Sticky on one side

Today my new single, "Tape," is released featuring a new video and b-sides.

I had originally planned to release this last year in August (then pushed back to October), on a limited edition cassette tape format, with a video directed by Shawn Sagen of www.thestrangerpage.com who directed the "Alien Nation" video. I had been on a roll at the beginning of 2011 having released my debut solo album and single in April, and the follow-up single/video, "Winnipeg Beach," in June. Then I ended up just being too busy with other things, concentrating on my next album, and thinking no one really cared if I put out another single anyway so I just kind of forgot about it, and then resigned to the fact there would be no more singles off "It's Never The Way You Imagine It."

It can be very difficult, and often discouraging, being an independent artist living in a commercial art mecca like Los Angeles. It's tough to get anyone to take any notice of you other than your good friends, and after awhile you start feeling guilty for making your friends pay so much attention to your art. But I remember back when I was in junior high how I would spend countless hours doodling my future album covers, creating fake track lists of titles for songs that weren't even written, and assigning them release dates and catalog numbers. Maybe I'm not a rich, successful, well-known musician but damn it if I can't at least continue to indulge in my own fantasies. What is life worth if one can't daydream?

So with that, and a little encouragement from a few "fans" I decided to go ahead and release "Tape" as the last single from the album. Partly inspired by Lana Del Rey, I decided to film and edit the video myself as quickly as possible, mostly using my iPhone. I challenged myself to put together the video and the single release in the course of 3 days. Dylan and I shot most of the video on Saturday, around Hollywood and West Hollywood. I spent most of the day Sunday editing the video. Gosh, I really need to work on my lip sync abilities. I have never been very good at it. It's definitely a skill and I need to practice it. It looks like my editing is not that great, but in reality I'm pretty sure it's just my poor lip syncing.



On Monday night, I finished editing the video and started converting it so I could upload it to YouTube. While that was going on, I then opened up the file for the song "K18" which I decided to use as a b-side. I thought it was probably the closest song I had that was ready to be released that had been shelved from the album. Unfortunately, once I opened it up, I realized all the vocals were scratch vocals that had major issues preventing them from being good enough for the final version. So I had to re-record all the vocals and quickly. I ended up just running through the song about 3 times and then editing the vocals and mixing it down (the music was already mixed so I didn't change anything there). Then I sent it to Brandon for mastering while I finished the artwork for the single. By midnight, everything was completed and uploaded for the whole world to enjoy - potentially.

I feel good about it. Even if barely anyone knows about it, I'm doing what I want to do and I'm creating my art and moving forward. I am such a better musician now than I ever have been in my life. I practice the piano almost every day, and I am able to sit down and play a show on my own without shaking or being nervous. I can play and sing at the same time! Something that seems so obvious but took me so long to be able to do. I'd love to have the spotlight of fame shine on me for my 15 minutes, but even if that never happens, I'm doing what I want to do anyway. And to those of you who are paying attention: Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart.



Oh one word about the b-sides. "Strange Season (Turbo Moonshine Mix)" was remixed by my brother, Brandon, and I think I like his version as much if not more than my album version. At one point I was considering using it on the album instead of my mix, but only decided to use mine because it was so minimal and ballad-like, and I didn't have anything else like that on the album. Dolly sings on the choruses which I love, and the breakdown sounds so Scritti Politti to me I just love it! "K18" is a song I wrote when I was working on "It's Never The Way You Imagine It" and for a long time, I was planning on using it as the last track on the album. It came together using some random string-of-conscious lyrics that I had written in one of my many notebooks. It refers to a lot of memories of growing up. K-18 is a state highway that runs east and west through northern Kansas and it was less than a mile from our farm. It ran through all the small towns that made up our region, the towns we would play against in basketball and football. I ended up deciding not to use the song because it was so similar to "Sleepytown" and out of the two I preferred that one.