This album is the second of a three-album solid production of songs that were well-received live, never recorded before, or never finished. This trilogy idea marks the beginning of my effort to take my performance and production skills gained over the years to share my rock compositions at a level I never could before. Songs like Sweet Dream, Sometimes, Just A Man, and Prisoner are some favorites. All songs performed and produced by Darren Lee Richardson.

This album is the first of a three-album trilogy to remake older, popular songs with upgraded studio gear and production knowledge. There are only six songs as I needed to learn about the new gear and implement the knowledge productively. The High is known for the long high notes I hit vocally, and It's All Right and This Time It's Right were appreciated for their solid rock arrangements. All songs performed and produced by Darren Lee Richardson.

I was in a band called Rockhenge for about four years. It broke up shortly after Dad died, and about a year before the pandemic hit. We played clubs, and local and county festivals and progressed well before the breakup. I started it with Mike Overton, thus the MO*DLR name of the "band". We wrote these three songs together and decided to record them during the pandemic. Mike is on lead and rhythm, I am on the rest and produced this with my old gear.

Syne Wave is a progressive, hard rock band. I joined them as a singer and songwriter when they were auDio Ark. We played one gig at the Castro Valley Fall Festival while we were still auDio Ark. When the drummer left during the height of the pandemic, we added five songs to the list and put out this album. I contributed lyrics to the newest songs for this album. I learned a lot about how to control my voice with this band and album project. I will be forever grateful for them to allow me to find my voice and help it grow and become part of this amazing music.

Stand As One was the first album where my quality started improving. I also had some collaboration on two songs. The title track, Raise Your Hand, featured Kyle Tom, an amazing young guitarist, on the solos. He did an amazing job. Mental Divergence was the first time I co-wrote, then produced a song with Ron Castia. It also appeared on an album that I sang on for his band, Dissident Souls. This song is a defining moment for me in my song writing. One of my favorite lyrics as it defined the state of society with media and where it was going. My best grownup lyrics at the time.

Dissident Souls was an album project I worked on with Ron Castia. He asked me to re-sing, with my own style, some old band songs that he was producing in a local recording studio in Livermore, CA. We also produced Mental Divergence together in my studio. It was one of my first "best" efforts in my home studio. It started with a guitar riff he made up and a temporary title that I said we should keep but had not finished. He let me run with it and the lyrics and we ended up with what I think is a really great song. It certainly is one of my best early productions.

Project Unknown was my first digital distribution and a step in the right direction as far as production is concerned, even though I still did not know what mastering was. It cannot be found anymore as I have taken it down to be replaced with my more current productions. It had some personal songs like Remeber and Call On Me. Risk The Fall featured Lonny Foster on lead guitar, a bandmate from my first band, Seducer, and later we founded Aces Wild. One song to call out is, I Hate My Tie. my very first video was created for this pop-rock tie-loathing anthem. Sundown Horizon is another of my first videos, and a favorite of mine.

Not The One was never digitally released. I think it was actually released on MySpace, but can't prove it now. The president of the company I was working for at the time actually bought one from me for every person in the company. They wrote it off somehow. I thought it was pretty cool, but looking back, I regret it. Although it was the best I could create at the time, I did not have the experience, gear or knowledge to produce it better. Quite a few of these songs have made it onto my latest releases and are far better productions than this ever was. Still glad I made it, but perhaps I should have kept it to myself.

One Point Oh was one of my earliest CD creations, never to be seen on the internet. At the time I did not even know what mastering was. I think I recorded it on a BOSS 4 track digital recorder. It was a cumbersome process. Like much of my early work, I was very green and still learning, so it was not a great production, especially by today's standards. I learned a lot from these early productions, but it would be quite some time before I would really gain ground in my home productions.

Split Persona was my first effort at creating a CD. The title is not clear on the cover because it was implied in the word persona being split down the middle. It represented the dichotomy between being a family man and a musician/songwriter. As with many of my early efforts, the production was lacking, but I pressed on anyway. Angus Van Frehley was a song I wrote from a friends jam that he always played. He let me write lyrics and do all the instrumentation. It was a comical song that I really enjoyed writing. Maybe I will reproduce it in the future...

Endlessly was my first step into home recording. It was actually a cassette. I had a dual cassette machine and made many copies of it to give to friends and family. The production was not great. It was done on a TASCAM four track tape recorder which would lose quality when tracks were bounced to make room. I really didn't know what I was doing, but that did not stop me from trying. The graphic was made in Microsoft Paint. That was a trying task for sure. I still have a few lying around. Two Hearts and Endlessly were written for my wife. We are still married, so I guess it wasn't that bad.