I finished mixing the Open Late EP yesterday: it was a grueling process that tested my strength of will, my body, my ears, and my wallet. "Open Late" is a special pre-release of the upcoming full length Joe Next Door debut CD "Open All Night." It is a concept album about a boy who falls in love with his waitress at a local 24 hour diner. She is already involved with the wrong type of guy, and he deals with trying to win her heart, and having to watch her with him, and all sorts of other delightful things!

I have poured out myself into this project over the last four years, and my hard work on the writing and the special captured moments of performing the material demands of me that I give it the full attention to detail and the dedication of heart that it asks of me now, that it still deserves in this process, like it deserved in the writing and performing. I once had a musician friend make the offhand comment "Oh, you think it's more important than it really is, because it's your first album" to me after hearing how hard I was working on the project. While it may be true that I will not not get any radio play off this EP or the album to follow it, you don't really have anything as an artist if you don't bare your soul and live up to the highest standard you can understand when you are alone with your instruments. I did that alone in the diner writing the songs. I did it when I traded a year's worth lessons to shore up the floor at Hardiman Place for my big piano, and build little isolation booth for recording.I did that while subsequently using those spaces to record the drums and piano at Hardiman Place. I did it alone in my studio in the Shober basement, for which construction I traded a another year's worth of piano lessons to the same contractor. I have been as true as I know how to the songs over the four year recording process that "Open All Night" has turned into. I formed friendships with other musicians without which this process could never be finished. My students chipped in to help me get my piano that I used to record the album. I traded another year's worth of lessons to a student who had a beautiful guitar boutique 12 string electric guitar that I now play at almost every show (now played as a 6 string with jazz flat wound strings, for those of interested) and that I used as a 12 string to record the last guitar part on the record, a soaring, fat 12 string solo to a rocking song called "Last Night's Panties on the Floor." Made the whole song some together! We are now approaching a year finishing the harmony vocals that my best friend Chad is recording between working one job while trying to get a fledgling small business off the ground, manage a 2 year old and a newborn, and watching his dad die of ALS. He has poured out into this project too. Jeff and I weren't even playing music together when I started this project and recorded all the parts, but he is pouring into the album now with some amazing design work. I didn't realize how significant it was to have expertise in that area. My job is the vision. But it takes a lot of skill, and years to develop it for someone to realize that vision on paper and make it look good. Things develop a life of their own, and skill knows how to move with the evolution of an idea as it brings itself to life. I can do that with sounds, and with songwriting, but nothing even close to that with visual art and design. I have seen how crucial that skill is while working with Jeff on the CD art. He is a gifted man, and I am in his debt for the work he has given to this project that isn't even his, expcept that he has made it his. And that is the key idea, people around me have begun making this project theirs. Jamie has been taking photos and supporting me, and setting up and updating websites. Former students have been playing music with me, and friends have been filling in for band mates when they can't make shows. People are making my art theirs, and I love them for it. It is humbling to see others work so hard on my thing. Jeff's hard work on the making the album art and meeting the deadline for submission even though he was leaving for vacation inspired me to keep working even though I was tired, as the 48 hour marathon session developed, since I wanted to live up to my own art, and to the level at which others have valued it and me.

Let me explain the deadline. We are playing a big show in 2 weeks with two bands of my former students. The show is Saturday, June 27th, and is an all ages show with doors open at 8pm at the Werehouse in downtown Winston-Salem, and is with The Old Folks (Jamie Dougherty) and the Baker Family Band (Stu Baker). The Bakers are moving to Austin TX a few days after the show, and this will be the first time we have gotten to play together, and maybe the last. The Bakers have just released a new CD, and the Old Folks are releasing their new disc at the Werehouse show . So it seemed like a cool idea to release our EP then too. The CD manufacturer Oasis told me that in order to get the product in hand by the show, we had to submit everything by noon on Monday the 15th. With upgraded shipping and a little flexibility by Oasis, they gave me until Wednesday at 2 pm. I made the deadline with only 90 minutes to spare, after having worked non-stop for 2 days with sleep, and 2 days without. But it's done, and it's the absolute best that I can do. It will not be professional unless it's done by professionals, but there is a lot of love and magic in these recordings. Cool things happened in the writing and recording of the parts. I hope everyone who reads this gets to spend some time listening to it. I'm hurting in my body, and I missed work so we are hurting for money, and I missed church, so I'm hurting for remembering who God is, and I ears are so fatigued it's hard to make sense of what I am hearing anymore. But, what else are you gonna do with your body? With your ears? With your money? With your time? We are all going to die ugly, and take nothing of our bodies/money/time with us, so it seems to me that the best thing to be done with all these resources is spend them on something you love, something that you believe in. People have not always believed in me like they do now. I've been told not to play the bass, not to sing, not to record, not to sing, not to play piano, not to sing, not to play the guitar, not to sing, not to play the drums, and even not to sing, and all these things by "friends" or other musicians along the way. I don't get that as much these days, thankfully, but only because I didn't stop when I was told to.

Back to the story at hand, Jamie (my wife) took a picture at our last Roche show that I just loved, and then Jeff (our drummer) did some beautiful design work on the CD jacket, and I got to work mixing. It swallowed me up for 4 days. I set up the living room as a mixing studio Friday night. Bright and early Saturday I got to work. Worked all day. Skipped church Sunday, and worked all day. Got up Monday, and worked till noon. Jeff got the artwork up today. I upgraded to 2nd day air shipping and found out I could have till Tuesday at noon, so I kept working all day Monday. It turned into Monday night, then it turned into Tuesday morning. Then Oasis gave me until Wednesday at 2pm as a final hard deadline. I kept on mixing all day Tuesday, trying to get things to sound right, and balanced and as good as they needed to. It's not like I was polishing turds, it's just that I am an amateur at these things, and it takes me a lot of time to get it done right, and I don't have any experience succeeding at it, so I don't have processes that work defined in my mind. I have to figure everything out as I go. It is also a huge process, with lots and lots of steps, and decisions and performances of faders to get things balanced right at every moment in the song. I thought I was done, and took it to band practice. I got some feedback about things that still could be better, so when I got home Tuesday night I set about fixing some things, and then it turned into Wednesday morning. But I finally did get it done. I had a hard time Tuesday night, because I couldn't think very well anymore. I had been up for 2 straight days, working on the same stuff, and my ears shut down. I would do something to a track, and then forget what I had done. I went around in circles a lot that night. I got my second wind Wednesday morning as I felt the deadline coming, and realized I was actually close to the end of the work. I had been frustrated and tired, and even a little depressed at my lack of progress that night. I guess you can't expect much more from a mind that exhausted, and certainly not logic or well formed emotional awareness. But the realization of being close to the end got my blood pumping again. I discovered I was actually finished with 3 of the 5 songs, and I just needed to get the last 2 sounding right, and they were close. I buckled down with renewed energy and got it finished. Then I had to upload before the deadline, which was a little stressfull since it ended up taking almopst 2 hours for the files to upload. But all is well, and then I paid a bunch of money, and here we are, expecting to see it at my doorstep on Friday the 26th, all pretty from the factory, and just in time for the big show. I'll have 300 of them, and each one will also be a coupon towards the full "Open All Night." Fans who support this EP will get $3 off the cost of "Open All Night" when it comes out.

I guess this is a pretty important step in the long blossoming process of "Open All Night." Perhaps "Open All Night" will come out by early next year, and will represent 5 years of my life. A long time coming for sure, but made up of my art, my skills that I acquired over those years in the pursuit of that art, and the priceless input of real friends, also called love.

Make it yours.
Zoo

It's a hot one. Like 14 inches from the burning sun. No, more like 13.5 inches. Yeah, that's more like it. Here are the road rules: go, show, flow, know, grow. Do it.

Well that was sweet like candy oceans of Marvin! We played stayed made & now it's time to fade dot dot dot
Chai time is high time to flee towards free and make a whistly weeee. Music is a discourse between how I am and how I wish to be, but when I'm playing music I don't wish for anything. There's no need. Gotta go yo no more time for the succulent JND flow.

It's nearly road hitting time - party on the rubber wheels of progress isn't a dirty word to your mother me like you mean it seen bean it green it keen to leave it behind I am and get there already let's go! cya...

It's about that time again, apple time. Nice juicy apples falling on your head like gravity but bouncing like the kangaroos we all know they really are. Little joeys hidden among the warm pouches of tea leaves, all safe and cozy, all spiced and ready, all laced and teddy. Nobody's gonna gripe about the apples today. Yum!