A little over 2 years ago, I was alone in my office when a massive stroke hit me. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move properly. For a while, I didn’t know if I would ever return to who I used to be. The doctors didn’t either. But somehow, the part of me that makes music survived.
That changed everything.
Rewinding the Tape: A Life in Music and Code
Before the stroke, music had been a private universe. I’d written hundreds of songs over decades, starting in the 1980s. Many were lost to time or left unreleased. I was a synth player in hard rock bands. I coded by day, partied by night, and recorded in between.
At one point, I lived the coder dream - we made $60k to $100k/month during the IT boom. And when that bubble burst, I slipped back into the shadows, keeping my music to myself.
What most people never knew: I was quietly building an archive of deeply personal music, side projects no one ever heard, moments captured on tape or disk, still carrying the pulse of a wild life. That was the legacy I wanted to leave behind, especially for my daughter.
The Sound After Silence
When I regained enough brain function to start working with sound again, I had to relearn how to play. I spent the next two years teaching myself how to mix, master, and re-record using the tools of a modern home studio. Every track is a sort of demo, a diary entry, a survival log.
And now I release them.
One of the works I’m most proud of is a double album reissue called "Whispers of the Northern Sky" - a collection of my 1980s-era synth compositions from two albums:
- "Dakota"
- "Val d'sere"
Both albums are re-recordings, but I kept all the little imperfections. No polishing. Just raw, honest sound. I turned them into a longform video that feels like a time capsule.
Another release, "Last Flight from Arlanda," is a 7-track story about my 10 years in Sweden - both the highs and the crashes. It's part memory, part documentary, full of party scene chaos and lonely coder hours.
Then there are songs that still hit hard for me:
- "The Black Angel"
- "Do You Do I"
- "Springtime in Osaka" - which actually got radio play in Japan back in the '90s, before the internet could even carry it across borders.
There was even a Wikipedia page for me once. Someone else wrote it. But when I tried to fix a small mistake, a moderator removed the whole thing. That kind of invisibility has followed me most of my life.
That makes it all the more surprising when people from my past discover what I’ve been doing now. They didn’t expect me to come back after a stroke. Most didn’t even know I had this much music in me. But I do. And I’m not done.
Why I’m Telling You This
I don’t have a label. I don’t have PR. I don’t even have much money. Around $50/month is what I live on after bills. But I have music. I have a story. And if you’re reading this, maybe you’ll see something of value in what I’m building.
I’m not here asking for sympathy. I’m inviting people to witness something real: A man with damage in his brain but fire in his hands. A sound legacy being built while I still have time. Songs from the 1980s that never saw the light, now being reawakened in a very different world.
If you want to support:
- Listen to my music
- Share it with someone who might connect
- Send a message
- Or support through PayPal or Bitcoin (links below)
Every little bit helps me keep documenting this strange and beautiful second act.
I survived to create. I’m creating to survive.
And I’ll keep going, until the silence takes me for good.