As I sit here in Slippery Rock drinking hot coffee and cold beer before we head to Pittsburgh for our slot tonight, I got to thinkin’…
I haven’t been writing much lately; for a while now, actually — outside of the random scribble on a bar napkin or the practically illegible chicken scratch on an old gas station receipt while driving on some interstate with Hanson asleep in the passenger seat. It’s not that I’ve been uninspired. It’s not that at all. It’s more of a reluctance to move on.
I’m reluctant because I’ve got all of these songs finished or close to being finished that I’ve been fine-tuning, tweaking, and testing out in live settings and we have yet to lay them down in the studio. It’s like before signing up for Third World Literature, you gotta pass the English pre-requisite first. I feel like I would be overlooking something if I started on writing brand new songs if I didn’t buck up already and document these current tunes by laying them down on a record. There’s even a song that I finally finished after first working on the bulk of it 10 years ago for crying out loud!
And it’s not that I’m being lazy with it (well, maybe a little bit lazy); there are numerous things that are holding us back: lack of funds, scheduling, un-readiness, studio accessibility, etc. But they all sound like rationales, don’t they? Enough’s enough.
We’re heading back into the studio later on this week for a coupla days to try to jump start the project of all new, original songs. I’m excited and worried and happy and scared. Hopefully will be able to get some good work done. And then maybe, we will be able to piece together a slew of days to bang this thing out.
It’s due time to move on.
