Go Rod...Get A Record Made...Now For Real Real...Not For Play Play...

So I've watched way too much "Drawn Together" and Foxxy Love's character always cracks me up.

Anyway, though I made this official on MySpace just recently, faithful blog readers (all four of you) here have known for weeks (technically years) that my new project is under way. It's in the heat of the writing stages right now and the outlook is good. I'm 7 of 10 songs into writing the project and the final 3 look like they are well underway. I'm not worried about writing more songs to debate over including because this specific project is telling an overall story arch and I know exactly what I want to say. After the 10 are written they will go through much development and deliberation to make sure that, in my eyes at least, the stars have aligned. Who knows how long that will take, but at least there's been more progress in the last 2 weeks than there have been in the last 2 years. After that, recording, recording, recording...and then more recording...and then there's the actual mastering and release project...it'll be a long road, but at least now I'm on it.

Though I am keeping all the details about this under wraps until the unveiling, I will say this: none of the songs from "Live From LaDue Auditorium" will be present. I love those songs and will perform them until the day I die and perhaps, after this current project, revist them in the studio so they aren't left in the bootleg realm. For now, they don't fit where I am now and they don't work well into this story. I think many indies get in a rut of constantly relying on and revisiting their previous material that they never grow and I definately want to grow. Maybe few will find the new material better than the previous, but honestly, there's only so long in your life you can moan about the same ex-girlfriend and what it felt like the day it all fell apart. Some of the new material will probably not seem far from that until you dig into the overall story, but it's not about the same people and I definately don't want to risk anyone mistaking it for anything but a new life far past where I was at "Live From LaDue".

Aside from spending countless hours composing and writing, I've been preparing to make a trip out to Scotland in July...there's a wedding and a small group of friends are going out there for a week to be part of it. What still never ceases to amaze is how certain organizations can tag on various fees, associate it with some seemingly related words and add the word "fee" or "tax" at the end and skim another few hundred dollars off of an already expensive airfare! Tell me, what exactly does a "US Passenger Facility Tax" do for me? And why the heck is there a "Fuel Surcharge"? Isn't that what the ticket is supposed to be for? At least in part?

Oh well, they can tax me all they want...someday when they're in hell, that "Fuel Surcharge" will do them well...

G'day,
-Rod