It’s been a while between actual posts. This blog. It’s so old. So young. For a while there I thought Facebook would be the way to go to have it all in one place. Before that myspace. But like MySpace Facebook has been eaten up by profiteers and there’s no real connection between me and the folks who like the music I’m lucky enough to make.

Tonight in Los Angeles under a few clouds and hazy moon I’m thinking about what’s next. Last year I “released” The Faraway in great haste, on my birthday, April 14. I knew it wasn’t done but I needed to push forward and also I knew it wasn’t done and kinda didn’t care. I was in the midst of a couple year’s long crisis of confidence. I needed to just say “hey I did this.”

Almost a year later I am coming out of that cozy but lame place of self doubt and have a bunch of new material, or more importantly, the inspiration to act on it. I’ve decided to rework The Faraway and re-release it (one of the perks of being indie, I can do whatever I dang feel like) and also to add a new chapter to it with another album.

It’s good, I wasn’t done, and now I can finish it.

I’m aiming for another birthday release date. I think it’ll be scruffy and delirious as an album, like how it is lately.

So gotta get to it then.

It’s good to share with you again, dear reader. I think I can get behind this ol’ website once again.

So this thing happens when I finish an album, it’s kind of weird. My excitement turns to a vague fear.

I mean, not like, deep-seeded fear or rational fear, just a general fear. I think it comes from: bracing for reaction (critics, friends, family, etc., will they love it? hate it?), letting go something that was yours, and what next?

Some musicians have the what’s next generally worked out, I don’t, yet. You promote, you tour. OK, got that.

Letting go something that was yours… that’s different, and I think is really at the heart of this vague fear. I was talking with my girlfriend last night who is a painter and has better words for these things, and she said that she experiences the same thing, and that what it is is that she really enjoys the process. Making the art is not really about the finished product, it’s about the process, and I always, always, always forget that.

And then, yeah, the basic fear of rejection. Of course I have that. I’m certain all musicians have that. But, I think you maybe develop a “confidence” like Kanye West because it doesn’t really matter whether people like it or not and besides, they will! Also, that confidence definitely makes people more intrigued to hear it. Plus, in my case, I am waaaayyy beyond the question of “would I make music if people didn’t like it?”…

Of course I will. I will always make music, I love the process.