Give a listen?

At long last, “So Far So Good,” featuring a dozen Josephmooon songs professionally recorded at Rocky Head Studios in Hua Hin, Thailand, is available for streaming on this site as well as 150+ digital stores and online curators.

For example you can listen on Spotify, if that’s your thing.

If you are an Apple Music or iTunes listener, try this link.

One of our fans, who just happens to be Ronan’s dad, has provided his own blog post about the album as well as a deeper interpretation of the songs and how they resonate with his life as a neurodivergent and physically disabled person.

We hope you give a listen and let us know what you think.

To provide a bit more background, the owner of Rocky Head Studios is Ian Nice, a respected British studio musician, formerly of the band Cockney Rebel, which is fronted by his brother, Steve Harley. The sound of “So Far So Good” was largely crafted by his 17-year-old son, Ronnie, who plays guitar, bass, drums, and keyboards. Ian also graciously added some piano and backing vocals. They are also rightly credited as producers.

[Ian and Ronnie also recorded the Josephmooon song, “Every Right Now” (originally titled “Something Good”), which can be found on their “Love Revolution” album. As a result, we left the Josephmooon version off of the album. A vault track!]

I also invited a couple of Thai guitarist friends, Khun Ar and Khun Tor, to add their fine fretwork to the album, and for that I thank Athid Tanom (“Captolea”) and Worakan Wattanapintu, (“Cost Time” and “One Word”).

Also available on this site is a 45 RPM 7” vinyl disc with full-color picture sleeve featuring early mixes (slightly different from the album versions) of “High In The Sky,” “Out Of Tune,” and “Cost Time.” The record is a limited edition of 100 copies.

As a side note, we should mention that vinyl record manufacturers in the U.S. are swamped. I won’t disparage the manufacturer of our disc because the final product is wonderful. But the delivery time ended up being several months later than originally promised, although some of that delay was our fault, not theirs.

The songs on the 45 were the first songs Ronan and I wrote together at the start of the pandemic lockdown. Our early sessions reviewed the basic components of a song – chorus, verse, melody, et cetera – and Ronan soon began sending lyrics. Initially I put melody and chords to a few of the lyrics, to allow Ronan to “hear” what they might actually “sound” like as songs. I recorded the songs on my laptop, singing and playing guitar, and send Ronan an mp3 file of the recording, which we would review and discuss in our next session.

Ronan indeed seemed to enjoy the melody and chord progressions I was choosing for the songs, so I continued to look for promising candidates from his output. Not all of his lyrics were workable, of course, but that is the trial of the songwriter as well. In my editing I strive to retain as much of Ronan’s original phrasing and narrative as possible, without adding my own POV.

Along the way, Ronan came up with the stage name, Joseph Mooon, which we have adopted as the name for our music project. This is where our work together takes on a grander scope, almost a “master class” in writing, recording, producing, releasing and marketing music.

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