Welcome  to Patrick Short’s Extended Family!

We’re proud to do annoyingly catchy, original pop music with many flavors, and we’re based mostly in Portland, Oregon, and partly in the mind of Patrick Short, the main writer and keyboard guy.

Tell.Short.Gray: Ithica Tell and Amy Gray have been writing lyrics and Patrick has been turning them into songs. Ithica’s lead vocals are astounding. We’re currently in the studio at mediaunion with this unnamed album project and there will be 12 songs on the finished product – sometime in the summer of 2022. Currently working on:

• Closer
• You Pull Me
• Estacada
• Chemistry
• Right Beside You
• The Day That One Thing Happened
• Afraid of July
• The Current
• The Best That I Can Do
• Cry
• Rise
• TooLoose

Plus a bonus track:

• Arthouse Armrest

Featuring Mike Short (lead guitars), Anthony Dyer (violin), Kevin Laurila (bass), Pete Boulé (flute), David Short (cello), Jeff Porter (guitar)

Quality of Death: music from and inspired by the play by Ruth Jenkins. Ruth has written an extraordinary play about end of life issues, and our team (Patrick, Kevin Laurila, David Short, Emily Lewis) responded with 11 pieces of interstitial and underscored music. Featuring a lot of cello (David), viola (Emily) and piano/treated piano/other sounds (Patrick), this is mostly wordless and quite soothing. Mostly, because there is a single, Do Not Resuscitate, with a main version featuring Susannah Mars on lead vocals, and two alternate mixes. The album and tracks are available on Spotify and Apple Music.

2021: Midwinter Jicker 20th Anniversary Edition. In the summer of 2021, Patrick Short and Kevin Laurila of mediaunion fired up Patrick’s old Yamaha MD8 recording deck – it hadn’t been turned on since 2004, but it worked, and the the individual tracks from 2001’s Midwinter Jicker album were downloaded into our computers. About 120 human-hours later, and using 2021 digital tools, we may have what the album should have sounded like! With the help of the good ears of Margie and Pete Boulé, we’ve crafted (re-crafted?) something very special – it’s re-mastering at a whole new level.

Also 2021: our “pandemic album”: The Year It Rained. Containing 12 songs written by Patrick between 1981 and 2004, it’s a look back recorded with fresh tools and produced by mediaunion. Sounds are mostly by Patrick, with an assist on bass and synths from Kevin Laurila. Guitar solos abound, from Mike Short and Steve Adams. There are strings from David Short and Emily Lewis and lots of folks on lead and backup vocals on the track My Skin Makes Me Proud, a remix-remaster from 2008’s Red Right Returning.

Our 2019 project: The Traffic Safety Album. The band name is The Pullovers – Amy Gray & Patrick Short. The Traffic Safety Album explores the perils of modern driving and relationships with lyrics by Amy Gray and music by Patrick Short.

Featuring lead vocals from Susannah Mars, Ithica Tell, Vince Radostitz, Donna Yarborough, Phil Ajjarapu, Margie Boule, Kevin Hendrickson and Amy Gray, with some musical magic by Michael Short, Olivia Duffy and Steve Adams. Mastering is by Kevin Laurila.

Check out the songs here.

Cloud Land Clan is a project with Skelly Harrington (formerly Gypsie Raleigh). The album Bold found its way into the world on December 9, 2017. Check out Bold here.

Kaybert is a project with Donna Kaye Yarborough, Mike Short and me. Front Left Corner of Heaven was released in 2016. Check out Kaybert here.

counterclockwise  (2012) – 10 songs based on family reminiscence writing done by my late mother and father. There’s a CD and mp3s are on this site. Click on “counterclockwise” on the menu to access the mp3s, lyrics, track listings, and other info that you’d normally find in the liner notes.

Our album in 2008 was called Red Right Returning. You can download all of the songs on this site, as well as songs from our 2001 album, Midwinter Jicker.

Many of the performers are professionals with ComedySportz-Portland (www.portlandcomedy.com).  This allows us to improvise songs when we want to – or to fit the occasion.  It also means that we’re very busy helping people laugh in NW Portland, and at private and public events around the Northwest.  The future is full of interesting possibilities.