Y'know?

One thing I really miss about podcasting the shows "I Love the Company" and "Where's the Voice" is that I have a couple of really good stories I feel like telling you guys today.... But there's no way in hell I'm gonna type them!!!!

So, I guess I'll just hafta wait until I get to Pier 45 on Friday night for the "Sunset on the Hudson" concert or back out to "The Hill" in Central Park on Saturday afternoon!

I can tell you this, though.

I'm heading back into the studio tomorrow night to make another final push at getting this thing available for you guys. We're gettin' close.

I wanna give you a little taste of some of the fun stuff that made it into this collection of songs and one of the lessons I've learned as an artist.

I hope I've learned to finally trust that Little Creative Voice that is my own. Y'know? In many, many ways I love being an open and generous artist, in that I respect the gifts of my colleagues and never try to dictate what they bring to the party when I'm creating a new song. BUT.... there are more times than I've realized up until recently that I truly need to trust my own vision of how a song wants to go.

For example.... I wrote a fun, silly little song with a great, funky little back-beat groove goin' on called "Internet Angel" for the last album. But by the time we got into the studio, I had listened to others who were of the opinion that the song needed to be a rockin' song with a Nashville spank on it. So insecure artistic wimp that I was in that particular moment, that's how it went down on the last CD.

It turned out fine.

But it was just wrong.

Here's a little sample of the way this track is gonna sound on the new CD... the way I originally heard it in my head, the way it wanted to go all along.

INTERNET ANGEL (sample)

Fun, right?

Now... art is just art. I'm sure there are lotsa people who will prefer the rockin' version, and that's cool. But in my soul.... THIS is how the song wanted to be written and recorded.

Y'know? It occurs to me every once in a while - - I must be doing something right, and I must be at least pretty good at what I do... or, you sweet people wouldn't show up here, and at "The Hill", or at Merkin Concert Hall, or any place!

(gotta trust that more.)

ANYWAY... we're gettin' near the finish line with this project!

Back to the survey.

NAME THE CD

The chore of picking the name for the new CD is gonna fall to you guys this year.

I'll give you a choice of 5 titles that I'm thinking of, and you can choose from them. I'll also give you the list of the tracks that are gonna be on the album. You can pick one of the songs to be the title track. OR... you can write in a suggestion of your own.... something you feel the CD should be named.

Okay, here are the tracks that are gonna be on the CD, in no particular order.

1. Any Other Way
2. Mary Learns to Fly
3. Here today
4. Internet Angel (original version)
5. Some Wounds Never Heal
6. I Can't Wait (Unplugged)
7. Tom Cruise Scares Me '09
8. Did You Fall in Love Again (Solo acoustic version)
9. Resolution: The Torture Song
10. Keep Hope Alive
11. What Made America Famous
12. This Moment

Okay, here are the suggestions from which to choose.

PICK A TITLE

1. Here Today
2. Any Other Way
3. And a Generation Later...
4. This Moment
5. The White Album

Or, write in a suggestion of your own! CLICK ON THIS LINK TO SEND IN YOUR SUGGESTION. Vote for your favorite, and I'll keep you posted in the front-runners. We'll keep this thing going until the mix on the last track is final.

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See you guys here at the site all week with anew update every day! If you're new around here, or if you're checking in from a different part of the country or a different part of the world, take a few minutes (or hours) to browse through the ARCHIVE. Lotsa cool shit in there.

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Thanks for everything.

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PEACE