I screwed up.
Earlier this year I embarked on my Song-A-Month record and release project. I managed to get 4 songs recorded and released before…
It crashed and burned.
I began the project at a time when I had few live bookings coming in, and it looked like I’d have the time to record. I underestimated how much time and work recording and releasing songs would take me. My desire to release the best versions I could, combined with my relative inexperience in doing so, meant things took a lot longer than I expected.
I also underestimated how much demand for live music was out there post-covid. And then gig offers started coming in. And I hit the road. Frankly, the reason I make music is so I can play it live for you, my fans. Everything else I do is to support this. So I took the gigs and I went out on the road. The Song-A-Month project languished, then foundered.
REFUNDS
For those of you who subscribed to my SaM release program I am offering refunds of the balance of your payment. Please email me, or reply to this email, and I’ll refund your money via e-transfer. PayPal has done the PayPal thing to me and completely f’d up my account.
Another part of the story (wow, this is turning into the longest series of excuses ever!) is I was hoping to receive grant money to record, and I didn’t get it. As I said, I’m pretty inexperienced at recording and engineering. I can do the work, and produce something OK; I am not able at this point to produce top-quality industry-standard recordings. Another obstacle is that I don’t really have a proper “studio” to work in. I record everything at home in my living room, my bathroom, my bedroom. I build isolation booths from moving blankets; I bury amps for recording under mountains of moving blankets so the neighbours don’t complain; I do a lot of direct-input recording where instruments get plugged directly into the computer interface, which then requires re-amping and other fun stuff to get the right sound. So that limits my ability to make top-flight recordings.
Now, it sure sounds like I’m complaining… I’m not really. I love doing the work, sometimes I love it a little too much, and that, combined with a bit of a perfectionist streak, means that recording and engineering can become a deep rabbit hole for me.
So… where do I go from here? I’m again applying for recording grants so I can get into a proper studio and make some proper recordings. I have a bunch of new songs ready, and more showing up all the time. I really need to produce some new, top-quality recordings. It’s going to happen.
I’m also going to new places! I have some exciting tour announcements coming up, so watch your in-box for updates on that. (BTW, I send a lot of emails when I’m booking shows, and I think that, or my cheap VPN, have put me on a spam-flag list. Please white-list jml@jmlmusic.com and be sure to check your spam/promo box.)
Thanks for being my fan.
John