Category Archives: Music

2022-2023 Doings

I am glad that there’s a lot to share from the past ~2 years since my last post, and the good news is that the gap was mostly due to the fact that I have just been really, really busy. For one thing I’m a working stiff, with a couple of (mostly grown-up) kids and commitments that keep me pointed in a certain direction; despite that, whenever my friends ask me if I’m playing any music these days, the answer is that I always have something on the stove.

This is largely because I have friends who are insanely prolific songwriters, and I’m fortunate enough to be considered a worthy collaborator, or at least skilled enough to do their material justice onstage, or in the studio, or both. I’m also extremely lucky to have a partner who supports these activities, shares my interest, and likes hearing about the process (or participating therein — love and bless you to the end of time, Jacki!).

Debased

I went out and joined another tribute band. This time it’s tributizing the Pixies, with Debased, and three lovely people that I am glad to call my friends and bandmates: Nikki Arias (“Nikk Deal”), Bill Leigh (“White Francis”) and Rian Robinson (“Crackity Jones” — I’m “Surfer Rosso”).

We play out about once a month, which is kind of perfect for me when it comes to scratching that itch. I love making this kind of noise. It’s been a lot of fun. People come to the shows, and we invoke the sacred buzzsaws.

Even the kids like this stuff.

Sean O’Brien and His Dirty Hands

I look away and suddenly 10 years have passed since I first started playing with Sean O’Brien. Talk about songwriting machines: For a decade now I have been able to count on Sean to kindly, and annually, dish almost an album’s worth of material my way to record. It’s like the harvest: the sun hits a certain angle, and it’s probably time for me to do some tracking for SOB.

In 2022 Sean invited me and some friends to come with him to Boxer Lodge, in Anguin, CA to record some country and rock & roll music for his zillionth album, The Program Is Morally Good. This was my first deep dive into playing country (maybe “Americana” is more accurate, but still), which was a blast. (Edit: This is finally in release for streaming as of Jan 1 2024, see below)

This was followed rather quickly by Sean’s discovery of yet another trove of songs he wrote long ago, and needed an assist in getting the tunes from cassette tape to guide track. Unsurprisingly, the songs are terrific, and have been coming together over 2023. Meanwhile, here are the releases that I have so far been involved with (with at least two one more full-length albums coming soon):

On all tracks except 5; solos on 1-4, 6
On tracks 1-4, 6-10, 12
On tracks 1, 3, 4, 8, 10
On both tracks
Single
On tracks 1, 2, 7, 10, 11

I love being involved with the Dirty Hands because the material is great, and Sean always manages to rope in a super high level of talent with his projects. The current core Dirty Hands include Kevin Thomas White on bass and Ihor Pacholuk on drums; and it’s pretty cool to be on the same tracks as them, along with a who’s who of local and far-flung heroes including Dave Zirbel, Dave Wenger, Chris Von Sneidern, Greg Lisher, Prairie Prince, Kenny Aronoff, Robert John Tucker, Rick Munoz, Matt Boudreau, and probably others.

Seal Party

More recently my friends in Seal Party have been kind enough to invite me into their fold, which has been amazing and a distinct honor for me. Seal Party’s album debut last year was ridiculously solid — from the songwriting to the performances, production, and across the board.

A recent instrumental remix from Seal Party, with crazy amazing visual treatments

With that, bandleaders and co-writers Kevin Seal and Chris McGrew earned a reputation as sort of a modernized “Steely Dan” with a varied roster of top-shelf players on every song, including some sh*t-hot guitar players like my old buddy Jon Axtell (from Psychefunkapus and a cascade of other seasonings ever since), Sonny Climes, Isaiah Sharkey, Ben Misterka, Nolan Cook, Tomas Salcedo, and others. This is appropriate because the material is challenging, and playing a set of this stuff allows a player to flex in a lot of different ways.

A nice bit from a show at the Starry Plough this summer

One more unexpected milestone for me and the band: on August 26, 2023, Seal Party was pleased and honored to support The Headhunters for a show at the Guild Theater in Menlo Park; and I was pleased and honored to be on the gig.

Seal Party has also invited me to join them for the writing and recording of their followup album. So all of this is extremely satisfying, and it’s really nice to be involved in the creative process like this again, a sweet bonus after a long spell in the wilderness.

So I’m thrilled to be joining Kevin (vocals/keys), Chris (drums), Spencer Murray (bass) and Liam Wesley Craddock (percussion/misc) for this next venture.

Seriously, the first record is awesome and I was a fan from the moment the first single was released.

How Hard

2021 has been one hell of a year, but the silver lining for me has been my finally having gotten myself back into something like a songwriting groove. It has been decades since I was last in a place like that. But now I got an itch — a fever, if you will. And cure is… something that has some mf’ing cowbell in it.

Following in the theme of remotely-recorded music with friends, and after some beers with the involved parties this summer, I got inspired to write a song with Uri Nieto for Los Pandejos. Pandejos are a “Pandora band” that I’ve been lucky enough to be part of for several years, peopled by some crazy MIR data scientists from Catalonia (Uri, and Oscar Celma) and Drexel University (Steve Essinger), plus a few other of our very talented mates at the office. I myself actually snuck into the band originally because Uri was held up in the EU during what was supposed to be the debut of the group at 2015 Pandora Performs, so I filled in for him (big goddamn shoes, those) and I guess I have been grandfathered in ever since.

Anyway, Pandejos historically has only played covers of various “shitty old man rock” (as Oscar likes to put it) e.g. ACDC, Zep, Iron Maiden, Foo Fighters, Kiss, etc.

It’s probably obvious that we’re a few beers in at this point, which is hard to avoid at these things. In any case we’ve had a ridiculous amount of fun at these Pandora gatherings, but never played outside of that context, and never wrote any original material. Now I’m the last remaining “original” member of the band still at the company, and now that work is virtual and we’re all scattered across the globe, it seems like it’ll be a while before there’s an opportunity to do something like this in person again. But beers with Uri and Oscar led to thinking and that it was time we made some shitty old man rock of our own.

Thus was born “How Hard.” I sketched it out and wrote the choruses, and in no time Uri filled in the verse lyrics and delivered a stack of terrifyingly awesome vocal tracks. Steve on bass, and Chris Horgan on drums. Oscar wasn’t able to contribute this time what with getting ramped up at his new job at Spotify, but he can contribute by maintaining widgets like this.

Thanks Oscar.

And at Bandcamp:

Steve Essinger – bass
Chris Horgan – drums
Oriol Nieto – vocals
Damon Wood – guitars and a teeny smattering of bg vox

Special credit:
Òscar Celma – air guitar
Sean Curry – air cowbell

Written by Oriol Nieto & Damon Wood

Hungry All The Time

Eric Din should know now that when he asks if I want to do something, he’ll usually get a pretty quick response. In this case, he asked me if I wanted to do something akin to an early-70s Rolling Stones tune, something like “Rocks Off,” which could feature horns, some snot, and a bit of controlled chaos. This is the result.

Fortunately for us both, it seems I’d already dreamed up the song, and all that was needed was a poke for it to pop out of the dank recesses. A bonus for me, personally, was that I ended up writing it from top to bottom, arranging and charting horn lines, organizing and mixing it (the bulk of it anyway), all from home. On top of that, it’s the first time in my professional career that I’ve stepped up to sing lead on a track, with lyrics 100% of my own creation to boot.

Jacob Aginsky – piano
Steven Bernstein – boutique brass
Eric Din – background vocals, acoustic & electric guitar
Steve Lew – bass
John Mader – percussion
Thomas White – drums
Damon Wood – lead vocals, electric guitar

Written and composed by Damon Wood
Mixed by Damon Wood & Eric Din
Produced by Eric Din
Mastered by Myles Boisen

Photo by Jacki La Pointe

Fun with friends

My good friend Eric Din and I did a thing. It is worth your time, especially with headphones.

Eric had played me this stream-of-consciousness vocal + drum track sketch he did a while back, which was hilarious and also kind of irresistibly driving with this Motown beat. It was probably a couple of years later that he dug it out while cleaning up some files, and thought he’d try seeing what one of his friends could do with it.

Fortunately he called me, with the instructions to, “Just go all crazy Hendrix-meets-Adrian Belew!” on it. That was enough direction for me, as I think it only took an afternoon for me to deliver three guitar tracks and a rumbly bass track. Stuff like this just writes itself.

Engine 88 at Riot Fest 2017

We’ll be opening the Sunday show, September 17, 2017. We hit at noon, Chicago time. Blink and you’ll miss it. Also, a live webcast is planned, details forthcoming. Our first show in almost exactly 11 years.

PS. No webcast. But the festival was kind enough to livecast Drowning. Thanks Riot Fest!

Engine 88, Haight St. Fair, 1995

Evidence has been revealed that proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Engine 88 actually existed and made noise. I don’t know the poster of these videos, but I am thankful to them because, aside from the very crunchy-sounding video of the 2006 reunion show, I had been completely unaware of any motion-picture leftovers of good ol’ Engine. Here’s a link to the playlist. 6 songs, embedded below.

The songs include Pelican, Funny Car, Istanbul, Mangoes, Ballerina and GTO. Istanbul and Ballerina’s presence is interesting because this is right before the release of Clean Your Room… we’d apparently already moved on to our next set of songs before we’d even given the first round a proper tour.

Good stuff.