"When I moved to Minnesota from Pittsburgh in 1994 all I brought with me was a big duffle bag and an acoustic guitar.

I was 19. In that bag was a Radio Shack cassette recorder. I spent that time writing and filling up a tape with new songs.

A few years later I earned enough money from my restaurant jobs to buy an old reel-to-reel 4-track recorder and some other instruments which allowed me to slightly expand my production ideas.

More songs kept flowing and I made my self-titled album adding drums and bass. Over the next few years, as things grew, those sparse cassette songs fell on the back burner until 2002 when I decided to re-record a bunch of them at a higher quality.

To keep with their original vision, I asked engineer Tom Garneau if he could record me playing them live in his living room.

We left the production minimal and rough which I think serves these particular songs well.

No overdubs. Just solo acoustic guitar and vocals. I called the album Simple Life. It was originally just a limited release.

Until now. I hope you enjoy it."