Walking Tall To Re-Enter Studio in Fall to Record New Record

Magic and The Clueless . . .

 The Magic;

So yesterday afternoon I'm driving to my computer repair guy to drop off my system so he can replace my graphics card that bailed on me.

Before leaving, I was thinking that since I had a couple of days that I wouldn't be able to record, that I should start accumulating some new song ideas in anticipation of writing with Frankie.

Since confirming that this would be happening, I have had several panic attacks of  - "What if I can't come up with anything again in time, I'll look like a fool, and after all, I've done a lot of writing lately." Maybe that's the catch - we get this opportunity and we blow it!

Jimmy hasn't been writing as much lately, but he's calm cool and collected. He never gets worried. He's like no problem! We'll come up with the goods. Of course I know he's right, but I still have moments of panic nonetheless.

Anyway, I'm driving yesterday (There's a clue!) and I'm thinking about a title that Jimmy had mentioned we should write via text the other day. The title was "Just The Truth". He had a topic that he thought we should write about, so we texted back and forth about the subject, our ideas.

I got in my car and headed to the repair shop, which is a bit of a drive from here thinking about this idea and thinking well, maybe I can come up with an idea or two here while I do this.

I didn't get the end of my street before I opened my mouth and literally sang the melody and lyrics all the way through the first chorus, in one pass. I thought - where in the hell does this shit come from!?
The portal must be portable! lol

I knew I was onto something good and had one of those magical moments. When I got home I refined the lyric a little bit, then went straight for the Piano. When It came to me in the car, I could hear the music and I could hear the Piano. After a few moments of searching for what I was hearing in my head, everything suddenly came into focus - The music, lyrics and vocal melody of the intro and verse we're completely outstanding. I was blown away by this song already. I thought - what a gift from the heaven's. You DO like me!!

I must've played that a million times, it was so good. That's as far as I got yesterday on it.

Today I'm having my coffee and looking forward to continuing work on the song after a good, long, hot shower. I'll probably also continue working on "I Am Now" too. It still needs some work. Hopefully, I'll come up with a few new ideas too.

I'm Inspired after yesterday. I've been on fire songwriting wise lately! I'm not complaining - Burn, baby burn!
I'm only supposed to come up with some song starts, not complete songs! So, I'm no closer to having some new things to take to Frankie's. lol

I don't think that "Just The Truth" is gonna make it  to a co-write with Frankie, or Andre. I'll either finish it off myself, or with Jimmy.

Jimmy and I have a Lennon/McCartney type of agreement with our songwriting partnership, meaning that no matter who writes what - We both get equal credit. It's all for the common cause and we both end up very involved in every song. Somethings are more him, some more me, some equal parts of both.

Jimmy's been coming up with great titles and topics for when we sit down to write together next. I've just been on a hot streak lately. Pretty much everything I've done ends up needing his help. After writing something, I'll always end up deciding that something needs changing, or an additional part.
Jimmy comes over and we'll finish them off. When I'm on a streak like this, I'll usually only take the songs half to three quarters the way to completion. Then I'll usually wait for Jimmy's input.

When Jimmy is on a streak, he'll usually do the same thing. We've both came in with whole completed songs before too. More often than not, we only have a piece of something, which is what we collect to take with us on collaborations. Sometimes we only have a title, or topic when we sit down together. Sometimes absolutely nothing and we end up writing three complete songs out of nowhere. It'll often happen even when we are not inspired, or have any intention of writing that day. It happens in all ways you can imagine.

"Just The Truth" is a hit single in the making, I believe. . .

Next subject: The Clueless;

On the business front, it's nothing new for us to have offers coming in from Booking Agencies, Management Companies, Publishing Companies and even record labels. Major and Minor.

We take our time and weed through them. We're extremely picky and extremely cautious. We've set extremely high standards for ourselves and we've set extremely high standards for others to live up to in order to work with us. Jimmy and I are very educated on the music business and business in general.

It often comes as a big shock to people in the industry, as this is a rarity among musicians in general.
Plus, we're a little older and cannot be played for fools, or pushed around.
We've sent a lot of industry people packing with their tail between their legs - I can honestly tell you that is a fact! Most of these people come in highly underestimating us.

We know who we are, we know what we got. We know the business, We know exactly what we want. We know exactly what we don't want. We don't need to be developed, or molded the way a young, or new band might. The thought that a select few think we do is - Utterly laughable! Fuck off!

We've had some really good people in the industry contact us too. We have worked on a lot of deals and have been in the process with some for quite awhile. We work the relationship, we work the preliminary deal, we negotiate, etc., and eventually, if it goes far enough we get our legal team involved.

Most deals never make it to the legal team. Legal representation is expensive, so we've worked out a system of weeding through companies and deals before taking them to that final step. If we didn't do that we'd be spending thousands every month, on deals that have no chance of going through in the end anyway.

If something makes it to legal, then we're pretty sure we want it, or everything seems possibly good and need the experts to sift through it and make sure. When legal gets it that's when the real and serious negotiations begin. That's usually where something you've focused on for quite awhile will breakdown and go away.

Things in this business do not work as fast as anyone thinks it does. These things take seemingly forever, especially if they go the distance to legal. Not many things do. Not many things make it past that point, but hey - That's what they are there for - to protect us and lookout for our best interest.

So in the process of everything we're pursuing at any given time and any legitimate entity that we are currently discussing possibilities with - We always get all of the pretenders and crooks to deal with on top of it. We can usually spot them a mile away. We can see 'em coming, but some of these people are clever bastards - even if they have absolutely no clue about the music business, or business period.

This week has given us a few of those to deal with. Sometimes it's frustrating, because you have to look into everything. Some legitimate people in this business definitely don't come off as such. This business is unlike any other. It could be argued that it barely qualifies as a business. It never really ever was. It used to be more like organized crime. Now it's primarily just a freak show.

Most times it's just comedy relief. The most idiotic morons pretending to be real deal makers who got nothing to offer, but to ask you for money. Sophisticated panhandlers is what they are.

Often we will humor some of these clowns for awhile, just for the fun of it. They have no clue that we know what's going on. Yesterday, a few of these reached the point of  - Enough!

You have to be very careful in this business. Someone has always got their eye on your wallet and their hand already in your pocket when you meet them. This business is full of that, even on the so called legitimate side . . .

We are currently working on some real and potentially good deals with new ones coming up all the time, so we'll see what comes of those . . .

-Bret