I - Are there certain songs that are more personal for you than others, and does that affect how often you play them?

PM - They are almost all personal in some way, and that usually isn't the determinant of whether they get played.  Usually that has to do more with the sound they have, or certain catchy lines.  One song which is very personal for me, but that I don't mind talking about is "Whoever's Listening."  It's really not addressed to a "whoever," it is one of my [former] teachers, a great teacher, Mr. Benjamin.  Mr. Arthur Benjamin, ... died on TWA Flight 800.  The last day of school before graduation I was really sort of broken up; I had gone through a lot at Masterman and I didn't know how to handle saying goodbye to it all.  There was, and still is, a mural we did of him on the roof, not of him but sort of representing him.  And, I decided that I had to go take a picture of the mural because I didn't have any photos of it.  So I went upstairs with my camera and [that part of the roof] was fenced off, so I had to crawl under the fence like a commando.  I proceeded to cry my eyes out and talk at the mural, and I really then came to the realization that...

[Peter paused very thoughtfully here, and was obviously trying to think of the right way to phrase what he was going to say.].

PM - I always thought that if I couldn't see myself doing something it would never happen, but there I was graduating high school and going off to college.  And that was something I could never see.  Even though I felt the same I was stronger [for having] weathered all the storms.  And, I realized that the most important thing is that the memories are within.  They are not in the walls of a place, they're not in a house, they're not in a school. It's like the line "I didn't want to leave behind my memories, as if the walls could hold them, and without them I'd lose my identity."  I really felt like that: I felt like if I left I'd just lose it, but I didn't.  I've only been back a few times since then.  I wrote the lyrics to the song down on the front patio, all at once in my notebook.  By the time I got back home I had the melody all thought out.  The chords just followed in.

I - The flip-side of that last question, in a way, is: are there songs that are very fun for you to play?

PM - "Make Sense" is like that for me.  I just sat down and wrote it and it was done, and I didn't even really know who it was about.  It's a fun song for me.  It is sort of that "I like you but I shouldn't" theme.  Maybe I do write about relationships a lot; I mean, do we need to take a poll?

PM - Another one that is not necessarily fun so much as a good experience for me is "World In My Hand."  It's my anthem, really.

I - I was under the impression that "AM Kitchen" was your anthem, since it is the namesake of your site.

PM - "AM Kitchen" is an anthem to an extent, but it is more specific to a time.  "World In My Hand" still feels very present to me; every time I play it it's still not old.  Some songs get dated: "Afterglow" feels dated after a while, "Touch" even feels like that to a degree.  Some songs are connected to a specific circumstance, and "World In My Hand" wasn't a circumstance, [it] was me, and I'm still here.  It was written looking out the back window of the bedroom of my old house.  [The song] brings together a lot of things, I mean, dirt drugs and sin still all have a buyer.

I -  You've mentioned "Touch" twice now.

PM - Have I?

I -  Yes.  Do you want to say anything about it?

PM - Some people are really physical and some people aren't. Some people are really emotional or mental in the ways that you can communicate with them.  With some people you can prod them all you want emotionally and they'll never give, but if you just want to give them just one little shove you can't find a place to touch them.  Maybe because they are so delicate, or just not physical at all.  So touching that person is a boundary, and you can't get past it.  That's where "Touch" came from.  And that feeling builds, it starts out not being able to touch someone because you don't know how, but it just becomes everything.

I -  Are there any songs that you are working on right now?

PM - I am in the process of working on a few songs.  There is a one new song that I wrote, "The Pickup Song," and I'm almost afraid to put it on my web-site because I know somebody's bound to be a little offended by it.  It's sort of like ... I am in college now and I am going to these parties and I'm finding that, oh my god, men are such assholes!  I know that I really already knew this; I certainly have learned it, but wow, they are.  And I was sort of playing around with my guitar and started thinking of pickup lines and things an extremely frank over-sexual male would say to a girl at a party and I just went from there.  It's actually much too hard for me to play the way that I wrote it: I have to, um, scale it down some before I can actually play it all-the-way through. Because at this point I can't play it all the way through and its very frustrating.  But should it make it onto the site, I'm gonna have a disclaimer on it or something... "These lyrics do not reflect the opinions of the writer in any way."

I -  I understand that you're working on another Demo right now?

PM - Yes, on and off.  I want to have something done by the end of April, which is when I'll be seeing Peter Mulvey next, so I can give him a copy.  And also, I think it's a good idea for me to record some things once a year, to give them some sort of permanence.

I -  Around that time last year you were preparing to record your Senior Project Demo

PM - I was still writing for it and trying to decide what would go on it, at that point.

I -  You've mentioned a lot of songs from that Demo so far, really all of them except for "Bridge" and "Other Plans."  Would you care to talk about those two, for the sake of completeness?  For your fans, of course.

PM - {laughs hard at this}.  Sure, not a problem.  "Other Plans" in a way is my favorite.  I feel [that] it's some of the best metaphorical writing I have done. I wrote it [while] listening to "Untouchable Face," and it's funny because "Untouchable Face" it's an Ani DiFranco song and it's so somber.  And you know, "fuck you and your untouchable face." But, um, "Other Plans" didn't turn out like that at all.  That was the last song I wrote before my Senior Project Demo that made it onto the demo and also really the last song I wrote before it [at all].  It has a very light mood to it, but it carries a lot of emotional weight at the same time. well for me.

PM - Last but not least, "Bridge."  I recently learned that in orchestral music a bridge takes you from one theme to another and a lot of times and a lot of the time it institutes a key change or some sort of change in meter or something, because a bridge is just a free-for-all.  And I'm looking back and, um, the song was named very aptly.  "Bridge" was sort of a transition song; I was in a very transitory time with friends and with other things, and not only do all the words reflect that transition but when it breaks and it comes back with the second chord progression it very literally acts like a bridge, like I'm bridging from where I was to where I'm going and, um, I think it was aptly named.

I -  Okay, thanks for elaborating upon those two.  I guess my last question is, what do you see in the future.  You have already mentioned your demo and writing some new songs, but more generally.

PM - I think I am really outside of a period where I just write and write.  Right now I am in sort of a holding pattern over something, the new demo maybe.  Things are happening in my head; I am trying to really decide on things, on arrangements for certain songs and things like that.  One thing that is certainly coming to the forefront is arrangements past just me with my guitar.  In the past, it was just me and maybe Gina to think about in a song.  Now... now I have a lot of options open to me.  There are a few songs that I almost can hear being played with a band.  "World In My Hand" really would be a different creature, but I can see it.  I think "Under My Skin" really wants to head in that direction, it is very mid tempo and simple on its own but it has that potential.  But, for me to head in that direction i need to find people who are interested in playing with me, and i really need to become more consistent and really decide on what these songs sound like.  That'll be the end of changing things from performance to performance, because that is very hard to do with other people relying on you.  So, I think the future might hold some new adventures for me.  As always, we'll have to just see where I wind up.

I -  That's very interesting.  I'm sure we'll all be eagerly awaiting these new developments, and of course your demo.  Thank you for sitting down with me for this interview.

PM - Anytime.  I love to tell stories (:

          -fin