Hiding In The Snow - Scrabbel

When I first started playing solo sets in San Francisco, I met a handful of people who would change my life in ways I couldn’t have imagined.  One of these people was Gary Chou, who came to one of my first shows on the recommendation of a mutual acquaintance.  Gary ended up digging my music and was excited to introduce me to a guy named Dan, who also recorded albums in his bedroom under the band name Scrabbel.  Legend has it that it was originally spelled like the game, but he had to change the spelling due to a 'cease and desist' order from Milton Bradley.  Dan happened to lived a few blocks away from where I was playing, but had been out of town for many months on tour with the legendary bandThe Aisler's Set.  This only deepened the mystery.  I had never really met anyone else who recorded at home, and I certainly didn’t know many people who toured internationally. I needed to meet this guy ASAP.

Through Gary, I got some of his music, which was like nothing I had ever heard before. There was one gorgeous song in particular that blew my mind called "Robot Song" featuring a speak n’ spell and sounded like a sci-fi Sgt. Pepper outtake.

I finally met him when we played a show together, which was one of those nights which you look back on and realize it was a turning point of some sort.  I quickly discovered that Dan was as much of a Beatles fanatic as me, and we became friends pretty quickly.  He would often sit in on my sets at the bar near his house.

I’ve been introduced to too many awesome people, bands I never heard of, movies, jokes, concepts to list here by Dan. Mainly, I’m inspired by his diligence in arranging and nuance in his art- whether it be a stop motion video or a beautiful string arrangement. I’m always floored by the stuff he comes up with.

Fast forward almost a decade, and we’re still making music, and playing a show together on August 20th at Cafe Du Nord, about a week from now. I feel so lucky.

Oh yeah, he’s my brother in law now too.