Happy February. Man time flies. It’s been over a year since I started working on the new CD. I started trying to get songs together last January. It’s been crazy. I was looking through my little notebook where I keep lyric ideas and song ideas the other day. I found about 5 pages titled “final list new CD”. One was as recent as September. Only 3 of the songs from any of those lists are still in the running for the final cut. There have been times that I wanted to just scrap everything. Others when I just wanted to stop and put out what was getting worked on. Times when I KNEW I was truly insane and just filtering out songs for no reason.
So to allay my fears, I went back to the rough mixes of a lot of those discarded songs and made a little i-pod mix. They’re good songs. Some would probably fit right in with what’s happening with the other songs. There’s nothing wrong with them. Some are unfinished to an extent that they just aren’t going anywhere right now. Some are similar to what I’m doing, but another song was a little better in one way or another and since the similarity was there, one got dropped. A few just don’t fit the mood of the songs that have floated up to the top. It’s interesting to do this for me because while I never ‘forget’ what I’ve been doing, once I get going in a certain direction, it’s easy to not be on top of what I’ve done. Hearing all the discarded songs showed me how I’ve gotten to where I am though. There has definitely been a movement towards the over all sound of the album. Many of those songs also seem to be dry runs at what I really wanted. They are like rough drafts. Leading me to one song or another that I actually have chosen to be on the disc.
There is really only one song that I’m upset that I’m leaving off. It’s called “Coming Home”. I really love it. It’s been in the mix until about 3 weeks ago. What happened is that every time I would listen back to the songs, I would get to this one and the mood would shift, or the song after it or before it would seem out of place. Finally I realized it was this song. Something about it doesn’t fit in with the rest. I couldn’t tell you exactly what that is. It just doesn’t. And it’s one of my favorite songs. Now I’m used to it not being grouped in, but when I was listening to all the strays, I was literally kicking myself–why am I leaving this off? it’s GREAT!
The nice thing is that I’ve decided I’m going to do another record this year as well. Probably in about 6-8 months because–well, why not? I’ve got the songs and they want to be out there. Plus, it’s been 3 years since my last album was released, which is the longest I’ve gone between new material so this will help close the gap of time.
As of now, I’m thinking the whole thing will be done and available by the beginning of April. Give or take a week or two. There will be some free downloads ahead of time for members of the webpage, and the whole album will be streaming in the weeks before it’s released. Currently there are two demos up on the members page for you to listen to. One is ‘Goodbye’ and the other is “Denver (spinning around)”. (Yes, for those of you who read here regularly, I FINISHED that one!!!) So check them out!!!
I will be releasing the first single to WEXT first, before the rest of the country gets the album. I’ll let you know what and when that will be.
more soon
peace
