Kevin Peckham and I met through Quinn Raymond, who knew Kevin through WRMC (the Middlebury College radio station). Kevin would come to NYC every few months and we’d get a chance to play somewhere. Of all the songwriters I knew, he was the most prolific, and he made songwriting look easy. We were roommates while visiting India (yes, for real), and we decided to put together a rock band when we got back to the States. Kevin moved to NYC in 2007 and we started working out arrangements for our songs.

Tim Ireland joined on drums and we leaned hard into the power trio approach. Our first show was a block party in the Lower East Side opening for Morningwood. That was a trip. We played many NYC venues with mostly fond memories of: Mercury Lounge, Pianos, Knitting Factory, The Studio at Webster Hall, Lit Lounge, Glasslands, Arlene’s Grocery, Littlefield, Public Assembly, The Delancey, Trash Bar, Fontana’s, Rock Shop, and Goodbye Blue Monday. We toured New England and the northeast, played SXSW a few times, played a live set on WRMC, and played as far away as San Francisco (with our friends HIJK). We did everything ourselves, booking, promotion, art, videos, almost all the recording and mixing. Our first record, Time is Gravity, came out in 2008. We released two more records in 2010: a loud rock record (Of Innocence and Experience) and a folk record (No Clothes on Ragged Island). A highlight of this time was No Clothes on Ragged Island, a concept album about the life of Edna St. Vincent Millay that was written in a single day, and recorded in a week.

Charlie Kemmerer joined us onstage for live painting. Tim Bartlett joined us offstage for live projection art. Mark Christensen joined on guitar. Tim Ireland left the band to drum for our friends The Sharp Lads. Kevin and I did a bunch of duo shows with live looping, which was really fun (but really maddening challenging!) Here’s a shot of the onstage setup for a show at Knitting Factory—lot of gear on that stage.

We played our last NYC show at The Delancey for CMJ Music Marathon 2011, a particularly fun but bittersweet show. In fact, Kevin moved to Texas directly from the load-out of that gig. I moved to New Jersey a week or so later. Ghost Ghost’s final show was at SXSW 2012.

With everyone gone from NYC, the band went on hiatus for a decade. We came together again in 2023 to record a tribute to Tom Verlaine, this time with Tim Bartlett on modular synth instead of live projection art. We’re always threatening to fire up Ghost Ghost again.