I promised him I would do it.
It's been over a decade of embarrassing myself at open mics, making crummy recordings, upgrading equipment, making slightly less crummy recordings. Rinse, repeat. Fast forward to having a full time job, spouse, two children; I realized it needed to be done now or never.
It's imperfect. I KNOW, really. My voice has a tendency to go sharp. My guitar strumming and picking are sloppy and unsophisticated, rife with missed notes, twangs, uncontrolled volumes, and misplaced tempos. I don't know how to master tracks well. I've even included some truly cringe-worthy oboe passages. But the thing is, I've recorded all of this on my own equipment, working by trial and error, teaching myself as I go along (thank you to Kurt Singer for trying to help me, though!). It may not be evident to the listener, but I have grown so much as an artist and a human being throughout this process. I hope some of you can look beyond these unpolished tracks and instead appreciate the poetry and the emotion.
This album is dedicated to the memory of Derek Lyman, who is in every single one of these tracks in one way or another.
