You can buy Give/Sell at various digital locations starting today.. such as iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, eMusic. Of course you can also still get it for free at thegraze.net.

The album release show is March 5 at Cafe Venus/Mars Bar, in Seattle… with Mississippi Painful and Seth Howard.

I’ve been having some ideas on what to do with Give/Sell, and one of them is to give it to people who sign or have ever signed my mailing list. That idea led to having to decide what to do with my mailing list.. and that led to me trying out a service called FanBridge.

http://thegraze.net/maillist.html

When you sign up, you’ll get the link and login/password for downloading the album. If you are already on the mailing list you should have received a link already… If you haven’t, check your spam folder.

And finally, that picture at the top of this post is from a tour long ago.. it links back to my new flickr account, where I’ve been uploading a lot of pictures from the last 8 years or so that I never got around to uploading.

PS: I’m playing a show tonight at the Sunset Tavern in Ballard, Seattle, Washington, USA. It’s the Ball of Wax 18 (the theme: 1-minute singles!) release party, and it’s going to be awesome. My set will appear within a conglomerated pseudo/superband involving Open Choir Fire, Seth Howard, and members of Rosyvelt, all playing each other’s songs for 20 minutes. This will be repeated with other bands and is not to be missed.

8pm, $7 gets you a copy of the CD. http://www.ballofwax.org

1. Apartment
2. Bet
3. Bastards
4. Canyonland
5. Cheap Wine
6. Six Years
7. Picky
8. Those People
9. Tiger Nightmare
10. Price
11. Second Sight

If I sent you mp3s please consider reordering them as per the above and dropping “Sheep.” And then let’s never speak of this again.

I made this album by myself again, with a tiny cameo from Sam Jansons at the end of “Bet.” If I’ve given (or sold) you the demos I compiled in 06 and 07, most of these recordings will be familiar to you. But that’s why they’re called demos.. I changed lyrics, added instruments and harmonies, rerecorded things, edited, mixed, and did tons of remixing. It was a lot of work and I’ll admit, it’s not Kid A. It shouldn’t have taken four years, but I’ll address that in a minute. Here’s the track list:

1. Apartment
2. Sheep
3. Canyonland
4. Cheap Wine
5. Bet
6. Bastards
7. Six Years
8. Picky
9. Those People
10. Tiger Nightmare
11. Price
12. Second Sight

Sooo… what took so long? That’s a long story, and this is a blog, so I’m going to tell it.

Firstly, I had technical difficulties. I record digitally and had a problem with something called “loopback latency” that messed me up for at least 2 years, made recording into a miserable experience, and screwed with my head. Eventually I got that sorted out. Then had to learn a lot about EQ and mixing, and that took forever. I also went down some paths that didn’t pan out, like external summing, and trying to build a plate reverb, and stuff like that. Fun things to do at the time, but not quick.

Secondly, I had some rules, such as “no autotune,” “nobody can play or record but me,” and “no drum editing.” These constraints were a personal challenge, partly since the bands I try to emulate recorded analog, and I don’t, I felt this was the least I could do to keep from “cheating,” as it were. But this meant I had to do tons of takes (my poor neighbors) until I had it right. And even then I had to break the drum editing rule. I edited. And comped vocals like crazy. Takes-recorded-years-apart crazy. Of course now I realize that wasting years is worse than breaking any of these rules, so I’ll probably abandon the solo thing and also cheat like hell next time.

Thirdly, I had distractions. I’ve played in four other bands since I released my first album. Not that I regret being in or having been in any of them, but they took/take time.

And finally, life stuff. The first time I thought the album was done was March 2008. I’d set a mastering date to give myself a deadline.. which was good in one sense as I got a lot done, but it was bad in that I wasted money having something mastered that wasn’t right. Then I got laid off, then married, then I got a new job, and a second job. I’ve been busy.

But regardless, it’s done, and I’m glad. I learned a lot making it, hopefully enough that I won’t have to spend as long making the next one. Oh and, I like this record. It sounds good and is fun to listen to, if I say so myself.

PS, I’ll put songs on myspace soon.

Speaking of music, today I listened to all the mp3s I could find on Matt Sheehy’s website, and I’m liking them a lot. A lot. I think his new songs are as good if not better than his old ones, and his old ones are very good. I can’t wait to hear the LP when it’s finished.

Oh yeah, there’s more. I’ve heard the Rodeo record we recorded in July and it’s even better than expected. It’s very short, only 24 minutes, but they’re a very entertaining 24 minutes. I can’t get enough of it. And finally, I submitted a demo of a newish song of mine called “Sheep” for Ball of Wax 6, so that should be appearing in a couple of months.

1. Conditions
2. Price
3. Bastards
4. Cheap Wine
5. Bet (the Jesus song)
6. Rust
7. Here Comes the Revolution (Andrea Maxand)

Here’s what it looks like:

I’ve only made 50 of these, burned on CDR, individually stamped and numbered. They’ll be available at shows for $4, or for free if I like ya!

In other news, in two weeks I’m going on a short Northwest tour. Check out the schedule, and come see me if you’ll be in Portland, OR, Kennewick, WA, Pullman, WA, Spokane, WA, or Missoula, MT.

And that’s about it.