Artist’s Statement about the How, What, & Why of the Making of “Present Day” “Events.” If I had to describe my new collection “Present Day” in one word, it would be “Events.” I’ll explain, but you’ll need a bit of the back story to fully understand. About one third of the 12 songs on this album overlapped with my previous 2011 collection of instrumentals, “Undertones.” During that time, I had 4 vocal tracks which I originally intended to record along with the 15 instrumentals. Before I knew it, the count grew to 9, and I thought maybe I’d release a double album (remember those) with one disc being vocal tracks and the other instrumental. Pretty cool idea, but eventually it dawned on me that it was just going to prolong getting these instrumental tracks out in to the world of television. Also, well, let’s just say, life in its ever-imposing way, was getting in the way of my process. So, I bailed on that, took the pressure off, and decided to take a nice, much needed break from recording. I took a year plus, which was the first time in about 10 years that I had decided to cool my engines. And, I had discovered while developing these new vocal tracks that I was potentially onto something really special, and this was perhaps a great opportunity to delve in to some areas of songwriting, in both lyrical and musical content, that I hadn’t before. During that year plus of very well-spent down time, which inevitably, it really wasn’t, I picked up my guitar or notepad only when I absolutely felt like it. When I reached the 3 month mark, I followed my instincts and found that I was on to a new conception of material. So, in a very fatherly way, I began to let these new songs gestate, and they did so for nine months. They were gestating in that I was now very actively working on the songs; making lots of decisions of where I wanted to take them in structure, lyrical content, changing titles, and tearing apart then putting the arrangements back together. But again, I pursued them only when I absolutely felt like it and had the feeling of an idea. After nine months passed, they were ready to be born, so I began 6 months of rigorous, diligent pre-production. Oh, and the song tally was now up to 10. By May of 2012, I was ready with a well-rested full head of steam to hit the studio and start tracking them. This was the first time I had ever taken on an entire album of new songs that I would be recording simultaneously (usually, I would do between 2 & 4, then write more and record those, etc.) In doing so, I boldly decided that many, if not all previous paradigms I had employed in the past needed to be trashed, and things would be done differently this time around. I devised a new set of recording ground rules for production. Well, that worked like a charm…not always smooth and silky and with some occasional creative tension, but a pretty damn cool workflow in tracking the instruments with my team, to say the least. At the end of July ’12, when I was just starting to think about wrapping my head around the vocals which I had planned to record in late September or October, I fell off my bicycle and got hurt. Where? From shoulder to shoulder, right across my chest. For most of August, it was very hard to breathe without pain, and quite a chore just to get out of bed without screaming. Well, there was no way I could start rehearsing vocals if I couldn’t breathe without it hurting. So, since it was hard to even pick my arms up past my shoulders, I decided to do what any songwriter who had to keep his arms down would do: carefully pick up my guitar and notepad, and write 2 more songs. And that’s exactly what I did. Low and behold, this is now a 12 song project, and it turned out that they were just what the collection needed. There go those paradigms getting trashed again. After I fleshed out the new tunes for a couple of months, and my breathing returned and sore muscles were all healed up, I re-assembled my team of musicians, and we tracked the 2 new ones. In mid-November, vocal time began. I recorded lead vocals for 2 of the 12 tracks, and we were off. During this time, I avoided so much as even picking up my guitar in fear that I might write another song that I just had to record now, and my head would get overwhelmed and explode. I took a nice break to rehearse vocals over the holidays, but also started doing Bikram yoga which within the first 1 ½ months sparked a change in me to begin. The breathing technique of this yoga, though different from a singer’s diaphragmatic breathing, noticeably expanded my chest voice and upper range. By mid-January ’13 when we recorded 9 of the 10 remaining lead vocals and half of the background harmonies, I felt like a new singer. I went back in early April for the remaining harmonies and lead vocals on one last tune because I had changed the song title for the 3rd time and needed a little time to re-write it (this happened with another song from this collection also.) We mixed in May and June, mastered in July, tweaked in August, I approved it in September, and there it was, 12 songs. Done! Though I cover a lot of ground musically and in lyrical content (from gloom to glory,) there is a thematic thread that runs thru all the songs and strings the entire collection together. Within these recordings are “Events” in the vocals, instrumentation, and arrangements. And also, as my statement here suggests, there were events outside of the recording studio as well. So, here it is, “Present Day,” my 5th CD release for Write On It Music. And now, the fun begins.