Category: album

It is release day for Hold the Door Open. It’s available everywhere you find music.

If you want to support me as an artist, and help me recoup the costs of creating this album, the most effective thing you can do is purchase the digital album, or the CD if you want, on Bandcamp.

And if you like what you find, I hope you’ll share it so other people can discover it.

At midnight, it will be release day for Hold the Door Open. Eight years of preparation and creation will be over, and an audience of whatever size will be free to experience the results.

I really hope they like it. If they do, I hope they’ll share it with others. I put a lot of energy into learning how to do everything in my power to make this album rich, thematically powerful, and acoustically pleasing. I engaged an incredible crew of talent to co-create this with me.

It’s been an intensely busy last few weeks. The other day, after getting feedback from a lot of colleagues and friends (thanks to Neil, Arden, Dave, Silence, and Adelaide, among others), I finalized the master on the album, and uploaded and submitted it to my distributor (I still use CDBaby, mostly because I already have an account with them, and they only charge a one-time fee to distribute music).

I’m processing a mixture of pride, excitement, anxiety, and a little depression. I’ve been working on this thing in one form or another for eight years now. (Ye gods.) But CDBaby’s guide encourages artists to submit music three to six weeks before their planned release date, because the various distribution channels all have their own review process and that could take time. So when I finally was ready to upload and submit, late Wednesday night, I had a sinking feeling that my “release date” of June 20 was going to kind of a let-down, where the album wouldn’t actually be available where most people would be looking for it.

Arden has revised his detailed pencil rendering of the cover design per our discussion, revising garb for three of our singers and filling in the backdrop. This man is just incredible.

Happy New Year! (…for certain values.)

I got the second iteration of the album cover from Arden yesterday. I’ve also received the last couple of instrumental tracks that aren’t to be played by me. (The only person left that I need any recording work from is me, and I have fairly unlimited access to me.)

I’m excited.