SARAH’S SENSUOUS ART AND MUSIC
by Robin Umbley
Sarah RabDAU, the piano-playing half of the piano-and-drums duo Sarah RabDAU and Self-Employed Assassins, has invited me to conduct this interview at her home on the Malden/Medford line. She lives in what they call a “mid-century” brick ranch style house whose basic, somewhat plain brick exterior belies the colorful interior. Inside, artwork is everywhere. There are wall-sized canvases and small framed drawings. One entire kitchen wall is a giant blackboard with doodles and notes written in colored chalk. In the living room, an ancient grand piano with yellowed keys stands at the far end. Stacks of music and notes lie on and around it. (The piano, she explains, actually belongs to her housemate—and now fiancé—the uber-talented Peter Moore.)

Singer-songwriter Sarah RabDAU has surrounded herself with visual art. It inspires her music; on her MySpace page, she mixes in artists Gustav Klimt and Robert Rauschenberg among her musical influences such as Chopin, Debussy, and Satie. Sarah explains that visual art is important to her musically: “It’s a huge influence. Both my parents are artists. My stepmom is an artist. Visual art has always been a huge part of my life. When I was a kid, we’d go to art museums; I also did a lot of theatre as a kid. I definitely connect with visual things. Those things make me feel. While I’m listening to music, I’m usually thinking about other things. For me, just to see a painting… I remember being eight or nine years old and seeing a Monet for the first time…and that was the first time that I really felt like I connected with something…how abstract it is… there’s definitely something… it’s so complicated…. Even today, I get choked up when I see the Water Lilies or something. Visual art affects me in a very deep way. Because of that, somehow it seeps into the music.”

For the record, even Sarah’s unusual choice of typography in her last name—the last syllable of RabDAU is printed in all capitals—is the result of visual art that turned into an unexpected pronunciation aid: “People have always pronounced my name wrong. And we were designing a logo about four years ago, and just as a design, my friend capitalized the last three letters.” Then she noticed that people started pronouncing her name correctly (which is RAB-dow, accent on first syllable despite the caps on the last three letters, and rhymes with cow on the second) so she continued with the practice.
Despite her love for the visual arts, she is admittedly not very good at it herself: “I’ll doodle and sometimes I’ll try and do something but it’s definitely not my talent. I think I’m better at drawing. I always wanted to be a painter or a sculptor—both my parents are sculptors—but clay and I do NOT get along.”

Instead, piano and voice are her creative media: “I started officially taking piano lessons, at, I think eight. We always had a piano at my house. It was always very much part of my life. I’ve tried to play other instruments and every time I do it, [it doesn’t work out.] I’ve tried to play guitar; I can play three or four chords on it, and wow, my fingers REALLY hurt!”

Despite Sarah’s sensuous singing voice, which is rife with emotion and rich tones, she says that it required a little development: “I always sang, but I always hated my voice. Like piano, I was encouraged do it, but unlike piano, and after hearing old tapes, I really wasn’t any good. I have no idea why people encouraged me. But as I started to write more songs with voice around 13 or 14, I realized I had to get comfortable with my voice. So I started practicing by looking in the mirror to see how my voice would change with different mouth movements. I took some lessons here and there, but never anything really intense. I also realized that character would be really important for my voice, something that separates me and makes me stand out instead of being generic. I always want what I don’t have, so I had to figure out what would work with what I had.”
Sarah credits Peter for helping her on her latest recording: “When working on the album though, Peter would do warm-ups with me and he really gave me so much more power. I thought I had power at the time, but now things come out much easier and my pitch has improved.”
Sarah the person and Sarah the performer seem like two separate entities. Sarah’s speaking voice is soft and demure as if she’s afraid of causing any commotion, but her performing voice has a huge range of expression. Physically, in person Sarah has a quiet, unassuming way about her. Her performance, however, is very animated and physical. She contorts and leans and sways all over her keyboard. She explains the difference between what she admits is her “dorky” everyday existence and her extroverted performances: “I think Nick Cave said it best when asked if he feels like he’s acting on stage. His answer: ‘No, I don’t, actually. It’s more like the other way around. When I’m NOT singing the songs, I feel like I’m acting and trying to work out how I’m supposed to be. But on stage I feel this overwhelming sense of being that person I always wished I could be.’”
Her upbringing in theatre also has an impact on her present-day piano/vocal performances: “I did theatre from when I was eight until I was 18, and growing up I was always very shy and moved around a lot. Being on stage let me act out on my imagination and all these wonderful stories that were outside of my life. When I stopped acting though, music made me so naked and vulnerable on stage and it was terrifying. The only way I could overcome that, I think, was to just put everything into like I did when I was a character. But all the energy, love, pain, and exaltation had to come from me instead of another source. I had to put out all the stuff that I kept inside out, and it felt great.”

But Sarah doesn’t attribute her artistic achievements to herself alone. In her blog, she writes, ““I’m really not all that great on my own; it’s the people around me that bring me to life.”  Two very important people in her project are Peter Moore and drummer Matt Graber. She says, “I love collaborating with people. I was solo for so long, and always missed that something that wasn’t there but knew could be. Working with Peter was fantastic. He knew my favorite styles of music, and could do all of those things that I heard but didn’t know how to do. And he’s so meticulous and thorough. He’s used to recording himself playing everything so he has all these tricks that make it much easier for a singer, and since he’s done them a billion times, it’s all very fluid…. This album is exactly what I wanted it to be because of his skills. The songs were there, but he brought them to life.”

Sarah is also grateful for Matt being half of the duo. Matt’s collaboration with Sarah came to be in an unusual way: he approached her and inquired if she wanted to play. He tells how this happened: “I grew up in New Jersey; I came to Boston in 1998. And within a year or two after that, I started playing in lots of different local bands. I met lots of people. In 2004, I went away for about two years and I was in Israel for a while. I knew that I was coming back [talked to Ad Frank] ’    ‘Hey, Ad—I’m coming back. If you know anyone…’ We played tons of shows together… not on the same band but on the same bill… ‘and if you know anyone good looking for a drummer, let me know.’ He said,‘My friend Sarah is looking for a drummer; I think you’d like her music.’ I went to her MySpace page, checked it out, it looked good, I wrote her and said ‘I’m coming to Boston in a month or two. I’m moving back. Would you be interested in playing?’ So we started playing. We had a show, I think not even a month after I came back.”
Sarah was both surprised and grateful. She said, “I was always looking for a drummer. Always. It’s really, really hard to find someone who wants to play with a singer-songwriter but it’s not even just that; I didn’t want to be limited to just being a singer-songwriter. I mean, I don’t play guitar. I don’t play folk. I don’t play in a specific style. I needed to find [a drummer] who has the sensitivity but can also…[voice trails off]. It’s really imperative for me to have someone who understands the nuances of the music. The music isn’t really all that complicated but I might emphasize something a bit differently. And around here, most drummers are rock drummers.”

But Matt is also a rock drummer who plays drums in Mascara. He explains that Sarah’s nuanced style and Mascara’s harder rock style allow him to be versatile: “It works out great for me because I get to play two different ways. I get to do different things.”  He adds that “neither is really straight 4/4. They’re both pretty unique. The main difference is that Mascara is much, MUCH louder. There are a lot of quiet sections, too, but in rehearsal, it just hurts. With Sarah, I don’t play as loud—although it seems like I do. With Sarah’s music, there’s a lot of dynamics. We shape things; we have a little more… orchestral type touches.”

Sarah and Matt have just finished their new CD. Logistically, their touring will be a bit limited, though, because Matt is in the midst of the master of music in music education program at Boston Conservatory. They plan on playing localized dates and mini tours in the Northeast.

http://www.sarahrabdau.com

JASON BENNETT

& THE RESISTANCE

by Ryan Bray

While they've only been together a brisk three years, Jason Bennett & the Resistance (guitarist Jimmy Burke, bassist Ryan Packer, and drummer Mike McCabe) make music steeped in local street punk history. With roots and ties stemming back to old guard punk heroes such as Suspect Device and the Pug Uglies, and modern day torchbearers the Street Dogs and Death and Taxes, the Resistance,with but a five song EP to their credit, have become the reigning local champions of sing-along, hook-heavy street rock.
Bennett, Packer, and McCabe took some time away from prepping their first full-length to talk with the Noise about their new album, where folk and punk rock meet, and the importance of putting out music with a message in a world gone haywire.
Noise: So you guys are getting ready for the new record.
Ryan: Yeah. We just got the dates. We go in to record in a couple of weeks. We're going back in with (producer Paul) Kolderie, so we're excited about that. We're ready to start it anyway.
Noise: Where are you guys recording?
Ryan: Camp Street Studios. It's where we did the [Hope Dies Last] EP. We don't want to go anywhere else. Paul's a real good guy to work with. He definitely pulled some stuff out of us that we didn't know we had in us. It gives the band a little more focus and direction as far as songwriting.
Noise: It must be nice to work with someone who has that trained ear. It's almost like music is a second language.
Mike: He's a good person to listen to. He's been around the block.
Jason: He's a producer who will tell you what works or what doesn't. You know, he'll say, "Eh, it's taking too long to get to the hook. Go in and fix it."
Noise: What about the sound of the new record? In terms of comparison and contrast with Hope Dies Last, what's changed?
Jason: I think things have definitely changed this time around. We're gonna do a couple of the songs from the EP. I think we've added more texture and depth. Jimmy, Mike and Ryan had a lot more input into these songs. With the EP, there were only a couple of songs that we worked on together. We knew this time there had to be more depth and more sides to it.
Noise: Would you call this the first real Jason Bennett & the Resistance record, at least in terms of you doing it as a unit where everyone has their parts to play?
Ryan: Sure. The first time, we had only been together six or seven months before we recorded. Now it's like a different thing. We know what kind of a drummer Mike is and he knows what kind of a bass player I am. In terms of songwriting with Jason, that's really come into itself. The songs are more involved and just a step up.
Mike: We also packed in a lot of live shows in a really short period of time. We must have played eight weekends in a row, between the Darkbuster Throw Up show and the [WBCN] Rumble and other stuff. You just become more seasoned as a player, and definitely as a band. We need to click together on stage, and that helps us gong into the studio.
Noise: You guys must love playing in Boston. It's just such a purebred, meat and bones punk rock city. It seems that people would welcome you guys with open arms just given the pedigree of bands in the area.
Ryan: Oh yeah. We did that Wreck the Halls show with the Street Dogs, and after that it was like kids just came out of the woodwork. It was a great opportunity to play in front of our core audience.
Noise: Well, they're the band you want to play with.
Ryan: Yeah. That show just kind of put us on the map. I just wish we could play more all-ages shows.
Jason: My first impulse when we got the first record done was to take it on the road. Based on my experiences in other bands, I knew we could do that, but I thought, "We need to do some shows in Boston. People don't really know us here. We had booked a bunch of shows and then there were seven or eight straight weeks of stuff that opened up around here. The Street Dogs called, then the Rumble, then the Throw Up and then the Rumble again. It was unexpected."
Noise: Who are some of your influences? A lot of it is on the surface, you hear a lot of Ducky Boys and Bruisers, but talk about your music culture as a band.
Jason: I came up with the original hardcore, the real stuff as far as I'm concerned. I was friendly with a lot of those bands, and got to tour and play with the Bosstones and other bands. I was friends with them, which is actually how I got to know Ryan. But I grew up with a lot of Agnostic Front, Cro Mags and a lot of the British stuff. I was really into the Clash, Billy Bragg and the Pogues. I lived in Ireland for a while, so I listened to a lot of Irish music. Then there was old ska and bluebeat stuff....
Mike: I listened to a lot of Dinosaur Jr, Pixies, Throwing Muses and stuff like that. That's why working with Paul was great, because he worked with a lot of those bands. Just drinking beer with Paul and talking about J Mascis going to the store to buy candy between sessions was cool.
Ryan: Yeah, in the van our iPods go all over the place, from punk to Muddy Waters and everywhere in between.
Jason: I mean really, when I sit down to write they start as very simple folk songs.
Noise: It's funny how so many different songs across different genres start that way. It's very universal.
Jason: Well it's American music. That is the original American music along with the blues. I mean we robbed a little from the English, Scottish and Irish, added an African beat and called it rock and roll, but folk is that foundation. I don't think folk music and punk rock are really that far apart, it's just the medium in which you do it. They can be protest music, celebratory music or sad music, and it all depends on the context. I think rock 'n' roll needs more of that, because that's the way it always was. I think we've gotten away from that. We get bands every two weeks now, and there's no depth and no soul to it. They don't know where they came from.
Noise: You're talking in terms of musical history?
Jason: Yeah. When I hear a new band and they say their favorite band is from 10 years ago, that upsets me to find that's where their musical education starts. You should know where you came from. I don't want to sit and hear these bands whine. The music should tell a story.
Ryan: We're not here to preach or anything, but in these times to not say what's on your mind is asinine.
Jason: I want to tell a story, and you can take whatever you want out of that story. I've had people come up to me and tell me what my songs are about, and I'm like, "Nah, nah, but if that's what you got out of it, that's cool."
Noise: What kind of a story are you guys trying to tell?
Jason: There's a couple of different things, but they're all variations of the same theme. We're a really fractured society right now, and I find that absurd. I think Woody Guthrie would have found it absurd. I think Muddy Waters would have thought it's stupid. We're all Americans and we're all essentially the same people. We're really not all that different. We face a lot of the same issues. I think we have to realize that we are a common culture and we are a common people. There are definitely common points we can all agree on. The solution to our problems isn't screaming and yelling at each other.
Ryan: We're all in this shit together. We've got more similarities than differences, and we just need to be more human about it.
Noise: Your music reflects that. There's a real socio-economic slant to it. Have you always looked at the world through that kind of lens?
Mike: How can you not? Especially right now. I mean we're bailing out the banks, bailing out the auto industry. Something like 32,000 more people just lost their jobs the other day. The media inundates you with it, and you have to form an opinion about it.
Jason: And that all comes back to the music. People used folk music in the '20s, '30s and '40s to counteract what was happening around them. They were trying to give people another means of getting information. What you read in the paper, that's not necessarily the whole equation. They were using the music as a different way of communicating.
Noise: And you're trying to bring a little bit of that back.
Ryan: It's absolutely okay to have an opinion, and to me that's what punk rock is about. If I didn't believe that, I'd have spikey hair and an N'Sync shirt on. I mean I hope there's kids out there who are getting pissed off and are in bands that are writing music that says something. It's maybe the only way some kid out in Omaha is going to find out what's happening in Boston without turning on the news.
Noise: What bands spoke to you guys that way?
Ryan: Hands down, Ignite was the first band for me. I listened to the Dead Kennedys and all of that, but when I first heard Ignite, I was like, this dude Zoli totally knows what he's talking about. They were from Southern California and I was just a kid from Boston, but I was just totally picking up what they were saying.
Jason: Obviously the Clash and Billy Bragg, Toots & the Maytals, Desmond Dekker, just a lot of stuff that came out around that time. Then there was Operation Ivy and Crimpshrine. I guess we sort of pick and choose.
Mike: We're not telling anyone to do anything. We just want to give people an opinion. We want to tell people what we think, and if you agree with it, cool. And if not, that's fine. If you reach one person who gives a crap about making a change, that's great.
jasonbennettandtheresistance.com

BIRD MANCINI

Accordian Days

It’s the bottom of the sixth in game three of the ALCS and the Sox are down five to zip. There’s nothing to be excited about—given that the Tampa Bay Rays are all of a sudden a force to be reckoned with. Kotsay flies out to BJ Upton and the side is retired. In utter frustration I turn the TV off. The only thing to be excited about this early crisp autumn evening is how lucky I am to be checking out Funny Day, the CD by Bird Mancini. The band, or more aptly duo of Ruby Bird and Billy Mancini, vocally blend elements of Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young and XTC seamlessly throughout the disc. They combine accordion with a variety of guitars, bass, and drums in an interesting menagerie of sounds and thoughts. If you are fortunate enough to catch them live you will be treated to the duo on accordion and acoustic guitar, or with a full band—depending on their collective mood. I met up with Billy and Ruby at one of my favorite little haunts in Allston—the Model. The Model is a little funkier of late with its more laid back vibe in the back room—complete with plush couches, high tables and a DJ booth in the corner. Billy and Ruby are pretty funky in their own way. They are clearly veterans of the Boston and other music scenes and have enjoyed making music together in various iterations over the years. The plethora of styles that they have attacked have gone far afield from blues to covers to original ’60s influenced rock. They are both low-key easy people to talk to. What ensues is a casual conversation over a couple pints.

Noise: Let’s get started with a little background on Bird Mancini. How did this all come about?
Billy: We’ve been together for a very long time. We actually met in a talent contest.
Noise: I can’t think of very many bands that have started that way.
Billy: The prize was a hundred bucks, so another guy that I was playing with at the time and I won a bottle of champagne and the hundred bucks—that we shared that night.
Noise: Not bad—a hundred bucks and champagne?
Billy: Yeah, not to mention a wife.
Noise: [laughs] So, I guess you won on all fronts that night?
Billy: Yes, absolutely. So, we shared the champagne—not just the two of us that night—a bunch friends and everything.
Noise: That seems like an odd way to get started—at least for this area. Was this in Boston?
Ruby: It was actually just for the hundred bucks. At that time in Tucson there were no jobs to be had and we were barely eking out a living as musicians. So, the hundred bucks and the free meal attached was pretty enticing. The whole thing was a big adventure for me to be in Tucson in the first place.
Noise: Where are you from?
Ruby: I grew up north of Kansas City. I was just up for an adventure and followed some friends to Tucson. It just seemed like a really cool place to be at the time.
Noise: Coming to Boston must have really been an adventure then. How did you end up here?
Billy: I’m from New Hampshire originally. I moved to Tucson to get away from this area for a while. When we got sick of the Southwest because we couldn’t get enough work—plus the cities are 500 miles apart—we decided to come back to this area. I mean you can’t just go to Cambridge to do a gig and then to Boston or the suburbs or whatever. We came back here and started a band with the friends that we moved back here with. We were immediately able to work and we didn’t have to get jobs for quite a while.
Ruby: Yeah, for like four years we were on the road. It was a lot easier back in the day because there were a lot more clubs to play at. It was actually possible 20 years ago to make a living playing music on the road.
Noise: That is very rare today indeed. What was the band all about back then?
Ruby: The band was called the Nick Adventure Band and we got a bit of press back then. We were really a traveling Outer Limits type of thing. We played up and down the upper north Atlantic coast.
Billy: We weren’t playing original music back then—unless we were able to slip in an original song into the set. We were playing covers, but we were making money doing that so it beat having to work real jobs. It’s a lot different now playing originals of course.
Noise: What do you find are the differences between playing covers and originals—besides the obvious?
Ruby: I guess just giving the fact that itís harder to get people to come out and support local live music. Covers are an easy sell. Plus, the cover at the clubs is around $10. So, if a couple of people go out together that’s $20 before you even have a drink. People are less likely to take a chance on a live band that they may of never heard of. It’s especially tougher as we get older. We are part of the baby boom generation and we were all partying animals back in the day. Now they all have kids or maybe even grown kids that are going to college so it’s really a different world now. We also had a band for a long time called the Sky Blues. This was blues based and we were able to make a living doing that format as well. We decided that we wanted to do a different type of thing going forward.
Noise: It sounds like you aren’t afraid to attack different genres. Why did the Sky Blues end and what is the band working on now?
Billy: Where we are now is that we are a duo and we only work with a full band depending on the show and the venue.
Ruby: While the real reason that we decided to end the Sky Blues was because of a trademark issue—this really got us into re-thinking why we got into music to begin with. Playing the blues circuit for a while became sort of been-there-done-that and we thought; why don’t we just do our own music? So that’s what led to this whole Bird Mancini thing. Since then we have been an original band. The only real issue that we have faced is in getting people to play with us. If you are really good then everyone else wants you too—not to mention that they make money. Sometimes you get lucky in the way that we have and find people that are really good and are willing to play for not a lot of money. For us it became more of a drag to keep people because it’s hard to get a lot of good playing gigs to hang on to people full time.
Noise: So this duo came more from necessity than from a desire to do something different? How do you normally play out as a duo?
Billy: Yeah, exactly. We normally play as a duo and occasionally as a full band. Ruby plays accordion and I play acoustic guitar as both a bass and a rhythm guitar while sort of drumming. It’s quite a combination.
Ruby: The hardest thing is that when we have our bass player (John Bridge) and our drummer (Larry Harvey) with us, I don’t play any differently. But Billy has to play completely differently. He gets to play lead when we do that. It’s sort of a shame that he can’t play lead all the time because he’s such a good guitar player.
Billy: I have to simplify what I’m doing when I play electric because I have to remember not to play what the bass player is supposed to play. I have to, in essence, get small.
Noise: How far have you been able to take this set-up as a duo?
Ruby: Well, this summer we went to Liverpool to play the International Pop Overthrow Festival. We got to play at the Cavern!
Noise: Wow, that’s like Mecca. Were you in awe the entire time?
Ruby: We thought that we might be like that but once you start playing and get on stage it’s like playing any other club. Well, at least you tell yourself that. It was very cool and we spent a lot of time looking around and exploring.
Noise: Were the bands playing mostly local bands from Liverpool?
Billy: No, Actually, there were bands from all over the world that did this. It’s really grown over the years.
Noise: I want to touch on your influences. There is clearly CSNY and XTC in your sound.
Billy: I think that our sound definitely puts us in a strange place here in Boston. Sometimes it’s tough to figure out who we should play with. Although, recently we played with Leon Russell which was great. He really brought out our bluesy side. It was nice to play for a really involved audience.
Ruby: We actually sold some CDs that night. [laughs] Yeah, it was great.
Noise: It sounds like you guys have a lot going on. What are you working on currently?
Billy: We are always working on new recordings. We are in the demo stages now and we are sending a bunch of stuff off for the bass player and the drummer to put their stamp on. The people that I chose to play with I trust them and give them very basic demos. That way they can add their ideas. I want them to put their stamp on the recordings too. Other people will come up with things that I would not have thought of or would have come out of my head.
Ruby: It’s so cool when you can really click with other people and have them understand what you are trying to put out there.
Billy: The other thing that we are doing is playing with Sal Baglio’s band a bit and of course Urban Caravan. That’s with Mr. Curt, Sal Baglio, Steve Gilligan, Jon Macy, Sgt. Maxwell, and Glenn Williams. We don’t always all make every gig, but it’s a lot of fun. Bird Mancini plays Clear Conscience Cafe on Thursday, 11/6 and the IPO Festival at Church on Saturday, 11/22/08. And check out myspace.com/birdmancini.

PETER MOORE

ONE HELL OF A RIDE

by Stace

Exhilaration: the giddy nervous excitement you feel when you finally have left the old comfortable shoe of your relationship and you really are truly free. Free to stay out all night and not check in, free to rent sappy movies, free to go out with anyone you want and ironically, free to start the whole cycle all over again. This is but one nuanced musical sentiment on the debut solo album One Ride by Boston rock legend Peter Moore, a brilliant song and wordsmith. One Ride is a collection of songs joined together by interstitials (and yes, I had to look it up: a space; especially a small or narrow one, between things or parts.) that beautifully tell the universal story of a single ride on the cycle of love, beginning to end, to rebirth.

"I thought it would be nice to have this sort of low-fi interstitial that, without sounding pompous, is kind of like a Greek chorus in an old Greek drama where the chorus keeps coming out and saying what is going on in the story; like detached observers dispensing advice, while the actual songs are the real characters... I like how before I launched into that explanation I said ‘without sounding pompous it's like a Greek chorus.' I mean it's totally pompous to say that. Pompous is the new black though.

"The interstitial is a thread and so I likened it to this idea of one ride on the cycle of love, that's the relationship, is like one ride on the cycle. It's very basic but everything is an analogy between that ride and a relationship. The first song is about the guy developing a crush and the second song is when the crush is full-fledged. So it's kind of funny the whole album is about one relationship and you get through the second song and the guy still hasn't asked her out on a date yet. To me that was kind of symbolic to the weight of the excitement of a relationship how a lot of it happens before it technically starts.

"The first couple of songs sound super happy because that's the feeling you have when you have a crush on somebody, you know?  And it should sound like that because the lyrics are about that and that's the way the character is emotionally feeling. I think that often times I write music, and I think that there is a lot of emotion in them, but I play them for people and they think it sounds like robot music. So this will enable them to get that because this is such a universal theme, everybody's been in love and everybody's had a crush and most people have been in a relationship that has lasted a long time that has dissolved, so by setting the context to be the same for the whole record then at least it gives people a frame of reference that hopefully they will hear. That maybe a change in genre from song to song is not just for the hell of it but it's to underscore the emotion of the character. But really, I should just be thrilled if somebody listens to it for more than four seconds. It's asking a lot in this day and age. Just because you've spent years and years working on something doesn't mean that anybody's going to spend more than a few seconds taking it in. That's the risk.

"One of the other reasons that I like this is, well, everybody's been in love and everybody's had the ups and downs of a love relationship so this is a way that people could see that, okay, maybe I jump around and do different genres but it's not just for the hell of it it's cause the song is demanding I do it, you know? And it's more evident I think if you understand the emotional context of what I'm doing which you can really do a lot easier with something simple like a love story. If you play this record for somebody cold they probably are not going to pick up on this story line thing unless they are listening intently which people tend not to do so I am trying to make a big deal out of the fact that there is this story and that's why it's strung together because I think it might enhance someone's appreciation of the music.

"It's also my way of trying to make the idea of an album, like the ones I used to listen to growing up where I would listen to side one and then flip it over and listen to side two; it's almost like a paean to that, a tribute to that. The idea of a record as an album of songs is on its way out so maybe this is my last gasp, like a way I still like making records that are one cohesive thought."

When Peter Moore plays virtually every instrument and note on the album, except for like, the flugelhorn, it is not because he is a control freak, or simply because he can. He explains, "Playing all of the instruments on the record was really just a matter of convenience. Because I have a studio in my basement and when I am on the road I have a little portable thing that I can bring with me so it's much easier for me to do everything on my own because I only have a few hours here a few hours there. I think if you are in a band, you block out three weeks or five or six weeks at a time, whatever you do, but when you are doing everything on your own you can work in the nooks and crannies of your life."

Peter Moore began writing songs when he was just four years old, one of those gifted children who would promptly proceed to teach himself how to play any instrument within reach. A talented actor, his emotive abilities are readily apparent when you see him perform his music. His first band, the successful group Think Tree, played in the bygone era (1987 to 1994) when a popular local act could actually sell out the Paradise. Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails was so blown away when he heard Think Tree over the sound system in, of all places, a Burger King that he hand-selected them to open for him on series of dates. But in Peter's words Think Tree was only "kind of industrial but way more silly and just weird." His next and current endeavor, the cutting edge and sonically relevant band Count Zero has been going strong since the mid-'90s. A couple of their songs actually appear in the coveted super hit video game Guitar Hero which has garnered Count Zero adoring fans from around the globe. Peter also produces music for other bands and has the enviable day job of being the lead singer and keyboard player for the immensely popular arena tour supporting the studio album of the Blue Man Group.

"Going out with Blue Man is a job that I do that allows me to do other stuff. I've got to do both; so as much as it kind of delays me from doing things, it also enables me to. It's like any other day job that a musician has, but this one just isn't as soul-sucking.  And while it's not as much of a time drain I still don't seem to get records done any quicker. The more time you have the more time you will just take up making it.

"I have to work on a Count Zero record next, I have to because basically, if I was not an artist but a manager of me or if I had a manager that was really a hard ass, a year ago he would have been like, Count Zero has a couple of songs on Guitar Hero but they are not on any record so why don't you make a frikken record that has those songs on it, you idiot. Put your stupid solo record aside and work on this because obviously you're losing fans.

Peter began writing some of the songs that appear on One Ride as long as twenty-three years ago, before he had any idea what love and relationships were. He focused the last year and a half on finally laying down the arrangements that have whirled in his head countless times. Through various historical musical styles, instruments, samples, sounds, singing and poetry Peter perfectly encapsulates the relationship cycle from the universality of the intoxicating crush and fanciful daydream to mustering up the courage to act. The delightful frenzy of early love, to making it work, to the gradual cooling and the lies and the sleepless nights; wondering why we stay in something we know will not last-all of which ultimately leads to the jubilation of new beginnings.

"When you get out of a relationship and you've got something new it's like, Oh! This is what makes life worth living. Makes it invigorating and makes it totally new."

Peter Moore fans have had to be patient a long time to hear this album, the most personal inner workings of his mind, but this perfectly wonderful universal tale of truth and love is more than worth the wait. Do it justice while doing yourself a favor: plunk down, warm up the old hi-fi, affix your headphones, pop in this record and be amazed. Enjoy the ride.