High Holy Mass of Contradictions

2007 should be a year for advances in our songwriting business and on the house renovation front. That's a lot to ask for, perhaps, but I think it's reasonable.

( The down-in-the-dirt details, and the rest of the resolutions )

And right now, I resolve to stop editing this entry and get on with other things. Happy New Year, everybody!

I participate pretty heavily on a discussion forum for Treo users called MyTreo.net, and lately, due to a weird alignment of the stars or something, there's been a surge of off-topic interest in, of all things, my songs. One fella started a discussion topic all about how great my songs are, which was certainly flattering, and another just wrote to let me know he'd written a rather glowing entry in his blog about Honey Bowtie Music. And now someone else wrote to ask if I'd be interviewed for a front page story on the MyTreo.net home page.

Oh, and I guess this is as good a time as any to mention that "Blown Away" is on hold for an independent pop-country artist, details to come later when / if the actual deal materializes.

Maybe it's true what people say about things always happening in fits and starts. We were experiencing a strange little spike of activity like this back at the end of last year, and then it died down for months. Now we're seeing a resurgence of buzz around our music, albeit from some fairly random corners. Whatever -- I'm somewhat bewildered but happy about the attention, and I'm definitely happy about the hold, whether the artist decides to go ahead and cut the song or not.

Here's hoping it's just the beginning of a long, long series of good developments. :-)

Johnny Brickhouse, who does the Nashville Music Podcast, included "By Surprise" in episode 16 of his podcast. It shows up about 11:20 in. Check it out!

I'm pleased as punch with the instrumental tracks, but the vocals just don't sound as confident and fun as they should. With any luck, they're good enough to get the message across, but I really wanted this to be a killer demo.

Still, it's done, and we've already pitched it. We'll see what comes of it!

Here's the link to our songs page, where you can listen to the MP3, check out the lyrics, or whatever. Enjoy. :-)

In the recording session, we were talking about the proliferation of home recording studios. Kenny says "Yeah, everybody's got a home recording studio these days." I (graciously!) stated that you can't get the professional results that way. Kenny seemed to appreciate my comment an added his philosophy on home recording studios:

"It's like buying an airplane. With enough money, you can go out and buy one, but who ya gonna sucker into flying with you?"

I just ordered business cards. I love business cards. Whee!

It seems odd when I type it out, but Karsten and I couldn't be happier that we've just signed away the publishing rights (and future publishing royalties!) to our calypso-pop-reggae song "Mango Sun." (Visit http://www.honeybowtie.com/songs/index.html if you want to hear it -- it's worth it for the vocals alone, wonderfully performed by the popular Chicago-based reggae singer Rocket.) The song's new publisher hopes to find a place for it in the European market, where calypso and reggae are fairly popular.

After spending the past few years focused on writing country-pop songs, it's fun to have interest in one of our slightly older songs from another genre.

So hey, next time you're in Germany or whatever, listen for the sounds of "Mango Sun," and if you hear any cha-ching in the background, that'll be us cashing our itty bitty royalty check. :-)

We went out last night to a writers' night that I consider the best-kept secret in Nashvegas, and we saw a gal play who's reputed to be a real up-and-coming singer-songerwriter. We'd seen her a few times before, but not for several months, so it was great to hear that her writing really seems to be improving -- of course, it can't hurt that she's collaborating with some of the top writers in town.

Anyway, we chatted with her a bit after the show, and she mentioned that although she'd been reluctant to do vocal work on demos in the past, she's now starting to consider it. So Karsten and I talked about it on the way home and we think we figured out the perfect song for her to record. The hope is, of course, that if she records it for us and she likes it, that she may choose to include it if she cuts a CD of her own.

So that's what I'm excited about this morning.