I was very excited to get a call from producer and good friend Julian Raymond asking me to create some string arrangements and perform live at this years Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. Julian, myself, and several of our industry’s finest musicians, including George Doering, Tim Pierce, and Charlie Bisharat, to name a few, will […]

Getting excited about conducting the “Bombastic Philharmonic Orchestra” with “Cheap Trick” at the Greek Theater on September 23rd. I wrote most of the arrangements last year for the band prior to getting the show off the ground in Milwaukee, WI, but the concert will also include songs that we did in the studio for “The […]

After five great seasons, “Friday Night Lights” will bid farewell as the series finale airs on NBC tonight. I will definitely miss working on the show, and the experience has been not only fulfilling in terms of the incredible quality of the writing and performances, but also because of the great people who I had […]

My wife and I had the chance to see “Win Win” the other night and as usual Thomas McCarthy did not disappoint. The cast was great, including great performances by Paul Giamatti and Amy Ryan, and it is always great for me to see a film like this do well that simply tells a great […]

No, this isn’t a story about 200 five-year-olds watching a trained orca perform tricks to pre-recorded music at Sea World – far from it. During a Cabo trip last year with my friends Dan and Mike Ketelsen, Mike somehow had the presence of mind to capture a rather strange, aggressive appearance by an adult orca […]

Having been a fan of Maria Bello’s work for a long time, especially in films such as “The History Of Violence” and “The Cooler,” I am pleased to be scoring the Indie thriller “Carjacked,” which stars Stephen Dorff and of course Ms. Bello. It has been fun to create a new pallet of electronic sounds […]

After working with Cheap Trick for two months developing their “Dream Police” tour, which features the band with an orchestra, I had the opportunity to return to the Northern Lights Theatre in Milwaukee to conduct the “Bombastic Philharmonic Symphonic Orchestra” ( so named by guitarist Rick Nielsen ) for two nights in February. I wrote […]

In the February 14th issue of Time Magazine, journalist James Poniewozik does a wonderful tribute to the show, in which he mentions that “this brilliantly written and acted drama…..has been a moving, regionally specific but universally true portrait of America”. He goes on to point out, I believe correctly, that the series never pushes a […]

As a prelude to their upcoming “Dream Police” Tour with the “Bombastic Symphony Orchestra”, Cheap Trick performed “Dream Police” on the Conan O’Brien show on January 13th with some of our finest Los Angeles studio musicians. I was asked by the band to create over 20 orchestral arrangements for some of their best known material, […]

     On Tuesday, December 14th, I spent the day at Sunset Sound in Hollywood with producer Julian Raymond.  I played keys for several bonus tracks that will go with Glen Campbell’s “Ghost On A Canvas” record that comes out this April. In the accompanying photo, guitarist Michael Ward ( “Wallflowers” ) pulled out this 1961 Gibson […]