Saturday
Jul232011
• Album update: it wasn’t supposed to be this way.
Saturday, July 23, 2011 at 7:17PM 
I’m frustrated and mad at myself for being frustrated. What’s bugging me? Well, the date is July 24, 2011, and my album still is not out. It’s done but not Done, even though I wrote not too long ago that it was finished as in Finished (there is one track that needs to be remixed ever so slightly and the album art work is not quite finalized, I thought it was, but I was wrong and why shouldn’t I have been, after all, I am no designer and yet I'm doing everything myself). I could throw out a date when I will be finally, truly, unambiguously finished, but what’s the point? The simple truth is I have no idea. And I’m mad at myself for being bothered by all this. Why can’t I just roll with the punches a bit better? What does it matter that my album is so late? I’m not under contract to make a deadline. There’s no global tour in danger of cancellation. It’s a vanity project, really, for chrissakes. But still...
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I was going to bang this thing out in a few months. Then I remember thinking it would be a year. But by 2008, I was going to release the album and there was going to be a proper launch party. My friend Brian Shown and I used to have a few too many glasses of wine on taco nights (a mostly weekly affair) and talk about putting together an art/rock show, but with no art rock. The first two hours were going to be an art show of Brian’s paintings, a collection called Nation Invaders about the US invasion of Iraq, then we were going to push the paintings to the side and clear the floor for an unobstructed view of the stage where Cerebellum Blues was going to rock for a few hours. We were thinking of holding the party at 111 Minna and tickets were going to be free and drinks were going to be free (up to two) and it was going to be a good time. I was going to ride my ripple of publicity around my having been featured on Lemonade (not sure I made it into the final movie) and an article I’d written about music and traumatic brain injury and published in Neurology Now (read it here) and on brainline.org (read it here and hear an early version of Water Under the Bridge).
But now my miniscule publicity is prehistoric news and the money for such profligate parties is gone. Hell, I barely have enough to press some CDs, which is probably a waste of money, because who buys CDs anymore? Still, I’ve come this far, right? Might as well finish. Someday. Sigh, I’m going to bed.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I was going to bang this thing out in a few months. Then I remember thinking it would be a year. But by 2008, I was going to release the album and there was going to be a proper launch party. My friend Brian Shown and I used to have a few too many glasses of wine on taco nights (a mostly weekly affair) and talk about putting together an art/rock show, but with no art rock. The first two hours were going to be an art show of Brian’s paintings, a collection called Nation Invaders about the US invasion of Iraq, then we were going to push the paintings to the side and clear the floor for an unobstructed view of the stage where Cerebellum Blues was going to rock for a few hours. We were thinking of holding the party at 111 Minna and tickets were going to be free and drinks were going to be free (up to two) and it was going to be a good time. I was going to ride my ripple of publicity around my having been featured on Lemonade (not sure I made it into the final movie) and an article I’d written about music and traumatic brain injury and published in Neurology Now (read it here) and on brainline.org (read it here and hear an early version of Water Under the Bridge).
But now my miniscule publicity is prehistoric news and the money for such profligate parties is gone. Hell, I barely have enough to press some CDs, which is probably a waste of money, because who buys CDs anymore? Still, I’ve come this far, right? Might as well finish. Someday. Sigh, I’m going to bed.
Reader Comments (4)
It's very frustrating, I know.
The one silver lining is, the later it comes out, the later it will be "new."
You can and should call it "Done" now.
Susan, good point!
Bret, thanks, but I have just a few more adjustments! Actually, as of this Friday, it will be Done.
Hang in there Jeff. Nothing's ever really "done". Hell, I've got guitars sitting all over the country that weren't done but the customers came and took them away anyhow. Then I realized that my part was done and they were the ones who would complete the work by making the instruments their own.
I can't wait to listen to you.