Well today’s the day. The album has been released. Before you start to listen to any of it go ahead and set aside an hour. It ain’t easy being an album person in a single teeny-bop world. I made the album to be enjoyed as a whole and it does have a theme and a cohesive story. If anyone is curious about any of the songs meanings or inspirations I would be ecstatic to explain. Have a listen:
Now spread the joyous news. There should be a physical CD for sale within the next week that has the rest of my original artwork.
I just have to take a minute to clarify what an accomplishment this is for me and why, although I know it’s not perfect, I am very proud of this. I taught myself to play the guitar when I was 17 and have been writing songs since a couple of weeks after I got my first crappy guitar that made my fingers bleed on a regular basis. The first song I ever wrote, “Orchard”, is actually on this album. The second full song I wrote is “Breakthrough” and it is also in this collection. I played with a few incarnations of pretty much the same band until that fizzled out and went away in 2005. After that I have just kept playing on my own and writing new stuff on a fairly regular basis. I got tired of just playing that way and it felt like I was kinda just wasting time. I feel that music, by it’s nature, is meant for other people to hear it and enjoy it. I was not able to spread any of the music to others and it bugged me. I had done some recording before with the band and I had mixed it, but to be honest it was a horrible mixing job and it never felt great (I will remaster those in the future). I decided to teach myself how to actually record decently and how to play the drums so I could do all the parts I would need. Then I set a deadline for myself (today) and went for it. I learned quite a bit in the process and had some good fun doing it even though it wasn’t just a super easy cakewalk. Then I researched distributors and physical CD options until I found who I liked. Then I made all the artwork for the physical CD. All this learning and work may just be so I can have the only copy of my own CD that is out in the world and that would bother me, but I will live. It doesn’t keep me up at night to think of what people think of me at all, but I do care a little what they think about what I create. I hope just a few people will enjoy what I have put my time into. And maybe somebody out there might be as excited as I am about the next one I am going to make.