here it is..

UPDATE 7/20/2011: Digital and a limited run of physical copies are now available.

There ya are.. stream it here. Available for download at http://what.cd/torrents.php?id=71987489.  Physical copies are scheduled for late-June/early-July.  Thanks everybody!

mmm, yeah, sooo..

Karl, where have you been?  Really nothing new in the excuses department here, but between Monetate and planning my move downtown, it’s surprisingly difficult to keep a recording schedule.. some thought, huh?  Now, this doesn’t mean I’ve been idling here in Conshohocken.  I’m somewhere at the halfway point of recording and mixing all the tunes.  That said, I now have seven complete songs.. verses, bridges, and all.. finally.

Driving home today, I realized that I’ll be moving in 2.5 weeks, and still have a lot of work to do for this record.  This lit a bit of a fire under me to record and mix Take Me Down The Shore over the last 3 hours.. I’m pretty proud of this one.  It’s the first time I’ve ever done any percussion, and the tune really called for it, so that’s that.

let me take it to the max

I’ve been through a few sessions now, and am glad to finally be making some progress!  It’s truly a menagerie of fun.  Though my days at Monetate are only getting busier, I’m trying not to lose momentum.  I’ll get some clips up sometime next week.

let’s begin

Tomorrow’s my first day recording.  I’m not exactly sure what to expect, but my plan is to start with the guitar tracks for Daphne’s Eyes.  I’ll letcha know how it goes!

a mid-january update

Back in November, I found I was still writing material for a number of reasons.. I started a new job in late August, new people were finding their way in and out of my life, and I just felt I had reasons to let the process simmer a bit longer.  So here we are, in 2011, and I haven’t put down anything but rough tracks.  That’s alright though.. what’s important is the theme is there, and the purpose of this record has become more clear to me.  I’m ready to put this thing together so I can finally lock it away.

I’ll say right off the bat, that all the songs aren’t finished.  I have seven tunes I’d like to use for this record.. more than an EP, but not quite a full length album either (whetever.. there aren’t any rules).  Four are completed.. bing bang boom.  The other three are in various states.. one needs a couple verses and a bridge.. another needs an ending.. the third just needs a verse and an outro.  A couple nights of inspiration, and I should be all set.

Let’s talk about progress!  There’s been some headway on non-musical fronts.  I’ve made contact with a few photographers and designers regarding my album art.  It’s the only part of the project I’m planning to outsource.. I really can’t take creative portraits worth a damn, and my design skills are limited to futzing around with levels and curves in photoshop, so I’ll be deferring this to someone else.  I’d like to shoot in early March, so it’s a bit warmer out.. there are some outdoor locations in Philadelphia I have in mind.  I’m amused by the idea of having someone follow me around Philly for an afternoon with a camera.  This will surely be fun.

Maybe I should just throw a release date out there.. it might actually light a fire under my ass to get to work.  Mmm, yes.  I’ll go take a look at my calendar, and see what I can come up with.  Be right back..

wild green life

I’ve put a lot of thought into the title for this project.  Up until now I’ve just had this collection of songs that are somewhat related to one another, but are just sort of sitting out there.. think of little sibling kittens who are all wandering around different parts of the city, all lonely and stuff — they know they belong someplace, but have no idea where that is (would this be a good children’s book?).  After a combination of late summer walks and people asking me what this album was all about, I came up with ‘Wild Green Life’.  I think it’s the best three word description I can come up with for these songs.  Life after school has been full of some crazy experiences I could’ve never imagined, and I’ve tried to take them on in a very freshmen sort of way.  As I find myself more and more comfortable with the way I do life, I don’t want to forget what it was like when I knew little of what I was in for.

scope creep

It turns out sometimes life comes at you, and you’re hit with fresh new ideas.  Well, that happened, and here I am three months after I wanted to start recording.  The scope of this record has creeped a little bit, and so what I was originally planning to be five-ish tracks has turned into something closer to ten.  I think that’s an exciting thing, since now I could call this a full length album — Blue Album is only ten tracks, and somewhere in 40ish minutes range, right?  The obvious consequence here, is it’ll take me longer to finish.  If I had a full week, I could get all the tracking done, and then do mixing as I found time.

laying some groundwork

My writing has been in full swing since March or so, and I’ve come up with some great ideas, as well as some more mediocre ones. I’m at a point where most of my material is complete when it comes to each song in its purest form — melody, progression, and lyrics are all there, but that’s it. From this point, I haven’t been so sure how to proceed. What I need to do now though, is just get recording — to do something (even if it’s the wrong something), rather than nothing. My hope is that percussion/fills/etc will find their way in as I work through the process.

I’m going to document my process here with the hope that it’s helpful to someone. My goal is to make this the first release in a long line of projects I hope to be a part of.