Back in November I set the personal goal of completing some sort of solo recording project by May. My original intent was to just to record acoustic guitar and vocals for five songs. Well, as I've mentioned before, it's all gotten a little more ambitious than that. It's May now and the acoustic recording isn't done. I'd be disappointed in myself, except I'm really pleased with the progress I've made on the full instrumental versions.

Part of the put of doing personal recording projects is to exercise the demons, but another part is an excuse to learn and expand your skill set. I had purchase Apple Studio Logic last spring, but it wasn't until November that I really began to play with it. Good music software is much like getting a new acoustic guitar. Sometimes the juices flow, and another time you spend hours just exploring one tiny aspect of a composition. It inspires as well as bogs down the process. 

I'm still on track for having some version of the album, working titled July, done in June. The plan to do a entire DVD version with alternative acoustic/full instrumental tracks is up in the air, but I'm confident there will still be some multimedia goodness. Plans are moving forward to do an 80s like video for the song One More Disaster (even though I'm still playing with the lyrics... I'll get them by the time we do the edit, promise.)

Another reason the project is evolving is I'm really liking the idea of a live performance of the material. Over the next week or so I'll be concentrating on gathering the musicians to do so. I have some solid leads. Once I have tentative commitments I'll post the names here. My intention with a live group would be to do a limited number of well-staged performances.

You know, the type of shows musicians are alway talking about doing, more concert than gig, with guest musicians, and some production values. We did something like this (sort of, without guest musicians or too much production value for that matter) with Corduroy Vinyl last August at the Operahouse in Lead, SD. And yes, even though this is sort of a vanity project for me, I am interested in enterataining an audience