I’ve finally joined the modern world and set myself up for some home recording using a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) and some basic equipment. I’ve had a productive spell of songwriting, sparked in part by the songwriters group I’ve been meeting with monthly since spring 2025, and in part by a month-long class I just finished with School of Song.
You can find some songs I’ve recorded over the past couple of weeks on the New Music page of this website. Thanks for checking it out!
I’m honored to join a group of local musicians for a Todd Snider Tribute Night, Thursday January 8, 8pm at The Sunset Tavern in Ballard, WA. Proceeds will benefit SMASH, which provides access to free and low-cost healthcare services for musicians living in King, Snohomish, Pierce, Mason, Kitsap, and Thurston counties, plus support for navigating the complicated and frustrating healthcare system. You can pick up tickets online or at the door. I’m opening the show at 8!
I first encountered the heart and genius of Todd Snider more than 30 years ago in a tiny club in suburban Washington D.C. My buddy Dave and I were standing by the door of Iota when a lanky dude with stringy shoulder-length hair, bare feet, and a battered Gibson sauntered up to the stage.
Like some train hopping troubadour, he spun stories and songs over Prine-esque guitar stylings, fingerpicking and country boom-chuck. Though in his 20s, his voice was already thick and burred like well-worn leather. Todd’s songs conveyed God’s own truth, but maybe after He had a couple beers to loosen up. Snider was funny, profound, and everyone who heard him that night, and thousands of other nights over the ensuing years, went home a little bit changed, a little bit better for the experience.
Todd built a strong if not long-enough career writing songs that were heart-felt, funny, political, a few beers or tokes loose, and always full of God’s own truth. He passed away in mid-November at the age of 59 following an assault, pneumonia, and being refused service at a Salt Lake City hospital.
Please come join us Thursday, January 8 at 8pm for this night of great music and community. I’m opening the show at 8 sharp. You can pick up tickets online or at the door.
Most years my wife spends a good bit of the summer at a family cottage in Maine. I don’t usually go for as long, a choice that while right for me is never easy.
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Celebrate the Spring Equinox with songs reflecting on darkness and singing into the light brought to you by Havilah Rand, Mark Ippolito and myself. We’ll be playing in a songwriters in the round format in the intimate confines of the Couth Buzzard, 8310, Greenwood Ave. North in Seattle. 7-9pm
The Couth is an intimate listening space featuring great homemade food and a wide array of adult and other beverages. Come build community over hand-made music.
Here’s more about the players:
Havilah’s musical journey spans five full length albums and two decades weaving its way through the jazz halls of New York City, the alternative rock venues of post grunge Seattle and countless coffeeshops and theaters across the United States And Europe. Havilah’s style fuses jazz, blues and Americana to form a style that is pure emotion founded on groove-infused melodies. Lyrically poignant, Havilah’s songs cut to the heart while her lush vocal styling lingers in the ear long after the show has ended. Havilah is also the creator of Holistic ArtVentures and The LifeSong Program which use songwriting as a tool for bolstering empathy, creativity, collaboration and confidence. Havilah has written songs with hundreds of children and elders and has even been nominated for the Esme Barrera Music in Education and Activism Award. Visit www.havilahmusic.com to learn more about Havilah.
Mark writes about his latest project New Moon: “There’s a place deep inside each of us that eloquently reflects on our individual unique lived experience. The songs on “New Moon” try to give voice to those experiences in service to shining a light on the common bonds we share. These songs were given birth among the fellowship of a circle of songwriters who graciously accepted me as one of their own. As you listen to each song for the first time, I invite you to become an extension of our circle and listen for moments of truth and light. I hope you too find them as worthy.” Find out more at https://www.markippolito.com
Mike says: “Some of my most profound aural memories: The chugging rhythms and careening voices of Motown blasting from my father’s Dynakit stereo; singing along with Broadway’s whip-cracking wordplay; the morning sun shining like a red rubber ball through the three-inch speaker of my sister’s transistor radio; a box of rain and a cinnamon girl crackling from my first hi-fi. My songs don’t really sound like any of these, but the way I think about writing songs is certainly influenced by them. My tunes explore life’s many journeys: birth, death, aging, finding love in the depths of the sea and loosing it in life’s debris. I fingerpick and strum, sing, hum, grunt and occasionally howl like a dog. I hope my lyrics tickle your mind and your heart.” More at https://mikebuchmanmusic.com
Recorded live at C&P Coffee Company, Oct 27, 2024. (by John Prine)
More on these soon, but I’ve got a lineup of shows to tell you about for the fall of ’24!
Saturday Sept. 7, PorchFest Edmonds
My good buddy Charles Trafford and I will be holding down the fort at our friend Will’s house at 423 2nd Ave. N. Time TBD. Come enjoy music being played from dozens of houses and businesses in the lovely village of Edmonds. This was an idyllic afternoon last year and promises to be even better this year.
Saturday Oct. 23, C&P Coffee, West Seattle 7-9pm
Join me and the delightful singer-songwriter Lynette Hensley for an evening of original music, tasty covers, and, if I’m super lucky, some collaborative harmonies. Lynette usually plays with her uber-talented husband Larry Baumgartner and/or Hounds at Bay, so this will be a rare treat to hear her solo in the intimate confines of West Seattle’s premiere home for acoustic music. Oh yeah, I’ll be there playing as well!
Friday Nov 15, Couth Buzzard Books, Greenwood, 7-9pm
The Couth is back and better than ever. I am over the moon to share this bill with a long-time friend and the fellow who gave me my first guitar, Paul Haas. Paul is a singer-songwriter who tries to write with humor, anger, joy, and dread. Now and then he may succeed.
Dialed the lyrics to this one up sitting 800 feet above the valley floor in the Heart Lake region of the Adirondacks this spring. Hope you enjoy it!
Mike Buchman Music 