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For that sake of my sanity I had to take a step back from the new album for a while.

Not that I don't like what we did, but there were simply a lot of things that did not go exactly how I had planned and as a result I felt like I found myself wandering around aimlessly for a while, both as an artist and as someone who needs to finish producing a record.

I have had this fear since I started writing songs of waking up one day and not being able to do it anymore. One reason I felt like I needed to make the new record when I did was because after I recorded As Long as This Thing's Flyin' I started writing again almost as soon as the record was finished being recorded. I had sort of hoped that would happen again with the new album but it didn't.

So here I have been dragging my feet, not finishing shit, and also not writing. Until about a month ago. I went a played a show with Tumbledown. I hadn't played in a while and felt really rusty. Mike and I had lunch a few days later and I told him that I hadn't written a single song since May. We talked about it a little, he asked if I had tried or if I just hadn't had time etc... I had tried, I just hadn't been able to finish anything. Everything I tried to write was shit. Mike asked if I had thought about other styles of music. 

I like country, folk etc. it is what I enjoy playing but he had a point and it was almost as if that was what it took. Looking the problem in the face. Confronting it. Then altering the approach. After that conversation I tried a few days later to write what started out to be a punk song. It turned into a country song in the end, but that isn't the point; I wrote a new song. There are very few days that I am happier than when I am able to jumble some words and a melody into some verses and a chorus. My wife comes home from work and I, similarly to a child coming home from school, can say "look at what I did today!" 

What was interesting to me about it was how I started with the intention of doing something completely different stylistically. Changing the style forced me to approach the song from a different mindset. I played some of the changes in a way that I would not have done if I have sat down to write a country song. Those changes I believe were enough for me to approach the song from a fresh perspective and then, and this is key, finish it.

I have written two songs since then. One starting from a different perspective, one starting with the old one. But the spell was broken, as a result I feel more ready to finish and release a new album, and start on the next one sooner rather than later. It feels good. While that is not a good enough reason to do most things, it is a good enough reason to keep writing. Now if I could just get some more people to buy my music!

Hey y'all.

I have a show this coming Thursday at Columbia City Theater in Seattle. I am pretty stoked about this. It is a great sounding room and is a lot of fun to play in. It is a free show, so if you are in the area I hope you can make it out!

I have been working on a lot of things. Finishing background vocals for the album, a few little guitar things and getting really close to being able to get this thing mixed... 

This has been a longer road getting this album done than I had thought, but that is how many things go if you are going to do it right. Regardless I am very excited about sharing some of the new music with you soon.

I have also been spending some time working with the Occupy Seattle movement, which has been an interesting experience thus far. I haven't blogged about politics in a while and right now this isn't exactly the time for it except to say that I am amazed at how well intentioned citizens on both sides of the aisle are so very often full of shit to the point where I find it hard to wonder why we never get anything done. That's all I'm gonna say for now.

Come out on Thursday and check out some of the old and new songs at Columbia City Theater, lets drink some whiskey or rather I'll watch you drink whiskey from the stage and wish that I could have some on stage myself.... :)

See you soon!

-andrew

I have either lost my mind or I am right. There are no two ways around it. Grey area is for pussies who gave up their definition of right and wrong for some nursery rhyme bullshit about everybody getting along. Sure we need to try and get along, but that by no means should leave us with our hands tied when somebody has indeed wronged us, or is wronging themselves or some combination thereof.

We don’t need the existence of a God to justify or explain what is right or wrong either, though we may have needed it in times past when there was not a better explanation, we have outgrown the mysticism. Now we simply need people to be decent and honest to one another, and treat one another fairly. Manipulation, theft, games, deceit and gossip will do nothing but breed murder and hatred. But if you give a man an inch, he’ll take a mile. So when we compromise once, then the path is set for someone to take advantage of us, or for us to take advantage of them.

Some have grand ideas of how if our leaders would only live by these uncompromising terms then the world would be fine. That is not right though. We as a society have allowed those compromises and we are paying the prices for it and we are the only ones who can stop it. Unfortunately it won’t happen without things getting ugly or without people getting their hands dirty. But nobody wants to do that. Everybody wants to continue living in their bubbles of ideology and imagine that they are living their dream or pretend that things aren’t really so bad. After all “its not the end of the world”.... Not yet. Keep saying that. Keep compromising your values and who you are and what you believe. Keep treating some people the way your beloved Father in Heaven would and others like fucking dogs. Keep making exceptions to your own rules. Keep saying it isn’t the end of the world while you make those exceptions and more people will continue to do the same until it actually is the end of the world as we know it...

We’re doing this to ourselves.