Wherever you go….
…There we are.
Selfe Service Sampler
Here’s a quick taste of contemporary instrumentals from my solo albums.
Robin & the Rocks
Classic Rock with a vintage vibe - all the style with less hair spray….
One of San Francisco’s undiscovered gems, we were almost famous…. Currently featured in shows like We Were Liars, Young Sheldon, The Drew Carey Show, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, etc. Our first album, Unknown Lover, was produced by Bonnie Hayes and featured players like guitarists Paul Davis and Chris Hayes (Bonnie’s brother and member of Huey Lewis and the News), drummer Kevin Hayes (another Hayes brother and Robert Cray Band member), bassist Hank Maninger, not to mention the lovely Robin Pearl on vocals and Ned Selfe on pedal steel.
Our second album, American Excess, previously unreleased, was produced by us and recorded live in 1985 to 1/2” 16 track tape. Our fabulous band featured guitarist Keith Allen (Steve Miller Band), bassist Jonathan Bassil, and drummer Jeff Brewer.
Now available for streaming on your preferred music platform:
Amazon Music (Amazon only seems to show the first album, Unknown Lover.)
Glaciers Come, Glaciers Go
This one started before I even knew it. In the early 90’s, I had upgraded the studio to an Akai 12 track tape deck paired with the venerable Atari 1040 computer, which allowed me to actually cut record quality tracks at home. I had some instrumental stuff I had been playing around with for my own amusement, and when Stephen Hill of Hearts of Space (one of THE big new age labels of the 90’s) contacted me, looking for a “new age” pedal steel album, I thought, “Why, yes, I do have something that might fit the bill.” I sent him a demo, which he really liked but he said it was “too commercial” for his needs. Of course, “too commercial” didn’t sound like a bad thing, and thus was Selfe Service Records born.
Glaciers…ended up being about half stuff I had done on my own and half produced by Peter Elman. Players included my friend and hero, Keith Allen on guitar, Karl Sevareid (Robert Cray Band) on bass, Kevin Hayes and John Hanes on drums, Orestes Vilato (Santana) on percussion, and Bruce Unsworth on sax. Turns out it got a very favorable reception, with lots of press and radio play.
Engineered by Jeffrey Norman. John Blakely, Tom Size. Drums - John Hanes, Kevin Hayes, Dave Cassini. Bass - Karl Sevareid. Guitar - Keith Allen, John Blakely. Keyboards - Peter Elman. Percussion - Orestes Vilato, Dave Casini. Sax - Bruce Unsworth. Ned Selfe - pedal steel guitar, lap steel, dobro, pedal dobro, steel/midi, e-bow, steel seagulls. Design - Tom Bonauro and John Choe. Dedicated to my wife, Robin Pearl. Special Thanks: Stephen Hill, Kathleen Lynch, John Sharp Roberts, Bob.
Available on your favorite streaming services:
Amazon Music (1st album only)
Errands in Paradise
All the songs on Glaciers were co written by me and Keith Allen, and I produced it at my house using some of my favorite players: Keith Allen on guitar, Bruce Unsworth on sax, Robin Sylvester (Ratdog) on bass, and with John Hanes and Chris Sandoval on drums. Since I was producing it at home, I got to use all the fun toys: pedal steel guitar, lap steel, dobro, pedal dobro (Ped-a-Bro), steel/midi, e-bow, etc.
Mixed and mastered by Jeffrey Norman.
Drums - John Hanes, Chris Sandoval. Guitar - Keith Allen. Sax - Bruce Unsworth. Background vocals - moose & squirrel. Ned Selfe - pedal steel guitar, lap steel, dobro, Ped-a-Bro, steel/midi, e-bow. Design by Tom Bonauro.
Dedicated to my wife, Robin Pearl.
Special thanks to: Kim Busch, JSR, John Cutler, George Bertelstein, Patty, Taylor & Jack, Bugs, Bob. In memory of Rena.
You should totally stream it, dude:
Amazon Music (1st album only)
Recipe for Disaster
Somehow, I got the itch to write a song with lyrics and the next thing you know this one showed up. Clearly, my hopelessly quirky voice couldn’t really deliver what the song had in mind, so I hired Stacy Hogan and the excellent crew at A Writer’s Paradise in Nashville to knock out a demo. They did a great job and I think the song came out pretty well!
I cobbled together the video using Rotorvideos.com, cover art by Gilang Prima Sejati.
Perhaps you could watch and listen to it here:
Temporarily Blue
I got a call from producer Preston Glass to do a session for Anita Pointer’s solo album, Love for What It’s Worth, which sounded like fun and a challenge. For some reason Preston had decided that everybody who worked on the album had to have a middle ‘name’ on the credits. And so, I will now be forever enshrined in internet history as Ned “Yo Bad” Selfe….
Stimmen (Voices)
There are times when you gotta love the internet. I got an email from a German producer who was looking for pedal steel for some tracks on the next Flaming Bess album. He sent me the rough demo tracks and I laid down some steel for them in my pajamas around 3 AM one night. Next thing you know, I get a CD in the mail from Germany, and they even spelled my name right on the credits!
The Highway Song
McCarty & Stoffer were long time South Bay Area performers, and as you can probably tell by the list of special guest appearances on their album, they had made a lot of friends over the years. I guess Bobby Black was busy, so I got the call to play on one of the tracks. It was a straight ahead truck drivin’ song, so right up my alley and I knocked it out and done in 2 or 3 takes. I was kinda bummed when it was time to get paid and they didn’t want to pay my two-hour-minimum rate, since I’d done the track so quickly. But I was happy with what I played and I had the whole drive from San Jose back to San Francisco to puzzle out whether being too fast in the studio was a good thing or a bad thing.
They Always Said We Had to Change the Law
They say the internet is forever, and typing my name into the Google turned up songs I had forgotten I had played on, like this one from Fred Gardner about the San Francisco Buyers Club. San Francisco was really fun in the 70’s and we had a band before Robin & the Rocks called Swing Shift, that played light jazz and Western swing (be nice in the comments and maybe I’ll scrounge something up from the archives). We loved playing gay clubs like Sunday brunch at The Rainbow Cattle Company, where the crowd was always entertaining to watch from the bandstand. It also reminded me that I played a bunch of gigs with an artist named Conan, who was enjoying a minor revival with a gay anthem called Tell Ol’ Anita. Even though I grew up in Alabama, I thought I was fairly sophisticated since I’d gone to school on the East Coast, traveled a fair bit, and lived in the Castro District in San Francisco for a few years. But the gigs with Conan took me to places, like a bar deep in the Tenderloin, where I realized I was still just a naive redneck. We played a house party in the East Bay and I was loading in equipment when I saw what appeared to be a hot, nubile young lady lounging around in lingerie near the door (and, no, it wasn’t Halloween or a costume party, just a Bay Area Saturday night…) On my second trip I looked a little closer and there was something just a little bit off. Though The Crying Game was still 15 years in the future, by the third trip I knew I needed to seriously recalibrate my radar to fit life in the big city. Like I said, San Francisco was endlessly fascinating, weird, and fun!