Hi, I'm Dan...
I am an independent author, musician, and Senior Editor/Publisher of Aphelion.
Aphelion Web-Zine
Checkout over 25 years of stories on Aphelion Web-Zine by clicking one of the links below:
Books
A Disposable Man
He was too young to fight, but war doesn’t check IDs.
A runaway farm boy. A fearless fighter pilot. A ghost in the shadows of the Cold War. When the agencies with no names needed a man who could do the impossible, they called Captain Tom Darby.
But no one stays a spy forever. He tried to walk away. Fate had other plans.
Before he vanished into legend, these are the missions they tried to erase.
Abducted! A Tom Darby Adventure
After working for military intelligence, Tom Darby, a Korean War veteran, he thought he’d seen it all until he finds himself abducted by aliens after a fender-bender with a UFO. Finding himself light-years from home, he fights hostile aliens across time and space to save the damsel and find his way back home.
Tales from the Mare Inebrium
Welcome Intergalactic Travelers
Come on in and enjoy the Mare Inebrium. We have a large facility and are sure we have something that will meet your needs and exceed your expectations. In the top floor of our building we have a very fancy restaurant with lovely views of the city spreading out into the far distance. The floors above the main bar contain various restaurants, shops, meeting rooms, and we even offer hotel rooms for the discriminating traveler.
Music
Invocation
Ambient Sounds for meditation, relaxation, and soothing sleep.
Show Tunes: Themes for Streams
This is an album of things that I have written for friends to use as intro / outro themes for their online streaming shows. Although, there are a few longer tracks added just as bonuses. This album will be of limited interest to the general public.
One Night Only
This is a collection of two different sessions. They’d be considered “EPs” nowadays. The first five tracks were recorded June 22nd of 1985. Jim Parnell and I had been jamming together for several months, but that night he’d invited a drummer over–Richard, whose last name I could never remember. Richard was a semi-pro in the Athens GA music scene. He played with several different bands in clubs and on the party circuit around town. My neighbor Jenifer Findley, whom I had known from the UGA Sci-Fi Society, sat in on the mixing board and tape recorder for us.
Space Dust
In waning years of the 1970s, I took up learning to play bass guitar after having been room mate to a guitar player and composer named Jim Parnell. That led to my attempting to learn to play keyboards, drums, violin, and all the other instruments I turned my hand to since that time. I began by running tape deck and recording Jim as he practiced, that led to experimenting with tape overdubs so that he could play rhythm guitar along with his lead guitar, then gradually to my own efforts to play bass alongside him on his compositions, joining a few “garage” bands later on, and my own explorations in using the home recording studio I gradually built as an instrument in and of itself for some of my solo work. This is the first collection of Jim and I jamming in between our working on his material. Warts and all, this album illustrates how we began to become a team in between more serious practice sessions of Jim’s work. Jim on guitar, me on bass, and also me twiddling knobs and twisting dials on my amateur recording studio-contraptions to record our practice sessions.
Magnanamious Opium
This is the second collection of Jim and I jamming in between our working on his material. Warts and all, this album illustrates how we began to become a team in between more serious practice sessions of Jim’s work. Jim on guitar, me on bass, and also me twiddling knobs and twisting dials on my amateur recording studio-contraptions to record our practice sessions.
The 10,000 Airships Suite
A mix of classical, rock, and jazz. This was supposed to be the soundtrack to an audio play on the steampunk meme of Airships. However, I got distracted by a computer crash which lost the original files. I was, however, able to save the MP3 versions of the music that I’d been using to check the individual mixes of each song. The sound quality is therefore not as good as I had intended. But it’s all I have left of many months of work. The best listening quality is to be had through headphones.
The Displaced Detective Suite
Ten original instrumental songs inspired by Stephanie Osborn’s first four “Displaced Detective” novels. Hearing these compositions is like listening to a film score. Each piece evokes mental imagery of the scene or scenes in the books. Stephanie and I have worked closely together on every aspect of the album from start to finish. My goal has been to create a portrait in sound of her wonderful novels. She and I agree that I have done so, and even managed to surpass her expectations. This album may just contain the most beautiful music I have yet created. Once you hear it, I think you’ll agree.
Second Helping
From Jazz to Pop to Rock to Orchestral to Electronica, this album delivers my best on every song. I believe that listeners will enjoy this album. It’s quite a good blend of the differing styles and genres, As I was editing the final track selection, I was reminded of how good each song sounds. I think that this is a wonderful album, to be sure. I had a lot of fun putting it all together.
Never Bank On A Learning Curve
This album is a selection of my solo projects from 2011 to the present day. All the songs were composed using MAGIX Music Maker, a computer program that allows me to be musically creative in a whole new way. The program uses loops and clips of recordings of various musical instruments. These can be put together like building blocks to make a complete song. There are thousands of these clips available. I put them together in a series of sequences, somewhat like composing a piece on a loop-based synth. Some pieces are simple, consisting of a mere four or five instrument voices, each with their own sequences. Others are very complex, featuring sixteen or more instrument voices, straight-up synth sequences I created from scratch, sound effects from within the program library, and even special sound effects that I created myself using other audio editing software.
All the music on this album is just me playing with a computer program. No real musicians were harmed in the creation of this album.
Old Dan
Cover Art by Nicholas Tockert
This is me reading one of my own stories. It was inspired by one of my friends, who later drew the cover illustration. Friends of ours demanded an audio version after they had read the print version. I kindly obliged, after much procrastination. The story lasts roughly 20 minutes and represents several weeks of work. I hope you enjoy it!