Sorry for the delay in blasting you, back, man! The music school I teach at (Musician's Institute) just had all their finals last week, and grading all that stuff is a time killer! Plus, I wanted to take time cranking your tunes and share my thoughts :-) (See below...) Oh well, time to start revving up for "holiday mode"! I hope you and yours have some fun planned, man!!

Thanks for sending me a link to your tunes! I cranked a bunch of them, and wrote some stuff... NICE!!!!

Cool "b5" riff!! And I dig all the background guitar activity, as well as variety of drum grooves! And killin' Lydian guitar melody!!!! Great tone on the solo! I really like your legato stuff, as well as that "octaves" lick in there! Outro solo is wicked!

Crushing riff! And I dig the way you harmonized the main melody with that quiet "in the background" line. And a killer "chorus effect" tone in the first solo! I'm digging your tones :-) Parts of this kind of reminds me of "Mr. Scary" (George Lynch/Dokken)! He's a fave of mine!

Wes Montgomery and George Benson would dig the "clean" lickage you're throwing down throughout this one! I like how it's bookended by that descending chromatic figure, for eeriness!!! Main solo is wailing! Sort of Santana like, but more maniacal! (He's rad!)

Groove-o-rama! I like the vocals! And more cool guitar lines! Nice fabric of interweaving parts throughout this: guitars, bass, rad drum groove, programmed elements keyboards. Then the explosive lead! I really dig this track. Have you tried going the "song licensing" route on any of these? It seems like the main body of this song (among other songs) could totally be synched to some sort of image (film, whatever). Either way, it's certainly funky & cool as is.

Nice background "pads" adding ambience to this almost "tribal" groove. I dig the tremolo picked, repeating bend that's before the 1st solo. Then really rawking solo, itself! You are a Dorian beast! And your groove programming is pretty kick arse :-)

Hahahaha!!! I knew it was gonna be "Circus" related by the title :-) even a slide whistle in there, or something! Hilarious :-) Nice kooky chromatic stuff! Wish it wasn't so short!

Man, your background, harmonized, single-note guitar stuff is cool in these. I like how you mixed them. And now I finally hear you sing for real! I dig your voice, man! TOTALLY different, in phrasing and tone, than what I expected your voice would sound like (since you were implying you didn't dig your own voice) I totally expected to hear something like a not-so-great version of James LaBrie, based on the way you kind of hinted at your singing. Here, and VERY appropraite, given the subject matter & vibe, your singing is almost Gordon Lightfoot/Cat Stevens-like, to my ears (they're also rad... that's a compliment!) Very much a matured singing voice, with lots of soul. Not a falsetto screeching rock guy *trying* to sing with feeling. I really like your voice, man! Is this song about your father? (My song "Taken" is about mine, FYI.)

I like the "plinkiness" throughout this! Is that a super high-pitched marimba sound? And all the little (subtle) "dive bombs" add a rad touch :-) Pinch harmonics are fun!!!

Thunder!! (It's pouring rain here, as I listen to this.) I like how that all sets up the rock ballad vibe, and quasi harpsichord sound, with cool guitar lines over it. You ever hear this record? It's got cool stuff all over it as well.... David Torn playing guitar, w/ Michael Shrieve...

You're making me wanna bust out more cool octave sliding licks! Me like!!! And bladdy L, now you're sort of hitting me like David Gilmour.... with Vai-flavor. Suhweet! Again, killin' harmonies (w/volume swells). Nice note choices with those harmonies, man. (I often hear LOTS of "wrong" sounding harmonies when people got this wrote. You're totally nailing it!)

Harmonics and open strings in that rad opening riff? NICE!!! And I REALLY like that keyboard-ish riff that comes in right afterwards (with all the note clusters) as you play your octave guitar melody, and plays virtually through out. Great tone on those bitchin' bluesy licks between the "octaves" line. I freaked when that "Aerosmith" like riff came in! Coolness!!! But man, TOTALLY dig that cluster keyboard figure.

Funky groove rawk-o-rama! And killin' unison bend line!! Do you like Buckethead? Just wondering... He's a beast :-) Also dig the stuff you did in this mega outro solo.

Clubbin'!! What a cool, high-energy track! Cool vehicle for shreddin' :-)

Great sounds on this one as well... Textural trip-hop with leads!

Cool Jeff Beck-ish nutty bends in this solo!

You ARE all over the place, man--just as you said! What a cool mix of stuff, man! Thanks for sending me that link :-)

Well, Charlie, I hope you have a rad holiday season! We're bailing on this town between Dec 23-30. If I don't type at you before we take off, have a GREAT rest of the year, man! Thanks again for all the nice words, and the cool review :-) RAWK ON!!!
Dale

In late 2005, Dale Turner started chipping away at the ultimate musicianship challenge: Write an entire record of super eclectic (non-mainstream, though surprisingly accessible) ROCK music that *he* (see BIO) wanted to hear, AND produce, perform all the instruments, arrange, and engineer himself (including the disc's artwork). The record that resulted, MANNERISMS MAGNIFIED (finally released June 1, 2010 on the INTIMATE AUDIO label), sits somewhere between the singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist tradition of Jon Brion, Elliott Smith, Joseph Arthur, and Sufjan Stevens, with added flavor from Dale's King's X, Mr. Bungle, Radiohead, Jeff Buckley, Brian Wilson/Beach Boys, and Bobby McFerrin influences.