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‘Everything’s Fine’: A New Piano Set

Posted in Music, Salon De La Guerre, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on December 14, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Salon de la Guerre is releasing a couple of albums this month. One is a set of rock and pop pieces, but I’ve also got a new collection of piano songs I’ve been working on for the past few months. Half of these are sung songs in the conventional singer-songwriter vein, while five of the songs are classical-music-inspired improvisations. This new album, Everything’s Fine, hits the streams today and you can find it on Apple Music, Amazon, Pandora, YouTube, Bandcamp and Spotify.

I have to apologize for the sound quality on a couple of the songs. As I’ve explained before in other posts, I’m not a trained piano player, and my improvisations are not the kind of things I can easily repeat. When I sit down at the keyboard, I often don’t know whether I’m going to make something wonderful or a piece of dreck, and yet I roll tape anyway and hope for nice surprises. However, that strategy came back to bite me a couple of times this year, especially when I recorded two songs I quite liked while I was also suffering from a raging flu. After I played back these pieces I found that 1) I was extremely proud of what I’d made and 2) you could here sniffing and snorting all over the place. Ugh.

I turned to my software—Goldwave and Logic Pro—to try to get rid of the respiratory background sound effects, and while I succeeded, the sound of these songs got quite muffled. I took a gamble that the nuances and emotion behind the playing would be enough to win my tiny audience over anyway.

I should also note that I while I try not to be treacly or sentimental in my music, a lot of these songs came out on the sad side. Perhaps it’s appropriate since I’ve had some sad news over the last week and perhaps want to wear my heart on my sleeve a little. But I’m hoping to cure the blues when I release a more upbeat album next week called Carnival (which I discussed a few days ago).

I’m including lyrics to the title track of my new album, which is now available on all the major streaming services in digital format only. All the songs were composed and performed this year. Enjoy.

Everything’s Fine
(music and lyrics by Eric R. Rasmussen, copyright 2025)

Everything’s fine
Though the bar is on fire
And the dogs are lapping wine
Everything’s fine

Though the fish they swim in trees
And the whales are in the vines
Everything’s fine

We drink from a hose
And a quack he broke our nose
To look better in the spoon
To make new lovers swoon
But this face is no longer mine
Everything’s fine

Just like somebody’s loss
Is somebody’s gain
I’ll keep my emotions in line
Everything’s fine

A new nose out of reach
And now so is the beach
And we cannot swim there in time
Everything’s fine

You changed your phone number
And now I wait for slumber
In vain on the edge of a dime
Everything’s fine

Your last message was meek
But your morals they were weak
So you packed them up and left them all behind
Everything’s fine

Like a bar that’s on fire
A squirrel fried on a wire
And the vultures are waiting all in line
Everything’s fine

Just like somebody’s loss
Is somebody’s gain
I’ll keep my emotions in line
Everything’s fine

A new nose out of reach
And now so is the beach
And we cannot swim there in time
Everything’s fine



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Give the Drummer Some

Posted in Music, Salon De La Guerre, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 11, 2025| Leave a Comment »

A few years ago I was telling a friend after I’d finished an album that I thought I was a pretty good timekeeper.

Without missing a beat, he said: “No you aren’t.” (Thanks, Jason, for keeping me honest!)

If you are a Salon de la Guerre fan (a rare breed) you have likely sensed something critical about my music. Not something missing, necessarily, but a certain sound quality that has characterized my (almost 600!) songs. You are right, and I won’t make you guess: I have never, ever used a real drum set. No real drummer has ever graced a Salon de la Guerre song. Every beat you hear has been patched, drum-machined, looped, fabricated and preconceived by robots. I have found a way many times to work in real instruments (including acoustic and electric guitars, pianos, banjos, lap steel guitars and saxophones). But never a real drum kit.

That is, until this year, when I completed an album called Carnival, coming to a streaming service near you soon.

But let me back up.

How can a rock ’n’ roll fan like me have gone so long without real drums? Well, it’s not because I don’t like them. The answer is one of pure practicality: I live in New York City with my family in an apartment that won’t accommodate an extra room for a drum kit. Even if I did have an extra room, I couldn’t play drums here without bringing down the wrath of neighbors (or my long-suffering wife).

Practical point No. 2: I don’t have a band. As I’ve said before, Salon de la Guerre is largely a one-man project. While that has disadvantages (band dynamics do often make music better), it has also allowed me to release a lot of music at a quick pace because my software lets me to churn it out constantly … so my listeners get to drink from the fire hose.

Since I’m limited only by my imagination, since I’m allowed to be ridiculously productive and since I’m (usually) proud of the work, I’ve never let the drum issue bother me too much. However, I’ve always imagined there’s some audiophile out there who hates computer sounds and might well hate my work for all its computery qualities. That’s bugged me enough that I occasionally have wondered as I’ve passed a drum kit in a store or at someone’s house: “Why not just sit in someone else’s drum kit for a bit and make my own loops?”

Then I had an “Oh, duh!” moment. My son recently started going to a performing arts high school, and during the open houses, the kids told me what I didn’t already know: There are drum rooms all over New York City where I could have been doing this shit all along for a very modest fee, putting real drum parts into my laptop.

Derp!

So with that new knowledge, I booked rooms at Rivington Music Rehearsal Studios this fall. And now Salon de la Guerre is about to release an album where you actually get to hear me play drums for the first time.

Now back to my friend Jason’s point: Drumming is a real talent. It’s not just about doing rolls, flams or other magic tricks. You actually have to count and keep a tempo. My talent at this is suspect (you have all my respect, you real drummers). So most of the songs on my newest album, Carnival, actually mix the real drum beats with the computer loops so that I didn’t lose the time.

Is that cheating? Maybe. Do I care? No. Again, the point was to increase the dimensions of the sound. Having computer and analog sounds together has always been part of my aesthetic, and the contrasts it creates cut deep into the heart of how I see art in general: Art mostly is about contrasts, first and foremost. Forget messages. Forget theory. Forget shiny objects. Contrast (antithesis) is where all the compelling stuff usually is, whether it’s in music, painting or novels.

If your art is about one color white clashing with a lighter shade of white, you and I are likely on the same page. So a computer drum contrasting with a real drum is automatically interesting to me.

Having said that, I did go out on a limb on two or three songs and build the beat in my own wobbly time without a backing drum loop, click track or metronome. Real producers will probably be able to tell which ones, but I still think the music in those cases came out exciting. I might do that again in the future.

I recently submitted Carnival for distribution and hope it will be available on streaming services in the next couple of weeks (or maybe the beginning of next year, since my preferred distributor, CD Baby, has gotten a bit slow lately). I’ll discuss the album more when it’s released.

But look for it. And enjoy some real drums, if that’s your thing.

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My Album is Reviewed on Pitch Perfect

Posted in Music, Salon De La Guerre, tagged , , , , on October 17, 2025| Leave a Comment »

My album The Green, Green Gas of Home has been reviewed on the website Pitch Perfect. I’ve been reviewed a few times by this writer, Dino DiMuro, and always appreciate his insights. He really seems to like it when I pull my guitar out, and sometimes I feel I owe him another album of mostly guitar songs. Maybe soon!

You can now find The Green, Green Gas of Home available for streaming on services such as Pandora, Amazon Music, Apple Music, Bandcamp, YouTube and Spotify, among other many other platforms both domestic and global.

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My 45th Album Hits The Streams

Posted in Music, Salon De La Guerre, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 16, 2025| Leave a Comment »

I am very proud to announce that my 45th album, a rock-pop work, has just hit the streaming services.

It’s called The Green, Green Gas of Home and it’s been released under the name of my musical act, Salon de la Guerre. I recorded it over the summer. It’s a New Wave-y album with environmental and apocalyptic themes that touches on issues of dementia and memory, things that have affected those near to my heart. It’s got a little soul and a little krautrock.

A lot of the album was recorded with my Logic Pro software instruments, though I snuck in a guitar performance for sonic texture. As much as I loved working with my collaborator Christina E., who did some vocals on my last album, the latest work is, once again, all me all the time in my one-man-band mode.

I describe the album this way on my Bandcamp page:

“Salon de la Guerre’s 45th album is a mix of uptempo pop, rock and electronic songs with apocalyptic overtones about environmental calamity, mental decline, and the economies that emerge from civil collapse, as well as the toll these phenomena take on our families and interpersonal relationships. It’s also got a dose of hope.”

For those of you counting, I now have 586 songs in circulation. If you’re asking, “Does this guy have some kind of weird obsession with counting his songs in the hundreds, and is he excited somehow to say that he’s written almost 600 songs?” The answer is yes and yes. Asked and answered. Sue me.

You can now find The Green, Green Gas of Home available for streaming on services such as Pandora, Amazon Music, Apple Music, Bandcamp, YouTube and Spotify, among other many other platforms both domestic and global. (I still don’t offer physical media like CDs or vinyl, though I can always dream … one day … maybe … )

As usual, the album was written, arranged, performed and produced by me in my home studio in New York City. The album’s cover photo of the child in the gas mask is by Lisa5201.

You can listen to a sample here:

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My Latest Album, ‘Betrayed,’ Has Hit The Streams

Posted in Music, Salon De La Guerre, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on July 23, 2025| Leave a Comment »

I am very proud to announce that Salon de la Guerre’s latest album has hit the virtual shelves. It’s called Betrayed, and it’s now available on Apple Music, YouTube, Amazon, Spotify, Bandcamp and Pandora, among other services.

Betrayed is a collection of dark pop songs on political and personal anxiety, obsession, jealousy, guilt and redemption. Yet it’s all pretty poppy and peppy, lest you get the wrong idea from all those scary nouns.

This time out I turned to some singing help from my friend Christina E., who contributes the wonderful lead vocal on my song “Latin Quarter Restaurant,” and whose harmony vocals and vocal counterpoints can be found throughout the rest of the album as well. When I wrote some of these parts, I realized that my voice just wouldn’t do, and I turned to Christina, who offered not just great interpretation but allowed me to visit more spaces in the sonic landscape and give the songs a different color and personality. Also, working with her was a joy. When you work alone so much, it’s a breath of fresh air to have someone else come in and show such enthusiasm for what you’re doing and lend so much positive energy.

I’m fairly proud of my production on these cuts … or at least as proud as I can be with a layperson’s understanding of sound engineering. Of all my strengths, I rank my arranging talents pretty high and my audio tech acumen pretty low.

I composed the music almost entirely on Logic Pro X this time around, though I also tucked in a solo here and there that I performed on an iPhone keyboard. (I haven’t picked up an actual guitar yet this year … but watch out for it. Sometimes I get itchy to play.)

As always, Betrayed is only available online in a digital format (which will be the case every time out until I’ve signed a record deal). The album was written, produced and performed by yours truly at my home studio from May to July 2025. Again, the background vocals on a smattering of songs and the lead vocal on “Latin Quarter Restaurant” are by Christina E. The color photo illustration on the cover is by CSA-Printstock.

Here’s one of the new tracks. Enjoy!

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RIP David Johansen

Posted in Music, tagged , , , , , , , on March 1, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Another hero of mine has passed. David Johansen was the last living member of proto-punk band the New York Dolls (his survival to age 75 was a feat in and of itself since so many of his bandmates died far too young of drugs, drowning, cancer, etc. … in a series of almost Biblical blights).

When I was 17, I was looking over one of the first in Rolling Stone magazine’s soon-to-be-too-many “Top 100” lists. Clocking in at No. 55 was a very tiny picture of a band. I had very good eyes back then and a really great knack for recognizing people, and even though the guy in front was the size of an ant and dressed as a woman it was incontrovertibly the cross-dressing ant face of one Buster Poindexter, the SNL lounge singer and “Hot Hot Hot” guy. My life changed after I read that issue because I realized he had a whole history (and a different name) I didn’t know about.

It was then I realized I was going to have to do all my own research to be a better music fanatic. Not only did I discover the Velvet Underground in that magazine but I figured out all the bands who got lost before the punk explosion. The New York Dolls was one of them, one of the most misunderstood bands of the early 1970s and most tragically overlooked and mismanaged and destroyed. They dressed glam but sounded different. They arranged and presented like the Rolling Stones (and also had a singer with big lips) but the harmonics and sonic approach and beats were all completely different. They paid homage to the short pop songs of the 50s and early 60s, but it was 1973 and nobody cared about that yet in rock music. (It would take the Ramones and the Clash to create the context for the approach.) To this day, I think people don’t really pay attention to what the band was doing differently because it’s easier to just say they were all drag-dressing drug users who all died in sad and stupid and suspiciously ignominious ways and seemed to carry the curse of Job.

I never begrudged Johansen reinventing himself as campy lounge singer and often entertaining ham actor (the music business is intrinsically evil and it’s wrong to judge those who have figured out how to survive in it). Whenever I hear “Hot Hot Hot” today I tap my toes a little, sure, but mainly I smile at the fact that somewhere an angel is getting his wings and the guy who wrote “Looking for a Kiss” is getting a mechanical royalty.

“Looking for a Kiss” is one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll songs ever made, by the way, and yet all the other songs on the New York Dolls’ first album are almost as good. It’s a classic from end to end. Do Buster Poindexter a solid and go listen to it.

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My New Album, ‘Resting Horse Face’

Posted in Music, Salon De La Guerre, tagged , , , , , , , on February 5, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Congratulations to me! Salon de la Guerre’s 41st album drops this week.

The album is called Resting Horse Face, and it’s now available for purchase or streaming on all the major music services, including Apple Music, Amazon, Pandora, Spotify, YouTube and Bandcamp. As always, I’m selling this album exclusively in a digital format.

Like most (decent) people, I’ve been unhappy with the political situation in the United States in the last few months and the confluence of hatred, ignorance, greed, superstition and stupidity that has taken hold in the halls of American power. I’ve tried to compartmentalize my despair and turn my feelings into art as much as possible. Given that I’m pretty prolific anyway, it’s likely a lot of my music is going to hit the airwaves in the next few months. The good news is that I never seem to run out of ideas.

The other reason I churned out new music is that I hit a few snags releasing my latest novel, and I needed to stop and take a breather by doing something else.

I describe the new album this way on my music site: “It’s an eclectic collection of electronic and guitar-driven pop songs on futurism, compulsive behavior, nostalgia, frustrated romance and frustrated cult leaders. The lyrics feature a rogue’s gallery of half-talented manipulators and smoothies.”

My last couple of albums were focused on my piano and punk guitar playing. Most of Resting Horse Face, by contrast, was composed on my Logic Pro X software, and this project was more about showing off my composing and arranging talents. First I make the music, then I usually try to find lyrics and a singing style that fit the cinematic quality of the music. I never know if the music I’ve created is going to be right for the sweet spot in my voice, so it’s always a bit of a surprise to me when I start singing; only then do I know if this set of songs is going to rock or suck.

This time out, somehow my voice really worked with the material without sounding too reedy or deadpan. That’s either a testament to how much my singing has improved … or sheer luck. Don’t hold your breath for next time, though.

As always, the album, was written, recorded and produced by yours truly at my home studio over the December 2024 and January 2025. I hope you like the results.

And I promise: My novel is around the corner.

Enjoy the first tune off Resting Horse Face here:

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‘Resting Horse Face’: A New Salon de la Guerre Album

Posted in Music, Salon De La Guerre, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 28, 2025| Leave a Comment »

I know I promised you a novel, and by gum, I still plan to give it to you. But I hit a few snags. I was hoping to have a friend or two look my new book over for plot holes and inconsistencies, but people have busy lives and often don’t have time to read my books for fun.

That’s why I offered a couple of them cold hard cash. No takers.

So while I’ve been giving my weary eyes a rest before the next book edit, I did what comes natural to me when I’m sitting around with resting writer face: I recorded a new album of music. As I’ve said before, I can almost write music in my sleep these days, and it’s a talent I try not to take for granted since it was given to me by, um … OK, insert whatever your parent-instilled version of a creator is here.

The result is my new album, called Resting Horse Face, which should hit the streaming services this week. (I still don’t sell physical media versions of my music, unfortunately, since it’s prohibitively expensive.) The new album is a set of pop and rock pieces, mostly punchy and upbeat, though a couple of songs are experimental and moody. There are a few guitar solos, but overall there’s less guitar this time out, since I wanted to try other colors. I’ll add more details when the album has dropped, which I hope happens in a day or two.

Watch this space for the news!

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A New Album of Piano Songs

Posted in Music, Salon De La Guerre, tagged , , , , , , , on September 17, 2024| Leave a Comment »

I’m proud to announce that my 40th album, Faint Heart, is hitting the streaming services this week. This one comprises piano songs, including some pop and folk numbers as well as a number of wholly improvised instrumental pieces.

If someone ever asks me how I started playing piano, I’ve got this quick answer at the ready: “I stared at the piano for 45 years, and then one day put my hands down on it and started moving my fingers around.”

A funny joke … if perhaps only somewhat true. In fact, I had a piano in my house for many years as I was growing up. But I was mostly afraid to do anything with it other than learn “Happy Birthday.” My parents had some stuff they liked to play (I remember my father liked playing “Green Green Grass of Home.”) But mostly I remember the family piano being ignored … and in hindsight think of all the opportunity wasted because I was too afraid to play it. We eventually abandoned our family piano (or sold it, I don’t remember) after we moved into a mobile home and couldn’t put it anywhere.

When I was in my 20s and in college, a roommate’s or friend’s keyboard would occasionally slip into my hands and I would add some notes to a guitar project I was working on. But it was just to add color or timbre to my arrangements. Later on, I threw some one-handed piano parts onto my recordings with a MIDI keyboard. When I learned I could program these, I asked myself, “What the hell did I buy this expensive-ass keyboard for?”

Everything changed when my wife got me an iPhone with GarageBand in 2016. I don’t want to turn this into an advertisement for Apple (Tim Cook doesn’t need my help) but occasionally I would run my fingers along the keyboard on the screen, playing along with some electronic thing I’d written, and some not-horrible music would come out. At one point I thought to myself, “Either these GarageBand developers are geniuses and make me sound like a piano player when I’m not … or I have some actual talent at this instrument.” I later composed a full piano piece, playing the right-hand and left-hand parts separately with my right hand on the keyboard. I’m proud of that piece, but I wouldn’t brag about the performance. Eventually, I turned on a cheap tape recorder and tapped out a piece called “Otto Half Soft,” which is the first time I ever composed my own tune with both hands. Because I approach every music project with a punk attitude–assuming that instinct and imagination and raw emotion will always trump technique and skill–I got cocky enough to make a whole album of piano songs in 2018. It was called Yipano, and aside from a few leftover GarageBand pieces, it mostly features me playing a piano two handed. My advertising pitch for that album was: “Pay for the scandal of hearing me learn how to play the piano in real time.” I figured it would drive away what few fans I have, yet I picked up some new ones. Some of the songs get listened to on TikTok.

I waited a few years to do something so arrogant again. The reason it’s happening now is that my son recently got a new 88-key keyboard for his birthday and I wanted to test it out. (My son is a great piano player, and has been trained properly, unlike his dad.) Usually, it’s when I’m “testing equipment” that I start accidentally writing new material. I like this method because the last thing you want to do when you’re writing is overthink.

The upshot is that I squeezed out 15 new songs over the last six weeks, and the result is Faint Heart. I had a lot of unused lyrics left over from past projects, so there’s quite a few new sung songs as well, something to keep things flowing if you get bored with the piano improvisations, classical pretensions or general arrogance of a project like this.

As usual, the new album was written and performed by yours truly in my home studio in New York in July and August. The album cover photo was taken by Natasha Zakharova.

The album is available only digitally on Amazon, Apple Music, Pandora, Bandcamp, Spotify and YouTube, among other services. I hope you enjoy! (Or if not, I’m sorry.)

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New Music: Standing Close To Power

Posted in Music, Salon De La Guerre, tagged , , , , , , on August 20, 2024| Leave a Comment »

I am very proud to announce the latest alternative-rock album by Salon de la Guerre: It’s called Standing Close To Power and Catching Its Cold, and it’s now available on all the major streaming services, including Amazon, YouTube, Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music and Bandcamp, as well as other places where music is (still) sold.

Like all my albums, this one is available only digitally.

I’m also proud to announce that with this release, I now have 500 copyrighted songs in circulation. I’m chuffed about this for a number of reasons, the most important of which is that even though I’m an aging guy, I feel like I’m in my creative prime. When I was in my 20s and confused and sad and unproductive most of the time, the conventional wisdom says my art should have been much better. And yet most of the art I made in my 20s was horrible shit.

Things got better in my 30s, really good in my 40s, and now here I am in my 50s, a husband and dad, churning out stuff that I think rocks pretty hard and certainly sounds like the best stuff I’ve ever made. I feel more lyrically focused too. And dare I say it, as someone who never thought of myself as a singer, I now don’t hate my voice anymore.

The new album was designed to be punk rock with two guitars trading off leads. That probably puts me closer to the Replacements than the Ramones this time out. There are a couple of notable exceptions in the stylistic approach: The first song, called “This Town Needs Secrets,” is my first ’70s style power pop song. I did not make it that way on purpose. Sometimes, as you’re producing a song (or any piece of art, really), putting together the random pieces, you realize what it’s becoming, and at that point it’s your job to just get out of the way and let it live.

The last song on the album, “The World’s Pain Leaked Through Her Shirt,” is an electronic piece composed on Apple’s Logic Pro X. It wasn’t guitar rock. In fact, it was more like an outtake from a previous bunch of songs I made two years ago when my mindset was more about the Talking Heads. But the song seemed flippant enough to qualify as punk.

The lyrics seem to be (since I don’t plan those either) about the desires and angers that seethe in domesticity, as well as sexual politics and gossipy little towns (not unlike one I used to live in). I’ve thrown in some allusions to my favorite poets for those interested in hunting for that kind of thing.

As always, the album was written, performed, arranged and produced by yours truly at my home studio in New York. I’m responsible for all the guitar parts; the rest of the sounds were made with my terrific Logic Pro software. (I also designed the cover.)

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