I have been friends with Matt Coffman for longer than with pretty much anyone else. We have had a bizarre kind of simpatico for as long as we can remember. ... which is strange because there is no earthly reason why we should ever get along for any reason at all. He is an intensely creative musician and (as I am learning more and more each day) a very gifted arranger, producer, and recording engineer.

Matt is currently working on a series of ditties - each with intricate wordplay and a laugh out loud sense of humor. In recent months, Matt has picked up both a ukelele and a resonator guitar - two instruments just teeming with intrinsic humor value (all he needs now is a trombone). I frankly can't wait till these tunes hit the ether.

But I digress...

From 1992 to 1995, we were in a band together called North River Company - an instrumental group for guitar, violin, dulcimer, percussion and... bowed double bass. We were a pretty unstable group all around -- three of us were constantly trying to pull the group into different directions. And hell, we were young - what can I say? But I tell you this... we were HOT. The instrumental nature of the group kept us out if a lot of places we could play - such was the northeast Ohio music scene of the early 90s. But more than one established musician called us "the best band in town."

In 1995, in a fit of tweenage angst, I broke up the group. Or at least I thought I did. Matt the guitarist and Scott the dulcimer player have pretty much kept the group going under the name North River ever since -- exploring a lot of musical traditions over the years (notably South Indian music). They have released two full-length CD's and have even done some remarkable treatments of some of the old tunes we used to do way back when.

In the wake of the events of the past year, I have asked a lot of my friends to contribute artwork to furnish my home as I rebuild my new life (an incredibly healing thing to do by the way if you find yourself in a similar situation and have a lot of creative friends). So in the spirit of this, I asked Matt if he would help me put together a recording of one of the old NRC tunes in a manner close to the way we used to do it back in the day. So over the past couple weeks we got together and laid down tracks for one of our more energetic tunes "Jack Szechuan" with me on violin.

As pertains to the title...

In the fall of 1994 we got a new violinist - and in our first rehearsals with her, we wrote this new tune. We had a lot of trouble coming up with a title for it though. So the five of us (I remember this very clearly) all wrote down titles, then put them to a vote. We were divided three to two between "Jack's Light" and "Beef Szechuan." A compromise was soon reached by all parties.

And one final note... I am a bass player by training. Calling me a violinist is on par with calling Lou Reed a singer. But as I say in the audio, this year has been a challenge for me - whether you know it or not, you were all there with me through it all. You know what they say... laugh with those who laugh and weep with those who weep. Well now it's time to celebrate. I hope you enjoy the tune.