I didn't grow up thinking I'd become a producer.
I just wanted to be in a band.
At fifteen, a friend’s uncle told me everybody could sing. I thought he was crazy, but I still borrowed a vocal training cassette from the public library and spent the next few months proving him right… slowly.
I’ve been writing songs, playing shows, and making records for over 25 years.
This is that side of the story.
Bob & The Sagets
Guitar • Vocals • Songwriter • 2000–2005
This is where everything started.
A bunch of teenagers in Scranton writing punk, ska, and reggae songs and somehow selling out local shows before we had any business doing it.
Tom May, Joe Godino, and Eric Keen would later form The Menzingers. Around that same time, Tom started calling me “Curtis Irie.”
The nickname stuck.
Curtis Irie
Guitar • Vocals • 2007–2010
I took the name with me to Philadelphia. Morgan Smith and I started playing as a duo.
We released Skin Deep Politics and Here’s Hoping Somebody Can Find a Way Outta Here. I finished mixing the second record the night before we packed everything into a car and drove 3,000 miles to Portland.
Sometimes one chapter ends overnight, and another begins the next morning.
Irie Idea
Guitar • Vocals • Harmonica • Songwriter • 2010–2019
Irie Idea started as a duo with Morgan Smith in Philadelphia. When we moved to Portland, Morgan looked at me and said, “We’re a band now. It can’t just be your name.”
He was right.
We wrote original reggae, rocksteady, and blues, toured around the Pacific Northwest, and eventually flew to Los Angeles to record Blues Like Sandpaper, Rocksteady Like Dirt. We slept on the studio floor for ten days while we made it.
It was the first record I ever held on vinyl.
Bandulus
Bass • 2014–2025
When I was 14, I wanted to play bass. I didn’t own one. What I found was an acoustic guitar under my grandparents’ bed. They collected country instruments. Four months later I joined my first band on guitar and stayed on guitar for the next 15 years.
When Bandulus came along, I finally got to play the instrument I’d wanted from the start.
Over the next decade, we toured throughout the US and Europe, made records, and shared a lot of miles together. Some of the albums I produced for Bandulus live on the Production page. This page is about the music we made as a band.
Press Play!
The Steady 45's
Backing Legendary Jamaican Artists Guitar • Harmonica
I joined The Steady 45’s for a show backing The Clarendonians in Los Angeles. They’re one of my favorite Jamaican groups, so standing behind them playing guitar and harmonica was one of those moments where you stop for a second and think, “How did I end up here?”
Some gigs stay with you forever.
Pics from some of those nights
Sam Wegman & The Upper Lower Class
Bass
One of many great projects to come out of Portland’s music scene.
I played bass on the band’s EP and had the chance to work with another songwriter I really admire.
Picture with Sam Wegman
What I Play
Bass is the instrument I reach for first these days.
I started on guitar when I was fourteen, switched to bass around 2014, and never really looked back. I still play guitar, harmonica, and sing whenever the song calls for it.
One of the things I love most about bass is that it doesn’t always ask for attention.
When it’s doing its job well, you don’t notice it. You just feel it.