Living room Dance, Shelter in Place, COVID-19 blues

17 days since March 16th dancing to my unfinished album one track at a time.

I have been dancing in my living room to my unfinished album every day since March 16th. The album is a project that I have been working on since September. I had hoped to have it released this March. Sadly with all the closures due to COVID-19, the project is on hold in the studio in Milwaukee awaiting the chance to finalize it by mixing and mastering so I can send it to the manufacturer, and have the final digital copy available to download.

I decided a fun way to share my record without worrying about a rough mix getting out into the world was to film me dancing to it in my living room. Why not just release it with the rough mixes that I already have? Well there are little things that I still need to do, for example, certain instruments or vocals aren’t at the correct volume. With digital recordings, the rough mix is basically the same digital fingerprint as a final mix- it doesn’t discern between a guitar being louder, a voice being stronger, or a solo being shorter. It is imperative that whenever I get the album out there, that it is the final and correct mix, approved by me the artist, writer and producer. 

In these lo-fi videos of me dancing and chatting over the rough mixes, they gave me a comfort zone of being able to share my record, and hopefully entice your interest to want a copy when the record is finally released. I decided not to dance to them in the order of the album, but how I felt on that particular day. Needless to say, it’s been an amazing 17 days.

The recording project has been a huge investment for me. In the past 4 years since moving to Wisconsin, I have slowly but surely gained a following I felt was interested in supporting a fully produced album. With concerts booked throughout 2020, I was sure my investment would have a good return, plus I engaged a super designer for the cover art,  and made designs for merchandise. The plan: with live concerts - my strength, and a solid fully produced album, and merchandise, 2020 was looking great. Until COVID-19. I am not complaining, I am sharing my reality. Instead of being upset and frustrated, and when I am stressed out, I dance. I found myself dancing in my living room to my album rough mixes. And I had an idea. Why not share my silliness with my youtube channel and social media friends/fans? When the reality of needing to shelter in place, and everything shutting down, I figured others would need some support and lightness in these scary and unprecedented times of closures and socially isolating. So there you have it. Why 17 days? Because the album has 17 tracks.

The Roll Credits track idea came from the fact that today’s CD packaging has no room for the kind of text that I would need to credit everyone. Plus, no one reads the inserts. I figured anytime you are curious who is on the record you’ll be able to hear it on track 17. I asked Larry Byrne to play the C3 organ just under 4 minutes, and this is what he came up with. For the video of me dancing, I used final-cut and edited the credits to scroll like in a movie. The final track on the album will  be me talking about who is on the record.

With the end of this living room dance series, I have the actual order of the album in my youtube playlist as shown in this blog post.

I plan on keeping up with my Music Monday series, where I record a song from my home-studio and post on youtube and social media. Keep in touch, share with your friends, and thanks for virtually inviting me into your space at a time like no other. We all need to be connected now more than ever. Let’s keep dancing!