it's another completely heart breakingly beautiful day here on the back porch of ellen cherry HQ and impossible to stay indoors and so thanks to the lovely folks at Dell, who sold me a laptop last summer, i'm sitting on my back porch, writing this little note to you, dear readers.

i haven't finished the album yet. and the dastardly and stupid thing is that i've already started to record other ideas. or maybe it's not stupid, but just the workings of a creative brain that has lost the ability to focus on one task for too long (um, what was i saying?) but as i was doing other things in my house this morning (cleaning the kitchen, to be exact.) i realized really and truly what i was doing: i'm avoiding finishing this thing because i'm afraid of finishing it. why should i be afraid of finishing it? because once i finish it, then i'll need to put it out there. and if you put aside all the energy and effort that goes into producing an album (which i'm happy to do time and time again and feel lucky that i have the ability and resources and support to do so)....when you put that aside, what is left is the fear that people will not respond to it. that they will compare it to something else and prefer the other. that they will give it one cursory listen and never listen again. that the songs that i have labored over and loved for 2 years now will linger, stuck on a cd and not sung loudly at the tops of peoples' lungs, the way i want them to.

here's the deal: despite my forays into "historical" songwriting, i really am a pop songwriter. i write pop music. short songs, simple themes, singable choruses...but i've managed to avoid writing anything that millions of people would want to sing along to. or at least i think i have. i had this conversation with my drummer, Darin, last night....where is my place on the radio? where is my place in the collective culture's ears? where is my demographic and how do i get this to their ear? and Darin said the most amazing, revelatory, obvious and wonderful thing: every band that is contemplating putting an album out for public consumption is thinking the exact same thing.

so. i have this fear of finishing it because of the stuff that has to happen after i finish it. that, coupled with the love/hate relationship i have with my recorded voice (when i'm singing it, it sounds one way, then i listen to the track on the monitors and wonder "who is that?") but i've decided, today, that i need to finish, whether i'm afraid or not. and it has to be finished soon. it has lingered on in my computer in my basement for too long. it's time for others to hear it. there will be mistakes. things that i have pored over, tracks that i attempted 27 times, weird sounds i experimented with....all of that will be summed up into this record. and still, it will be just a moment--a snapshot of some evenings spent with my dear friends, trying to create something interesting and lasting. and at heart, i'm an optimist. i hope that you'll love it as much as i have and do.