Here’s two fun, retro-rock songs from my album to be released on streaming Easter weekend called, “They Still Make Sunsets, Don’t They.”

It’s a project I began over ten years ago. Hence the “lost album” description. I love this gold-flake background image for the single cover.

In 2013 and 2015 I had a handful of recording sessions at 7 Spin studios in Valparaiso with Jeremy Michaelis of Red Umbrella; some just me and two with Daniel Lambert on bass and Mike Bruneau on drums. (Long live The Automatic Rhythm Section!!) But by 2015, I had moved to middle Tennessee. Popping over to the studio was a nine hour drive. So, Jeremy sent me the sessions digitally via dropbox so I could work on finishing the tracks. I tried, with mixed results. Then over the decade, I also changed email addresses, changed computers; the program I track with went through software updates making it impossible, for a while, to have access to the original sessions (or, even forgot where some were saved.) Long story short, I always believed in these songs, but with the passage of time and new adventures emerging, the project got “lost.”

I have to credit the discovery to my brother Danny who asked to score the music for his 2023 documentary “Small Towns.” While working on the film, I discovered the location of the bulk of the files, because I thought the song (above) “Sugar,” would go well with the section set in a Roller Rink. But tech issued plagued me until…

In 2024, I got another new computer with more capable file reading software, and one night in a Eureka! moment, I tried opening one of the sessions I thought couldn’t be opened, and it all populated and played! I was so stoked, I spent a month remixing, recording new overdubs, correcting less than stellar performances (by me – Mike and Dan’s parts were flawless). All 8 songs were worked on. Some more than others. And it was a joy to clean them up.

March 21, 2025, I hired Nate Butler at Nimble Wit Productions in Goshen, IN, to help me further improve the mixes with a professional ear. Nate is a kindred spirit. His Americana project with his wife, “Shiny, Shiny Black” is well worth your listens.

Recently, he engineered the sessions for the Sanchez Agency album (still in progress.) His skills as live mixing engineer are sought after; he’s run sound for me many times, in the long resume of artists he’s supported.

He encouraged me to tone down all the reverb and echo I was using to mask my self-embarrassment, and thus making the inner beat more clear for each song. He was right. (He started life as a drummer; and for him, it’s all about building the song from the “pulse upwards”, instead of how I think, as a singer song writer, which is “guitar chords down.”) The advice made the songs less vague as we drew out each pulse The process reminded me of Jeremy’s advice to me in 2013: to track my vocals with minimal reverb. I’ve always disliked the sound of my voice, but I’m starting to get over it (after almost 30 years of song work!)

In fact, while we were working that day, we got to talking about when we first became aware of each other. In 2021 when I joined the Agency, Nate was front of house for my first show with them. He said, I looked “too familiar.” Well, the other day we put it together…when the Goshen Theater was going through its renaissance in 2007-2009, Nate was front of house for it and helped bring it’s gear and PA up to date, from empty room to state of the art. SO, that means, he mixed me and the Automatic Rhythm Section twice, and Bottle Rocket Blue once, and Tom solo three times in those years! I showed him the video from 2008 and he remembers mixing the show because he recalls who else was on the bill.

Like I’ve said before, Northern Indiana is a small town. He mixed Mike, Dan, and me 17 years ago, and again this year as he did his magic to the tracks from 10 years ago!

The full album will be out soon!