For Your Consideration – Music 2022
The Grammy® nominating process has begun for this year, and 2 of my projects are under consideration in 2 different categories – My album of ambient electronica and piano called “Transitions” (New Age) and the …
Amphibian Shake
Amphibian Shake – Gunnar Madsen (feat. MCMGM) A Delhi-flavored pumphouse of energy and whooshing soundscapes While the world spins on its axis and we all hold on to keep from being thrown off, I continue …
Push Pull
PUSH PULL – Gunnar Madsen (feat. MCMGM) IDM/EDM YOUTUBE MUSIC VIDEO Life at home… Life is pushing and pulling me in ways I never expected. I’m busy helping my family. My mother is in her …
Easy Listening for Advanced Listeners – Summer Sounds!
This is an ear-worm from my childhood that I never knew the name of, just one of those cheesy instrumentals from the late 50’s and early 60’s that played everywhere, all the time. When I …
Gunnar on Desert Island Jazz Friday 9am
“I Am Your Food” caught the ear of Jazzinista host Alisa Clancy at KCSM Jazz 91, and she’s been playing some tracks. She has now invited me to come join her on her Desert …
When I was 14
I was 14 when my older sister (17) got a job as a nanny in Wyoming and was gone for the whole summer. Her room in our home in Palo Alto was a 6×6 foot …
Made in America Week
Hey, it’s me – I’m made in America! Granted, I contain a lot of foreign parts, but they were imported decades ago, back when foreigners were allowed in. I’m American! It’s Made in America Week! …
My right hand again…
I seem to be finally passing out of stage 1 of the 49 stages of grief, and am getting back to putting dinner on the table in a timely fashion. A couple weeks ago, …
After the election, my right hand speaks
My dad had passed away 2 weeks before, I was still in a fog from that. On Tuesday I was coming down with a cold, by Tuesday night had the shivers, fever. Wednesday morning awoke …
Collaboration with my son, Part 2 – Rock out
This is one of my favorite early songs my son wrote (age 9). The guitar lick is classic rock style. Again, he sang it to me, I played it. He wrote it, baby. He produced …
Collab with my son
5 years ago, when our son was 9 years old, he became interested in writing music and songs. He was a very good beat-boxer, and a fearless vocalist, but he didn’t know how to play …
How one Bass Player Makes Magic
I grew up not really realizing what the bass does for music. I could hear guitars, pianos, voices, drums. But what happened on the bottom was invisible to my ears. A degree in music later, …
Pennies from YouTube Heaven?
When you listen to and download my music directly on this website, I get paid a better percentage from these direct downloads than from anywhere else on the wonderful wide web. But this website serves …
Shaggs Cast album released, Zombies Take over the World, and MORE!
Hi Friends, According to Broadway lore, the average musical takes 10 years to write, and the average cast album takes 3 years to produce – Well, so far I’m right on schedule! Ladies, Gentlemen, I …
Shaggs Musical Nominated for Drama Desk/Lortel Awards!
Our musical, The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World, has recently been nominated for some shiny awards. The Drama Desk Award (nominations announced this morning), is one of the most prestigious in the Theatre World. It …
Father/Son Rock/Roll
I’ve been too busy to blog, people. Busy flying to NY to record the band tracks for the cast recording of The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World (due out later next year), busy helping my …
Spotify – the New Radio?
Radio is not dead – you can still turn it on and listen to a baseball game or NPR or someone yelling at the top of their lungs about how unfair they think life is. …
Dave Werry, Shaggs and Electric Guitars
(The Shaggs open May 12! Click for tix) The first time I ever touched an electric guitar, I was awestruck. I tried plucking a note, tried to make it sing like the Beatles could, but …
Favorite Recordings of 2010
The end of another year approaches. I generally don’t have much time to listen to music, but this year, somehow (was it the ipod I bought and ended up jogging and walking to?) I’ve been …
Listening for Grammys
It’s the nominating season for the Grammy Awards. In the mailboxes of recording academy members like myself, CDs are arriving in droves, hungry to be considered worthy of nomination in their respective categories. (My own …
I love the recording studio.
I still feel a thrill every time I’m in a recording studio, with the huge consoles full of buttons, the mics, the speakers, the layers of glass between the control room and the recording space. …
My Romantic Tendencies
I have always been a closet romantic. I enjoy the sentimental side of things. As a pre-teen, listening to my little panasonic transistor radio every night late into the night, it was almost all love …
Our Amazing Brains (aka My Sony Tape Deck)
When I was 15, a friend and I worked most of the summer painting my family’s house. With the money I earned I bought a reel to reel tape recorder. It was one of my …
Marie Antoinette & Gunnar – The connection?
I’ve known Kent Sparling, the producer of “Two Hands”, since he was a young man. I’ve known his music since he was a teenager. Back in the early 80’s I had a few piano students, …
Miles Davis and Gunnar – What’s the connection?
Janet Boye Jenkins is the creator of the glorious design for Two Hands. It is by no means her first CD cover. Straight out of Pratt Institute (where she was my wife’s irrepressible roommate) she …
Embarrassing tales from a piano player
Piano is really my main instrument. I taught myself guitar and piano from the age of 15, and then started classical piano lessons at the age of 17 (practicing 4 hours a day), then went …
The Ultimate Rejection Letter
I used to dream of being on a major label. When I was with The Bobs we dreamed of it, and held out for a few years, waiting for the offer that never came. (That’s …
Performing as Catharsis
I was watching Janis Joplin in “Festival Express” recently. She was cathartic. I don’t think she knew how to hold anything back. Performing for her seemed like an all-or-nothing thing. I was thinking how other …
New Piano Works in the works
A couple of years ago I got a case of pneumonia. NOT the rockin’ pneumonia. Just the too-tired-to-get-outta-bed-and-my-lungs-hurt pneumonia. A shot of rhythm and blues did not, alas, cure it. But as I slowly began …
What is Jazz?
I was in the drugstore a few weeks ago, picking up a prescription. While I was waiting a young pharmacist, a guy in his early 20’s, was telling a co-worker about Harvey Mason’s drumming on …
Mongolian Camel Bell Ringtone
I was at home with Q last Sunday when the phone rang. It was M, our wife and mother and fun companion. She’d found these beautiful Mongolian Camel Bells and wanted to buy one for …
Novelty? No thanks.
Novelty songs. I generally don’t like them. Yet I do like humor in music. Obviously. (see “The Bobs” or my family music) But just because I end up writing humorous songs sometimes, I don’t really …
I Wish I Were a Troubadour
A couple years ago I was in New York and went to Little, Brown & Co. to meet, for the first time, my editor for the book of “Old Mr. Mackle Hackle”. I came into …
Strangers in the Night – A song that won’t leave me alone
Some songs just don’t go away. Even when it seems like they should. Even when every fibre of my being screams that a song is no good, I am sometimes drawn, against my will, into …
Evolution of a Musician Part 2
The Listening Years… Up until February of 1964 (when I was 7), music just didn’t really mean much to me. On that particular night, we were at my grandparents house in Los Gatos, California, and …
45’s were sleazy, mp3s are…?
Early on (like, when I was 10 years old) I had a moral judgment against 45 singles. They were a ripoff (LPs had a much better song-per-dollar ratio); they were a shallow glimpse into an …
Music Doesn’t Smell
Don’t know why this crossed my mind, or if it’s even true, but it seems to me that music doesn’t smell. For such a powerful, visceral, emotional art form, that’s a strange thing. But I …
What do kids’ musicians listen to in their off hours?
What do kids’ musicians listen to when we’re not on the job? Do we worship the Wiggles? Boogie down to some Barney? Relax to Raffi? Sip some Chardonnay on Sesame Street? Get real. We’re grown-ups. …
Touch the Sound – What a film!
I saw the most beautiful film the other week. It’s called “Touch the Sound”, about the soulful and amazing percussionist Evelyn Glennie, who happens to be deaf. She lives and breathes music, and she has …
Evolution of a musician – Part 1
Before I saw/heard the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show along with the rest of America in 1964, music was not a passion of mine. There were no musical instruments in our house. My parents …
How to Find Good Music
Listened to some of an interview/guest DJ spot with Ray Davies on All Songs Considered over breakfast this morning. (Great interview, btw) He recounted radio in the UK back in the 50’s, how there were …