"Strange Omen" is a really wonderful recording I did with Michael Cain, a pianist/composer who somewhat shunned the limelight although he played a lot with Jack Dejohnnette in the Special Edition band and also in a trio Jack had for a while (I met Jack through Mike and Jack played on my debut recording).

I knew Mike at UNT in the mid-1980s when we were in school together. He left to attend Cal Arts and I left for New York in 1986. I ran into Mike at Sweet Basil on 7th ave. in NY around 1990. I was checking out Scofield with Anthony Cox and Johnny Vidocovitch (they were killing) and Mike was friends with Anthony. Turns out we were both living in Park Slope (Brookyn) and we started getting together and playing. Mike is an amazing, fearless musician with a beautiful touch and a wonderful harmonic and melodic sense. Mike had a concept of piano, guitar and percussion and we started getting together with Glen Velez and playing trio. Glen is another very special musician. Mike had a producer from L.A. named Yoshio Maki and Yoshio (who later became my producer and good friend) booked the Hit Factory in Manhattan to record Mike's trio project for Candid Records: Mike (piano), me (electric and acoustic guitars), Glen (percussion). Live to 2-track with no mixing or overdubs. We went in about 7:30pm and recorded until about 11pm. We were listening to playback for the first time when Mike noticed a warbling sound. The 1/2" 2-track deck was bad so we had to get another from a different studio which, even in Manhattan, took a couple of hours. So about 1am we started to record the entire project again and finished about 7am. I went in to work (as a temp in a mid-town office building) and everybody else went home to sleep. Mike always said the first recording was perfect and there were lots of flaws in what we recorded the 2nd time but I really love what we did get. One of the most musical projects in which I was lucky enough to participate. I played a 70's Gibson ES175 through a Roland jazz chorus 77 and also played a Takamine nylon string that I still own - not the Roland or 175 tho.