THE MUSIC
Thank God for your MOther
Debut album by Striking Ghosts. Ten tracks about love and loss.
REALIA
Second official album by Striking Ghosts. An all-electronic album all on one synthesizer.
CHOICES
Third official album by Striking Ghosts. The upswing and downfall of a relationship encapsulated in this album.
12 VISIONS
Fourth album. 12 tracks written on acoustic guitar, piano and synthesizer.
HOPE
The fifth album, very experimental. I had just gotten a Mac desktop and decided to test out Garageband and songs came from my explorations.
ELIXIR
The sixth album, continuing on from HOPE and with a bit of Realia thrown in. Experimental and dance oriented.
Live and Active cultures
The seventh album, with a title that's a play on my favorite "dessert" (yogurt). I assembled songs I had written on six different cultural/ethnic instruments for this album.
From a State of Flowers
The eighth album is a collection of songs I had forgotten I had written some time ago when I visited Miami in 2006 with my mother. With the downtime I had staying in South Beach, I had written an entire LP.
COVERS ALBUM: VIOLATOR
With so much free time during the pandemic, one of the many projects I worked on was to cover all nine songs from Depeche Mode's 1990 masterpiece. Inspired by Fruit Bats' cover of The Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream. Plus, this album was celebrating its 30th anniversary!
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COMPILATION: OCTAGON
Released after the debut album Thank God for Your Mother, this collection contains B-sides that did not make it onto the album, plus an instrumental track and a remix of "Carry Me" from the first album.
EpS: Fir ST E.P.
The debut release by Striking Ghosts, containing three original songs, one song written by a friend, and acoustic versions of "Tell Me a Lie" and "I Want to Be Your Lover."
EPs: iPHON E.P.
I discovered the joys of writing on a phone and recording in Garageband while on the go, so, much like the HOPE album, these four tracks came about just by having fun and experimenting.
E.P.edemic
With the pandemic beginning personally for me in March of 2020, and with so much extra time on my hands, I started writing songs "inspired" by the global situation. Before I knew it, I had enough to release this first EP. Little did I know ...
Epedemic: THe Second Wave
... that the virus crisis would continue and I'd keep on writing some more! Since my first-year anniversary with my love was occurring as well, I added that song to the collection (though it's not really about the pandemic).
E.P.EDEMIC 3 Finger Salute
I enjoy trilogies just as much as anyone, and I had a few more songs on the whole subject to round out the series and to actually make it into one whole album with ten tracks if I'd like.
N.Y.E.P.
During a trip to New York City for Fourth of July festivities, I brought my car and came up with six songs inspired by this magnificent mecca.
UKE.P.
I bought my first ukulele thanks to hearing Paul McCartney play George Harrison's "Something" on it. I finally decided to commit the three originals I wrote to recordings.
WAIKIKI E.P.
Going to Hawaii for the Honolulu Marathon in 2017, I brought my uke and wrote five original songs capturing my feelings there.
"The Harbinger"
An experimental dance track that I uploaded to YouTube.
"Lo-CHIA"
Another experimental dance track probably written around 2012 or so that I uploaded to YouTube to experiment with the whole process.
"Samhain"
I always wanted to write a spooky track for Halloween, something that could possibly be used for a horror movie, so I came up with this. Also on YouTube.
"Hey LOOTER"
I was absolutely disgusted by the riots that took place after George Floyd's unjust murder, so I directed this song at the people taking advantage of the situation.
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"1983"
Re-watching Stranger Things and being stuck inside/quarantined makes one long for times that contain a great deal of nostalgia. 1983 was one of those years for me.
Cover SONG: "Halloween THEME"
In a recording frenzy in the fall of 2020, I decided to try my hand at a dance version of this John Carpenter classic.
"Vote HARD"
The election of November 2020 was so majorly crucial, I was inspired to write not just one voting song ...
"U R UR VOTE"
... but actually two, with this one a meditation on the "you are what you eat" theme, but in this case, "you are what you vote."
"CHRISTMAS EVE"
I wanted to write a Christmas song in a different vein, and I had always been enamored with the night BEFORE the big day, so I wrote and recorded this.
E.P.edemic 4 Crying Out Loud
I surprised myself in that I had more to say in the E.P.edemic series! With the rollout of the vaccines, I found myself inspired to write four more songs relating to the state of the world ... and mine, too.
"No Time to Die" EP
I had fun fancying that I had been commissioned to write a Bond theme. I added two tracks from the Florida session to make it into an E.P.
"Hey Joe"
An unforeseen personal event happened to someone near and dear to me in January of 2022; my family friend of almost fifty years passed away, and she was like a grandmother to me. I received very little in the way of details and expected her son to contact me, but after many attempts, he never did. My way of processing the pain and grief was to write this song.
"Russians" (Sting cover)
The events happening in Ukraine have affected all of us in some way, I believe. This song came to mind one day from the absolutely terrific debut album by Sting. Fiddling around and putting my own spin on it, I decided to upload a sparse piano cover of the song and change the names of Reagan and Khrushchev to Biden and Putin, respectively.
RIO bare: Acoustic renditions of the
album for its 40th anniversary
Uvalde E.P.
Hutch E.P.
One of my favorite bands of all time released their sophomore album in 1982, and to commemorate its release, I decided to create acoustic versions of the nine songs featured on the LP.
In late May of this year, a mass shooting occurred in Texas and affected many people, difectly and indirectly. Frustrated by this somewhat regular occurrence in these American times, I wrote three songs ("When When When," "Up There with the Angels" and "Offworld") that are featured here.
Another one of my favorite bands, INXS, lost its lead singer 25 years ago this year. To me, he was one of the most charismatic frontmen a band has ever had. I decided to record four of my favorite INXS tracks for this EP - "Not Enough Time" from Welcome to Wherever You Are (1992), "This Time" from Listen Like Thieves (1985), "By My Side" from X (1990) and "Freedom Deep" from Full Moon, Dirty Hearts (1993).
HINDSIGHT ... IS 2020
The official ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth albums from Striking Ghosts, a quadruple album originally intended for release in the year 2020. These albums detail the story of a devastating breakup, wallowing in it, getting through it and surviving it.
MONSTERS
Inspired by Duran Duran's Halloween-themed album DANSE MACABRE, this collection was made rather quickly to celebrate the Halloween of 2023 and everyone Halloween thereafter! It contains six songs, two of which are instrumentals.
"Done with Kanye"
Having been an occasional fan of his, I was appalled by his behavior in the year of 2023 and wanted to express my disgust in a track about him.
"PBG"
This track was written several years ago as a tribute to Peter Gabriel and his seven studio albums. Shockingly realizing he was putting out his first original studio album in 21 years, the track was released this year of 2024 with an "update" as the remix.
"I AM BLACK"
Getting more personal, this track and its B-side, "Are They Black?" bring up the topic of where exactly do biracial people like me belong. We are considered "Black" by commo society, but if I and others like me don't look, act or talk "Black?" There's some tongue-in-cheek humor in the song as well.
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A 12-track collection of songs that take on a very personal tone, reflecting upon myself as a musician and multiracial fiftysomething ... and people that have come in and out of my life.
Another 12-track collection and a "surprise" follow-up to Tick Tock, constituting more songs that are not as personal but more character driven ... and some light proselytization!