Sometimes Solitude

Sometimes Solitude is a mostly acoustic psych rock song turned heavier with classic rock elements that take the listener on a mystical journey. On speaking of the Holy Grail, one of my favorite writers Joseph Campbell quotes " ‘They thought it would be a disgrace to go forth in a group. Each entered the Forest Adventurous at the point he himself had chosen, where it was darkest and there was no way or path.’ You enter the forest at the darkest point, where there is no path. Where there is a way or path, it is someone else’s path; each human being is a unique phenomenon.
The idea is to find your own pathway to bliss.” Read more about this HERE.

Sometimes, being by myself is a way for me to energize. It's the place where creativity comes out of. It's a place to listen and hear your spiritual essence. A place of accepting yourself and where you are and yet also to be moved from.

This song is magnificently produced by John Fields at Creation Audio in Minneapolis. I was unsure on how to proceed if at all with this song because I felt my home made demo was really good but John was totally the right person to lift this song up from where it was and make it truly epic.



The song starts with the sound of cicadas which are the tracks I recorded from home of actual cicadas outside. With a wash of cymbals comes the acoustic guitar and we're off on our own journey. I brought a mandolin in for the session hoping that we could somehow incorporate that and luckily I was able to figure out a simple part. We wanted a Led Zeppelin percussive tap tap tapping like Ramble On so Sean Gilchrist beat on his chest for that effect.

Sorry for the poor video quality here!

I sing in a lower register like Nick Drake or another one of my favorites Liz Phair and the detuned acoustic guitar melodic line makes it more mystical. John added wonderful Mellotron strings and it's just perfect. Fields also plays bass here too.
With John's direction I built up the vocal in the second verse and the band hits full. Here I played a12 string electric through a little amp and WOW YES soooo good! Loved that sound we got with that. Perfect! Alot of elements giving forth a Zeppelin II or IV feel with this song which I love.

This is also a moon song which becomes evident in the bridge. I find the moon to be one of the most fascinating things of nature. I'm always looking for it in the morning or at night heck even sometimes it can be seen in the day! This song touches on the phases of the moon and it's journey from dark to light and it also symbolizes to me the dark and light elements of ourselves that each of us has and to recognize and accept those parts of us that make us a complete human being.

This song is great for remembering your individual path, your own essence, your essence that,  although is of it's own, is part of something much bigger. It's perfect with your morning coffee, a walk or run by yourself, a car ride, traveling on your own. So proud of this song and the work Fields brought to this. Sometimes...enjoy solitude.

We love that you stream this song wherever convenient but please purchase this song to support us as artists at Amazon, iTunes, Bandcamp etc

When I think about,
All you do for me,
Every day of the year,
You're everything to me,
Nothing more to be,
I keep on showing my self.

When I'm traveling,
To or where or when,
I keep on telling my self,
Sometimes solitude comes across as rude,
But I feel good when I'm there.

Well when the moonlit sky gives birth to midnight,
It all begins from here,
From the dark to light.
I once thought about how sad I'd be,
If I never heard the sound within me.

Early morning rise,
Coolness in the air,
Heading out on my way.
'Cause sometimes solitude,
Energizes me,
To be alive everyday.

Hear also on Pandora

“Something I can relate to.”(What I’ve been listening to) -  The Diversity Of Classic Rock

"Sometimes Solitude” delivers nostalgia to music lovers who have experienced an immersion into the sea of Classic Rock and carries an education for Indieheads without that experience, but who have a respect and appreciation for the roots of today’s music. Better yet, it does so within a vehicle having a polish that reflects modern day sensibilities. In “Sometimes Solitude,” Little Man captures the soul of the acoustic classics…” - Indie Obsessive

"An innovative magic of energy...the construction of the song evokes memories of Led Zeppelin. What a ride." - Comeherefloyd.com

"Just gorgeous" - Andrea Swensson DJ 89.3 The Current


For further reading on solitude, check out this article by Brent Crane in The Atlantic magazine.

Little Man in the Studio

Over the past many years here in the Twin Cities, I've always wanted to record at Flowers. It's an uptown recording studio owned by Ed Ackerson. I've admired Ed's work and the many popular bands he's played in as well as his Susstone record label. I also had the chance to check out the studio a couple times and had tried to set something up in the past, but things hadn't quite worked out. Kris Johnson, who fixes amps and electronics at Twin Town Guitars, engineers at the studio. Timing had been right with him and me seeing each other out and about at shows and such, talking about the studio and the new music I've been writing. He's been a fan of Little Man and was always enthusiastic about the possibility of recording us. After a good conversation with Ed and KJ at The Triple Rock I really started to lean into make this happen.

The studio is one of the coolest I've ever been in. They have a very tall ceiling live drum room, all sorts of vintage gear, instruments and guitar amps, a Trident mixing board and a neat atrium decked with a fountain, plants and places to sit and relax in between takes. Lots of orange and yellow colors everywhere and kind of a 60's mod space age decor.

Not only is KJ in a guitar player couple local bands and is the go-to guy here for repairs, he also builds his own guitar amps and outboard gear (KJAudio). For me to be especially particular with guitar tones, I thought KJ would be a good fit for these recordings. We're using alot of his own gear and things are sounding great.

Our first session together was just him and me at his own modest studio tracking acoustic and electric guitars for four specific songs. A week later we got the band together, with Sean Gilchrist on drums and Brian Herb on bass. These guys have been with me for a couple years now. We've been doing very well with our live shows so we wanted to track live in the room all together. For most of the songs we tracked without headphones (an interesting process we hadn't really done before) to really play together and capture alot of that live energy. It felt as comfortable as a rehearsal. Our goal was to track 9 songs together as a band, bass, drums and one rhythm guitar and then to track bass and drums to the pre-recorded stuff we did the week before.

We all worked really hard on making this happen. It was a great success as we achieved that goal! The next step is to overdub more guitars and add in the vocals. These are very interesting songs. Some of them are songs the band has been playing live for a good while but have never recorded, some are a bit more acoustic, delicate with alot of background layered vocals and others are rocking real good. Very excited to be working on these. Can't wait for you to hear them, but that might take some time!

Buy Original Face on Bandcamp. Also available on iTunes. Get a hard copy on CD.