was about beautiful and fascinating Baraboo, Wisconsin. We filmed there this spring, where Amelia spoke on the topic of Native American burial mounds, and we shared a strange experience of our own at the Man Mound Park in Sauk County. The episode includes several interesting locations and people, including our friends Shelly Wells and B.C. Farr of the Old Baraboo Inn. We attended the watch party at the Inn, and it was a lot of fun seeing ourselves on-screen with the Travel Channel logo next to our big heads.

11/14/2019: Professor Pollock Will See You Now.

Portrait by my amazing wife Amelia Cotter.

10/24/2019: Outronaut - "Dark, Dark, Darkness"

In the spirit of the Spoopy Season, here's another one of my favorite Outronaut tracks, "Dark, Dark, Darkness." Mixed and mastered by Doug McBride at Gravity Studios. Video by Molly Kate Lane. Engineered by Yours Truly at Waterdog Records.

10/23/2019: Outronaut - "EL Producto"

Here's one of my favorite Outronaut tracks, "El Producto." Mixed and mastered by Doug McBride at Gravity Studios. Video by Steve Gerlach. Engineered (and "harppeggios") by Yours Truly at Waterdog Records.

10/22/2019: Crêpe & Penn - Spooky Edition!

The Crepe & Penn Literary Magazine's Spooky Edition will be out on October 30, just in time for Halloween! Six of my photographs have been chosen for inclusion, and I hope I'm not violating any terms by sharing five of them here: