Jingles, Themes, Instrumentals & Videos

After combing through my backup hard disks/ backup CDs, I discovered that, unfortunately, many of the files of jobs I did have disappeared or are lost to time.  Sadly, a crucial 4TB backup hard drive from the 1990s and 2000s is corrupted and will not open, so a lot of great stuff is now unavailable.  Plus, some masters were on 1/4″ tape, DAT, cassettes, or 3/4″ video and are long gone.

Below is some of what I was able to find.

Finally, a big thanks to all the fantastic musicians and vocalists who performed on many of the tracks.  It was an honor to be able to record in incredible LA area studios like Capitol, Sound City, Mad Hatter, Eldorado, Rumbo, and many others.  Sadly, most of these incredible studios are no longer in business…

Jingles & Themes

All of these tracks were really fun to work on.  You can hear the wide variety of styles that a composer/ producer is called on to produce.  Deadlines were tight, but music budgets were good, and at the very least, you got paid for most demos.  The business has changed drastically since then…

Instrumental Tracks

Below are a wide variety of instrumental tracks written for various projects over the years.

A note on the Apple Newton radio track: In 1993, Apple introduced the Newton, which was a revolutionary handheld device that included a variety of apps (way ahead of its time!), and even included handwriting recognition.  It bombed in the marketplace, but set the stage for the iPhone’s launch many years later in 2007.

Videos

A selection of commercials, trailers, and other spots composed over the years.  Some of these go way back to the beginning of recorded music – OK, maybe not that long, but there are some golden oldies in here!

Pacific Theatres Trailer:

This trailer ran before and after every showing of every movie, across their theatre chain, for more than 12 years.  I once calculated it aired more than a million times!  My co-writer Matt McGuire and I did all the music and sound design.

Lucky Supermarkets, Sport Chalet, and Wienerschnitzel ads:

If you lived on the West Coast, you couldn’t escape the Lucky Supermarkets, Sport Chalet, and Wienerschnitzel ads in the 90s.   

Even today, people remember the “Everybody Loves A Wiener” tagline for the Wienerschnitzel ads.  I remember sitting with the creatives at the ad agency, just me, my guitar, and a singer.  We played countless versions of the tagline, all with a strummed guitar chord background, but no one was happy with the result.  Finally, probably out of frustration, I switched to just playing the ​single note melody on the guitar, along with the vocal.  That was the keeper!

A final note about the Weinerschnitzel spots: Roy Clark is an amazing guitar player, so it was bizarre having him “air guitar” to my actual guitar playing (and having him sing the corny “We’ve got to come together” line I wrote).  Only in show biz!