At the beginning of his sophomore year, senior Michael Gordon wrote a song. It wasn’t for school; it was just on the side. He then went to his friend Eilif Mikkelsen’s house and recorded it. Mikkelsen later mixed and produced the song for him.

“Between that day and the end of sophomore year, I was writing more songs, and I had a plan to make an album where I play all the instruments – guitar, drums, bass and vocals – and put it on iTunes because I knew a friend of mine did that,” said Gordon.

He spent the next year of high school working on that plan. By the end of the fall during his junior year, Gordon had the guitar, vocal and bass tracks done; only the drums track was left.

This technique of recording the separate instruments of a song and then putting them together is called overdubbing, and it is a system used by many professional bands and orchestras.

After junior year, Gordon talked to The Education Cooperative (TEC), and the organization set Gordon up with an internship at a recording studio in Norton, Massachusetts called Saucer Sound. At Saucer Sound, Gordon learned how to record and operate a studio. Gordon was later offered the opportunity to work on a personal project at no cost.

“I just took the opportunity and brought everything over for the final production and finishing takes,” said Gordon.

On September 5th, 2011, Gordon’s album was complete and ready to be put on iTunes.

Gordon used a site called TuneCore to get his songs onto iTunes. After uploading his .wav files, editing the album information and cover art, as well as paying the iTunes fee, Gordon’s album was featured on iTunes.

Gordon’s album is called Time Warp and contains 12 songs. Gordon also put an unlisted guitar solo on his iTunes page, but the solo is not part of Time Warp.

Time Warp is played in a style of hard rock and metal that was very popular in the late ’80s called hair metal.

“It’s a really fun style; it’s pretty much a catchy version of hard rock with a lot of guitar solos. It’s a style that I really like to listen to,” said Gordon.

Gordon was inspired to name his album Time Warp after watching Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.

“I’m taking a style that really hasn’t been popular for 20 years and warping it to the present day, and that’s pretty much where the name comes from,” said Gordon.

“I could send this album in to a record company if I wanted to, but I kind of want to finish school and see if I make anything else between now and the end of college that I would send in as a demo,” said Gordon.

Gordon said that his motive for uploading the songs was to show his product to the public.

“I didn’t just do this for the money; I did it for writing the songs, putting them up and just getting the satisfaction of people enjoying the music,” said Gordon. “Something I believe is that if you’re only making music for the sake of money, then you don’t really care about your music.”

Gordon plans to study music in college and continue writing music. After college, he said that he would like to look into the possibility of a career in recording music.

The album Time Warp costs $9.99 on iTunes, and a portion of the profit will be donated to the Jim Griffin Family Trust.