Dave Goolkasian (a.k.a. The Texas Governor) doesn't like his first name to appear in print. So, it will be absent from the rest of this article.

At the Barley Pub in Dover, he's wearing black pants, a light button-down shirt that glitters slightly in the dim light and black sunglasses perched on top of his head. He slouches over the table with his legs crossed, bouncing slightly. He is nervy but polite, boyishly awkward. He drinks a dark beer and has a cross fastened tightly on his neck.

In the constellation of brilliant musical talents on the Seacoast, he's one of the brighter stars. Goolkasian recently released The Experiment, his second album under the alias of The Texas Governor. Recorded in his home studio with the help of all his "demented friends," as he puts it, the album is a musing, bouncy journey through mid-adulthood, heartbreak and parenthood. It sounds like a cowboy who bought out the post-punk/new wave section of his local record store. It's unbelievably catchy while still feeling relevant. It carries an emotional and intellectual weight without ever feeling heavy. It's one of the best things I've heard in a while.

"They're all songs about having your heart destroyed," says Goolkasian of the album, which was recorded last year. "I predict that the next record will just be extremely happy."

In the meantime, Goolkasian will continue playing shows with his Totally Broken-Hearted Band. Assembled from "the most down-trodden souls" he could find, the group just started playing out in December. The rest of the band is Sparky (a.k.a. Michael Phillipps) on keyboards, guitarist Nick Phaneuf, bassist Matt Young and drummer Jim Rudolph.

"I'm reading a book by Steve Jobs of Apple Computers," says Goolkasian, in a typically roundabout way of answering a question about the chemistry of the band. "He said it's more important to get the right people on the bus as opposed to the most technically talented. Inevitably what happens is something goes wrong and you run into trouble. If the people you're with are jerks, then they're still jerks and everyone's confused. I love the guys in the band. They may not be the most talented musicians in the world, but when we're together, we're having fun. And I think that's more important."

None of this is new for Goolkasian. In the 1990s he fronted The Elevator Drops. Formed in Boston by Goolkasian and two friends, the group was signed to Time Bomb, a boutique label distributed by Arista. They toured around the country and recorded a second album for Time Bomb before Goolkasian left the band, sometime around 2000 (he professes to have a poor sense of time, and his dates tend to be muddled).

"Yeah, I just basically quit," he says of his reasons for leaving. "Things were going well. But I met a girl and got married and moved up to Dover. I don't like to talk about that at all."

For a combination of personal and legal reasons, Goolkasian doesn't like to discuss his marriage to writer Lisa Carver, best known for her three-year sex column on nerve.com.

Carver isn't the only woman whose presence can be felt on The Experiment; there's also Goolkasian's daughter Mercedes, born in 2002.

"She's the most important thing in my life," says Goolkasian. "That's the key. I will always put her before my musical career. I mean, that's it."

Goolkasian sings about his daughter on the song "Staring at the Movie Screen" ("It's really simple," he says of the song, "but at the end, when I sing, 'I miss my baby,' it's like singing to her over the telephone.") and on what may be The Experiment's best track, "Life Is Like a Big Revolving Door."

"When I went to the hospital to get my daughter after she was born, I was walking out, carrying her," he explains, "and we went through a revolving door. And when we were walking out, there was this old lady coming through the other side. And I thought, 'This is so weird.' Maybe she was never leaving. Maybe she was there to die, and here I was walking out with my newborn daughter. It made me sad. I thought about how maybe one day we'd switch roles, and I'd be dead, and my daughter would be leaving the hospital with her new baby. That's our most honest song."

Goolkasian's lyrics tend toward the timidly meditative, like an unimposing wiseman quietly preaching. "Think about the atmosphere. Think about the rain. Think about the train tracks. Think about the train," sings Goolkasian on "Think About . . .". His imperatives sound like friendly suggestions.

"It's really just a bunch of thoughts that ran through my mind when I was writing it," says Goolkasian of "Think About . . .", "It's meant to start your mind thinking about things in your own life. It's meant to draw a picture in your mind."

At the end of the song, Goolkasian fades out with the chant, "Love don't fade away," but it's unclear whether he means it as a statement or as a plea.

"It's both," he says, unable or unwilling to decide.

Goolkasian and The Experiment seem to have a few things figured out, but most things remain enigmatic and fuzzy. The album invites the listener to add his or her own thoughts to the open-ended experience. Goolkasian seems to feel disconnected from something he once had or thought he had. "I used to be part of that hustle and jive. I used to be so down with everything. I used to seem so sweet and innocent. I used to be part of the experiment," he sings on the album's title track.

"When I was in Texas," he says, explaining his alter ego, "everything was so big. I felt big. I felt like I could do anything. Then I came to Dover and tried to build a studio in my house."

Goolkasian describes his studio as a too-small, overly crowded assemblage of warped two-by-fours and moldy blankets. Hunched inside, he has recorded his past two albums, encompassed by the ultimately less-than-grand results of his brief encounter with a feeling of empowerment. The songs he records are bounced off the leaning walls of a fragile structure, prepped for collapse. On the records and at shows, when the soundscape swells, Goolkasian's voice remains small and distant; the artist trying not to intrude on his own creation.

Goolkasian's aims have shrunk since he came to Dover. He's driven to make music and to continue trying to be The Texas Governor and tap into that fleeting moment when all things seemed possible. But he's also just happy to sit on his front porch, thinking of the "hustle and jive" he's removed himself from.

"I want to be as great and as famous as possible," he says. "But I don't want to do anything about it. I'm the worst music businessperson. I'm the worst at promoting my own career. But I kind of gave up on being a 'musician.' What I'm doing now is just from the heart. And I hope people find it, and I hope they enjoy it."

You can get a Texas Governor CD and schedule of shows at www.thetexasgovernor.com. You can also check them out in concert Wednesday, April 13 at the Dover Brick House.