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Guys, I’ve been so busy playing gigs and booking gigs and all the legwork and paperwork done to get this album promoted and released in physical form as well as online digitally for you all to hear, and it’s been so amazingly draining, but an incredible learning experience.

I’m hoping the next couple of weeks allow me more time to devote to longer stories and reflections. I miss you all so much and appreciate your words of encouragement. Especially @jasonrussell, who has been on my ass this whole time (like every day) encouraging me with this amazing positivity and trying to get me to claw out of my hole and get back with my community. You guys.

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Had some hiccups in regard to cover art, which was only one of the first things I encountered in this process. The first cover I submitted was rejected, even though I did have permissions to use and alter the art.
Here lies what I call the “match” cover:

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Here’s the new one, and I like this one way more...

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My grandma was my best friend and my biggest supporter. My little brother and I spent a lot of time together with her at her house as kiddos. She was born in 1921. She literally riveted airplanes during WWII. She was awesome. She was left-handed and taught her little right-handed granddaughter how to use scissors, tie my shoes, read the “want ads,” and write in cursive. She made me practice piano on days I didn’t want to, and she always made me feel good to be me.

She cherished her family. She took a lot of photos with her Polaroid. This was one of them. I’m standing on the carport, which was one of my favorite places to play as a child...that and her driveway.

Using this photo was actually my original idea for the album (even before I recorded the songs or had a title for the project or anything), but something about it felt too vulnerable. The “match” cover looked cool enough, and I felt it also conveyed the emotional weight of the songs within the album. However, that match wasn’t meant to be. It kept a wall up.

In all honesty, even trying to describe the significance of this photo is almost too much for me to take in sometimes. I miss my grandmother, and in this photo, I’m looking at her. I looked at her looking at me with that Land Camera a lot. Although I don’t remember this specific photograph being taken, I remember what she looked like taking photos of us with that camera, and even that memory makes my eyes just well up and I’m flooded with grief as if we lost her yesterday.

More than anything, this photo represents an innocence, and a time and many people that I’ll never get back and that I will always mourn.

The EP is all about consequences...consequences in love, consequences in life...consequences of choices. We are raised as children to become adults who make choices, and sometimes we look back and cry at the children we once were, mourn the loss of those we love, and do our best to make choices to avoid negative consequences.

I really hope y’all dig this album. My heart’s all in.

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02.09.2018

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Header image PC used with permission by @melodyrussell @jasonrussell

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Sunshine on my shoulders almost always makes me high. —John Denver

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