Dr. Pete's Music & Unsolicited Opinions
After all these years you’d think I’d have figured out how to reply to people when they ask me what kind of music I play. I haven’t figured it out; it’s frustrating and it’s time consuming, because I have to ladder through all the styles of music I play in hopes of coming up with something I think this person would like. To save time, and to keep them from walking away in despair, I sometimes reply, "my music? it’s tempestuous, passionate, and mauve," but because I have your attention, I’ll simply say:
Whatever I can get away with ......
My work here spans over forty years, and it's never been formulaic. "Black Kangaroo," "Traveller," "Going Home," and "Beyond Help!," and the soon-to-be "Crazy Quilt" ......here’s a multi-generational compendium that includes — but is not limited to — power trios and heavy metal; blues, fingerpicking, and slide guitar; acoustic guitar, bowed bass, and cello; chamber quartets and tone poems; instrumentals with electric guitars and bass; instrumentals with electric guitars, bouzoukis, and mandolins; compositions for piano, songs with synthesizers and shakuhachis, songs with a kantele and requinta, and social commentaries, editorials, and polemics.
\After way too much time and way too many interruptions—including the onslaught of children and the onset of arthritis—I’m nearing completion of my new album "Crazy Quilt;" having an arthritic fretting hand meant I couldn’t play, but I needed to justify my existence and I had material that I’d recorded, so here’s a collection of songs that were, well ..... lying around. They are now combined with some that I managed to record specifically for the project. And it is a crazy quilt: there are songs I wrote after drift diving in Fiji and Mexico; a version of "All Along The Watchtower" that’s scored for electric and acoustic guitars and viola; songs about age and aging; songs about crossing the border; songs about life and what comes after, and a radiant version of "That’s A Good Question," a song that first appeared on "Black Kangaroo," lo those many years ago.
I know there's something here you'll enjoy. And your enjoyment will be enhanced by your maturity. Sensitivity helps, sophistication is a plus, and so is a sense of humor.
Drinking helps ...... but it's not necessary.
Welcome to my world; I hope you like it.
After all, it’s tempestuous, passionate .....
And mauve.