Bruce Irving Music

I'm a singer-songwriter in Central Massachusetts. My most recent album "Message from Tomorrow" is available (CD or MP3 downloads) on CD Baby. It's also available for download from iTunes and from Amazon.com. You can stream a few full tracks from this and my earlier album "Jardin du Luxembourg" on my SoundCloud pages. Some of my works in progress and musical experiments with apps on my iPod Touch are also there.

I'm actively writing and recording songs for a new album in 2012... in the meantime, you might also check out my blog, Music of the Spheres. It's all about space, astronomy, education, books, and music (mine and others'). I update it more often than this web site, so new recordings on SoundCloud will usually show up there first.

I started writing songs when I met a group of musically creative science and engineering dorm-mates, fellow freshmen at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh in the early 1970's, back before there were CD's and the Internet (yes, we did have electricity). These CMU folks became good friends and we enjoyed making music together, mainly for fun. I formed an acoustic duo with another CMU friend, Rob Simbeck, and we performed at coffee houses and at a bar called The Casbah. We were occasionally funny and usually in tune. We called ourselves Bruce and Rob (yes, we were creative too). For reasons of his own, Rob followed me to the great music capitals of America, Rochester, New York and Los Angeles, California in the 1980's. We wrote together and played at the LA Songwriter's Showcase, which at that time was held at the Improvisation in Hollywood. Rob later moved to Nashville and ran the Boston Marathon, but that's another story.

In the (relatively) recent past, I got back into writing and recording around 1998, and released my first CD "Jardin du Luxembourg" in 2003. That CD as well as my 2010 album "Message from Tomorrow" are available at CD Baby and my songs are also available for download at iTunes, Amazon.com, and various other MP3 sites.

I like a wide range of music. Some of my favorite artists and writers are the Beatles, Sting, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Mozart, U2, James Taylor, the Pretenders, Bruce Springsteen, Garth Brooks, Elvis Costello, Sarah McLachlan, Elton John, Fleetwood Mac, Billy Joel, CSNY, various Broadway shows, Dave Mathews, the Dixie Chicks, John Mayer, and many more. I listen to a lot of new music and recently have discovered the Black Keys and the Grip Weeds, among others.

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As I write this in early 2012, I'm working on recording a new album with Roger Lavallee at the Tremolo Lounge in West Boylston, Massachusetts. I hope to complete it by summer or early fall 2012. I have rough mixes of several of the songs available for streaming on my SoundCloud pages. My most recent album "Message from Tomorrow" is available for download on CDBaby.com, on iTunes, and on Amazon.com.  The title track is a cockeyed optimist's view of the future. Here are the lyrics:

Message from Tomorrow

New York is under water
Just cloned a brand new daughter
With genes from Ashton Kutcher
Great cheekbones in the future
Voice mail and the world wide web
Implanted in my head

Chorus
Everything is gonna be alright
I saw it clearly in a dream last night
No more pain, and no more sorrow
I got a message from tomorrow

Immortal afterthought
Upload my mind to a robot
New realms of virtual pleasure
And titanium joints forever!
Seinfeld in syndication
In my hotel room on my Mars vacation

Bridge
I may be just a pulsing circuit
But you can bet I’m gonna work it
Make the future what the present never was

Words & music by Bruce Irving and Rob Simbeck © 2006