Beyond The Palace -- (2003) This book was arguably the first comprehensive look at the history of rock and roll scene in Asbury Park. It contains interviews with over 40 artists from the sixties to the early 2000s. One of my main goals with this book was to show that the Asbury Park music history went beyond Bruce Springsteen, Southside Johnny, and Bon Jovi. As someone that began going to clubs in the 1980s, I made sure to show that side of the history in ways it really hadn't been done before. Looking back, there are interviews I wish I was able to get and things I would definitely do differently, but this captured a period in time. The research was done back when reporters actually had to pursue leads and go through things like newspapers on microfiche film to find info. Thanks to the Internet, I could probably have found and gotten in contact with everyone in the book in a few days rather than several months of work. That's one reason I don't try to revise or update the book. It wouldn't be the same...

Are You Listening? The Top 100 Albums of 2001-2010 from New Jersey Artists -- (2011) This was my attempt to do the last record reviews of my career. Unlike many music writers, I've never cared much for writing album reviews. I thought if I did one major project, I could say that was it and be done with them forever. It didn't work. But it was an interesting project. I spent nearly a year researching online to find albums released by New Jersey artists during the 2001-2010 period of time. I chose that period because I thought that would likely be looked up as the last decade of albums. Years later with the growth of streaming, I guess I was partially right. We still have albums, but streaming has taken over the industry and who knows if albums will survive or not. To do the book, I reviewed about 2,200 albums and used an algorithm I created to spit out the list. I'm proud to say that about 1/5 of the list (including many in the Top 10) included artists that I was unfamiliar with before starting the project.