Nearing Completion

It's hard to believe I've been working on this current record since November of 2007. I've been fanatically recording the vocals (finally) and they're going along much more smoothly than the vocals did for Antidepressant Blues.

I've discovered many tricks and techniques. One of the major ones came from Andrew Bird's blog, which has been an endless source of insight, interest and inspiration for me. In one of the posts he writes about how sometimes the opposite of what you think is required is the solution to the problem. For instance, sometimes singing softly into a microphone will give the voice power and resonance that cannot be obtained from singing loudly. Counterintuitive, but true. On a related note, one day I asked my wife why everyone always seems to leave the room when I start singing. She delicately answered that she thought maybe it was because I was singing so loudly, which was understandable because as a vocalist on a stage, one has to project. But as a vocalist in a room around others, a speaking volume will suffice. Eureka! The combined insight of these two disparate viewpoints has caused me to rethink my approach to singing and I've been finding the recorded results really encouraging.

I've also rejiggered the tracklisting, after having recently uncovered a song that was originally written for record but scrapped back in December. It's now been put back in the lineup and two others have been taken out. The tracklisting as it stands now is as follows (in alphabetical order):

Before You Know It
Born To Cry
Country Road
God's Highway
Jealous Woman
Never Saw Her Comin'
Seven Nickels
The High Road
The Obscure Object of My Desire

In addition to finishing up the vocals and adding the finishing touches I have plans to create the album artwork and redesign the dankinsley.com website. So there's a lot of work yet to be done.

I'm already looking forward to the next project. I have 4 different records that I want to make. I wish there were more hours in the day. I wish the corporate jaws weren't so firmly lodged in my backside. I wish we could all just do what we love to do. Maybe that would make the world a better place. But then, if everyone were happy, no one would write sad songs, and that would be sad.