Music
Performance
You can check this space for information and updates on my musical projects and releases.
It’s been a long while since my last formal release but there is definitely more on its way very soon. Stay tuned!
The Groove Commute (2016)
The self-titled debut (and only release) from a seven-piece band comprised of Queen’s University grad students and Queen’s-adjacent folks. Our sound was eclectic: an unpredictable mix of soul, rock, funk, jazz, blues, and Americana. There is even a jazzy hip-hop track that morphs into an all-out 90s rock jam.
This band (and the community that formed around it) helped get me through the many challenges of my PhD. I will always think of this album as a document of the life-changing friendships I made in grad school and how we literally banded together to face the challenges life was throwing at us.
Playlists
The Small Victory Songs playlist is a collection of around 30 songs that I put together every few months.
I put a lot of effort in to curate a fresh sounding, genre-defying list that finds connections between songs from all over the musical map.
Each selection is obviously a song I like very much. Sometimes these are new releases that need to be heard. But I also try to include music that tells a story: about a musical lineage, a forgotten history, a cultural moment, or a political statement. Then I assemble them in an order that links certain elements together – maybe a connection between artists or political messages; or perhaps a geographical or historical relationship; or maybe there is a lyrical phrase or instrument sound that pairs songs together; and sometimes it’s just about the right vibes at the right time.
And all the way back to when I started making these lists in May of 2021, I’ve been very intentional about two things:
1) Busting algorithms by putting songs in a list that often don’t belong together.
2) Using this list as a platform (however small it might be) to spotlight artists who don’t look like me, don’t experience the same privileges I do, and thus face immense challenges in the music industry. I’m especially careful to include artists with identities that are under threat from war, political persecution, and cultural erasure.
Why “Small Victory Songs”?
The inspiration for the name came from the song “Small Victories” by Ron Hawkins and the Rusty Nails. The solo acoustic song, from their fantastic 2000 Elvis Costello-inspired jazz-punk album Crackstatic, contains this unforgettable line:
"Small change in my pocket. Small victory songs. Small steps in the right direction make more sense than a thousand big ones in the wrong."
I’d like to think any song that uplifts you or exhilarates you or comforts you is small victory versus the many ways that life can get you down. I imagine each song on this playlist as a small step in the right direction when the world seems to be taking so many big ones in the wrong.