notes on "on the canal"

In the spring of 2000, I set out to finally record my first album, "On The Canal". The music had already been written, and as recording progressed (it was awkwardly spread out over a ten-week period), I began working on artwork for the package. This proved to be a bigger challenge than I had originally figured, since there were absolutely no boundaries--I was my own producer and designer. It's not that you end up fighting with yourself in a situation like this....you're on the same team with yourself, but you don't know what game you're playing. All I had was a picture of myself, taken with a digital camera. The blue bars on the top and bottom were attained by using the negative feature on Photoshop.

The back cover was taken by my father at Centennial Lakes in Minneapolis, MN, on a bridge over a man-made canal. I'd always loved the look of that area, and it inspired the name of the album. The landscaping and such that accompanied this location had a contemporary flair that really appealed to me. I only wish the recording could match the smooth look of the photo.

The picture on the inside is a shot of a much bigger canal....the Atlantic Ocean, from my parents' hotel room in Ft. Lauderdale. I'd never seen song lengths written out in long form, so I elected to try it out, and was pleased with the results.

The picture on the tray was taken by Marit Røkeberg, a fellow Webster student, in the Loretto-Hilton building during the time which the album was recorded. The photo wasn't originally meant to showcase me, but I thought, when cropped, it looked nice beneath the disc.