Getting Started: Part One

I write songs, I sing, I play the guitar. My amazing wife and I are raising three great kids while working demanding day jobs. So I thought I'd go out and make a record, just to keep things lively.

The "recording industry" is supposed to work a certain way: you make some demo recordings that you pay for, and you "shop them around," usually with the help of an agent or something. With some magic combination of luck and persistence and actual ability, you get "discovered," which means that a record label of some sort invests some amount of money in making a record with you as the artist. And then the real gamble begins: your future value as an artist may well depend on factors beyond your control. But if things go freakishly well and your record sells, you might be able to quit pumping gas or flipping burgers and become a musician.

I'm sure things still work that way for a lot of people in the industry. And for either the young with little to lose or for high-quality established artists, it's cool. But for an old guy like me, forget it. Still, there's this problem: I have all these songs I've written, and recently I've been writing more all the time. And forgive my immodesty if I say, I'm pretty sure they don't suck.

So I concluded this summer that I need to get serious about making a record of some sort or my head will explode. By the time our family went on vacation in early August, I was so fixated on making a record I was already making song lists and looking at sequencing and thinking about cover art and album names and record labels and all that stuff. I was chomping at the bit.

Well, here it is three months later and I'm still not in the studio. But it's not all down side: I have a great producer with great ideas; someone who really understands my songwriting and my approach to music; someone who cares more about making great records than about trying to "make it big." And I have Faith: it will come together. I have plans to get in the studio in early November if all the stars align.

So in part two I'll talk about how I got from full steam ahead to spinning my wheels, and what I plan to do about it to get moving again.