Fidgets

I spoke last night on the phone with Hoagie who is just about finishing rough mixing our album, Free Alongside Ship. This weekend I and possibly the others will head up coast highway one to Malibu to hear the rough draft of the album in it's entirety. The excitement I feel I so foreign as to be difficult to describe.
Looking back at my musical aspirations it's amazing to see the way things work out, and how they work out differently than I could have possibly expected. The dream was always that you play the music and try and fit the part and then someone comes along and swoops you up on the wing of a recording contract, and they hire everyone to do all these wonderful things for you, and the end result would make me happy beyond all compare. What a ridiculous crock of shit! To think that my dreams as a free young man amounted to the idea of playing a very bit part in my art, my direction and my life. How sad it would have been to be on the eve of accomplishing that dream! Feeling the shackles tighten, going to listen to our record and realizing that our meant a great deal more than the three people in my band. That our included much more so than me and Devin and Amy. That our would include a sleazy A&R man or Fifty, A President of a large record company, A board of directors, Accountants, Market Research Teams, an entire Media Conglomerate, Share Holders, Bean Counters, Investors, Dirty Men in Smoked Filled Rooms all across our country cackling to themselves while ashing Cuban cigars on the floor, flicking ashes at the illegal immigrants they barely pay to follow them around and suck up the muck with dust busters which they sold to them, and require them to buy as a condition of their independent contract. Sometimes failure is the greatest success.
I have a different recording contract. I have a contract with two other people in my band, that I have signed with years of effort. My contract says that I believe in you as you believe in me, and that as long as these desires stir within us I will continue to work at what gives me pleasure. I have a contract with Hoagie who has worked so hard on mixing the results of our recording, it is based on the faith that each aspect brought to the table is good and worthy, and that hard work completed will be worth spreading to anyone who will listen. Lastly I have a contract with myself, but that's just between us.