

house of pale
In the fall of 1985 The Pleasures Pale were forming — meeting, writing and recording songs in the house I was renting on Marcella Avenue in Dayton, Ohio. That two-story structure on the city’s north side played a prominent role in my Dayton musical life. Married when I took up residence in 1984, and not when I vacated in 1987, I lived mostly without furnishings. Apart from a sofa, stereo, two crates for LPs and a bed frame/mattress in one of the three bedrooms upstairs, it wa


skinny arms ache to hold you
In the middle of 1991, shortly after Darke County re-ID'd into Myself a Living Torch, now-Harlan Bobo, Chris Green, Christopher Fisher and I made a music video. In an effort to showcase our rapidly evolving sound, and in a vain effort to participate in the MTV era (minus meaningful budget), we pooled our talents with the video art team of Scott Alexander and John Martin (aka the infamous Johnny Martino). At the time, Scott was our Minna Mansion upstairs neighbor — a multi-tal