It was the first time I'd rented a car. The first time I would be driving one in months, actually. I figured that not owning a car had been part of the problem with things, so I was looking forward to windows-down, music-blasting automotive mobility, and the boost of self-confidence that would surely come with it.
Unfortunately, the budget constraints of being a waiter in the off-season forced the fantasy down a few notches from the "Platinum Collection" to "Poor Bastard" models, although I was assured that in any case, my rental would have power windows and a CD player, so I was pacified. When I arrived to retrieve it, however, the car I was expecting had somehow transformed into a full-sized silver pickup with giant, road-chewing tires, a cab that could sleep four and an engine more suited for towing redwood stumps or construction debris than what I would be dragging along. Climbing up into the driver's seat, I felt it: I was ready to conquer some serious shit in this beast.
As unremarkable as the destination was, West Haven, CT was certainly farther than I'd ventured from home in a while, and the circumstances were more exciting than the daily static of the prior few months. With twelve songs ready to be recorded, an evil-genius friend ready to test out his new studio, and a cranky, sad-sack singer-songwriter ready to move on with his life, the elements seemed aligned perfectly for a marathon recording session. And that's what I was off to do.
Joe and I spent fourteen hours a day for four days locked in his basement studio, surfacing only to sustain ourselves with daily vats of Dunkin' Donuts coffee, Chinese food and Seagram's gin. We got into a pattern: Wake up, caffeinate, record, smoke cigarettes, eat, record, drink, mix, embellish, sleep, repeat. And it worked, so we stuck with it from Friday through Monday, spending the days recording "scratch" tracks, trying out ideas, doing and re-doing vocal and guitar parts, then spending the nights drinking, arranging, adding and subtracting this and that until finally on Monday afternoon, I drove back to NJ with ten rough mixes and a big fucking smile on my face.
And that's about it. Joe mixed it a few times (I'm a picky bastard), I passed some early mixes around to friends and family, and now, two years later, I'm finally ready to share it with all of you (or at least those of you patient enough to get this far). Yeah, things are a little different now---for starters, I have real brass and string-playing pals to perform the parts rendered in these versions by sampled instruments---but aside from a smoke-free vocal track, there's not much I would change about these versions if I had the opportunity. Each song feels like a complete thought unto itself, and that's enough for me.
I've stopped looking at it as a "demo," but more as a collection of songs I wrote between 2000 and 2005 that was recorded for posterity in one mad weekend's worth of work. Some got captured as works-in-progress and stayed that way, and some continue to grow and change to this day. However, there comes a time when you have to accept that "when the time is right" may never come around, and you just have to release your creations to the world. Enjoy, world.
I'll be posting new things I'm writing as they achieve some measure of completion, and as always, show dates and such are all listed here, but really, this page is just for songs. I hope they speak for themselves.
