Of wine, song and the unpredictability of life.

A few days ago, I posted that I was finished with the mixes for Deep Salvage. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was lying. After the “final” mix session, I listened a bit more and heard a few things I wanted to change, as did Dave and Jaime, so all of the songs were put through one more round of changes. The latest mixes arrived in my inbox yesterday, and after downloading them, I put them on my iPod (uncompressed, of course!) and plugged it in to my big stereo. But before I pressed play, I picked a wine to sip while listening.

I chose a Wellington syrah, made by my friend Toby Germano. No other wine could have been a more appropriate choice. Not only is Toby a great winemaker, but he is also one of my best and oldest friends and the singer of the first song on my album (which will be out soon, I promise). As I sipped Toby’s wine and listened to the Deep Salvage tracks, I thought about how long some of life’s journeys truly are and how their destinations can never really be predicted. If you had asked Toby and me back in our teens what we would be doing today, neither one of us would have predicted what is actually taking place. Toby never would have said he would be a winemaker in Sonoma. And I never would have said I’d be making an album (or two). Equally true, if you had asked Dave and me back in 2005 if we’d soon be writing songs and making records together, we would have laughed. I mean, he was in New York, I was in SF and, most important, the topic had simply never come up.

But there I was, sipping Toby’s wine, listening to music I’d helped write with Dave and watching the sun set. Good songs, good drink, good night (even if Crystal Bowersox didn’t win Idol!).

And, yes, the mixes are DONE.