I started singing on a stage without flying or 100 cast members in 1999, while at Oberlin College. A good place to be if you need musicians. Probably one of the several reasons why I still suck at guitar playing. Anyhow, I moved to Boston in 2001 and had some good luck and good times performing at Passim and a few other places around... and some bad luck with my health. It got harder and harder to sing, and by the time I found out I had really bad Gastroesophogeal Reflux Disease, I had lost my voice all together. Not sure if you've noticed, but drug companies are making a killing off of pills millions of Americans have to take every day to be able to eat without getting wicked heartburn, etc. ("What Day are You On?") So I don't expect a cure anytime soon. For most folks, the drugs and the other bizarro practices and limitless diet restrictions do the trick. As for me, I'm feeling better 2 years later now, but my voice still gives out after a song or two...longer if I only eat bread and water that week. And yes, I sleep with the head of my bed propped up on phonebooks. Yes, I do slide down when in slippery pajamas.
UPDATE: Am now in the care of the voice specialists at Mass Eye and Ear Infirmary. If anyone can help me, it's them. It is the beginning of a Long Road Back, and I truly appreciate your support.
SO... a Retrospective...
		The Poppies LP, "Nov. 68" These are songs written and largely performed by Joemahoney. 20 tracks and four years later, I am still waiting for the release of this fabulous record. Please send encouragement/threats to JM on ourspace. Tempt Me Target Boy Row Dandelion
		"Just Me Singing" 2003 A popular-demand "ok-you-asked-for-it" compilation of bedroom one-takes never meant for public consumption. Some songs I was writing at the time, which is what those nosey folksters were after, and for better or worse, they got it. You can hear the sonic landscape of Somerville in every track. This cd also included a few bonus tracks from" Bootlegs..." as well as Clevelander, an original of mine. Spoonbending One Small Year (shawn colvin cover) Clevelander (fascinating story at bottom of page.)
		"Bootlegs Fall: Live In Ohio" 2000 A Christmas gift for parents that got out of hand. A thrown together fat-ass collection of live recordings from shows at Oberlin during 2000, most under the musical direction of Zack Hickman. Private jokes, forgotten words, and rowdy friends near the recording mic - also, a bunch of some of my favorite musical moments ever. Cool songs. Very odd that strangers in Boston own this. (Real rough, also, dirty) Paula Cole's Feelin Love at Oberlin's "the 'sco" Tom Waits' Train Song  at the Cat in the Cream Jewel's Angel Standing By at Finney Chapel, opening for Patty Griffin!
		"Voices In the Attic" 1999 An Oberlin Winter Term project, produced by Chris Baymiller, OC Student Union, godblessem. Me and Josh Ritter with Guy Mendilow. Pretty much live, around a mic in the coolest attic anyone ever sang in (BigToe, Cleveland rocks). This is how "recording" was meant to be. "As in, the recording of an event. The event of people playing music, in a room." Magical one-takes.   Ani's Overlap John Prine's Angel From Montgomery Shawn Colvin's  Brave
Other recordings my voice can be found on:

(Flat )One-Takes in JM's Living Room

JoeM has a magical microphone that probably costs more than my college tuition. Sometimes he'd let me pretend to be a singer while he made sandwiches in the kitchen. This was when my GERD was really bad, and I had stopped singing "out", like, in front of people. So my pitch is, uh, struggling. Overall, you can tell it kind of hurt to be singing. I don't listen to these, for that reason. It makes my throat sore just hearing it. But I like the songs and I'm told they don't sound THAT bad to non-singers. 

Patty Griffin's Rain

Thompson's Dimming of the Day

Jump Little Children's Cathedrals

Originals

Home  (at TCAN, Natick open mic feature, 12/5/02)

Gone    (same)

Country Song, with Train Metaphor (same)

Nothing

*Clevelander Story. After a year or so of anticipating spending a rare week with my father (who lives waaay far away in Hawaii) I found myself dazed and emotionally wiped out, on a plane back to college. This song came to my head. Mind you, I think at this point in my life I had never really written a song, and I was just barely getting by with my 6-chord guitar-playing. But this just fell into my lap, and I was kind of stunned. So I stayed awake the whole 11 hours, humming it and trying to draw the melody so I could remember it.

I never forgot it, but I also never got any better at guitar, so there was no way I could accompany myself. It just lived in my head for years. Once I was singing for Joe, he started hassling me about my writing. I had nothing I was not really embarrassed about. I didn't consider any of them "real songs". One day it occurred to me he might could apply his musical genius to write music for "that little story-song i made up" years ago. So I told him to go make me a sandwich "and DONT LISTEN" and i sat there and sang the song into the fancy microphone, just to give him an idea of how it went. I forgot how it ended, so I just made something up. I was pretty embarrassed by my naked voice on that recording - plus it was the first time i ever shared the song. I put my head in a bag and went home.  

The next time I came back, he had recorded the guitar track right under my vocal track and that's what we have there.  

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