The day is finally here. All the bits and bytes fired off to the right places and my new album, Losing My Voice, is available everywhere I wanted it to be. Please go listen. Buy it if you can. Tell someone about it. I just want as many people as possible to hear it.
Exclusive? Of course it’s exclusive. Ha.
Anyway, I put up the first song from the album on YouTube so you can listen and tell a friend and do all those wonderful sharing types of things. Also, important to note that the album is available for pre-order at Amazon already! Click on the album cover on the right and go get it.
On March 6th 2014, I went to my home studio, set up a microphone and grabbed my acoustic guitar to record some music before it was too late. I had recently found out that I needed neck surgery to give me feeling back in my fingers and take the tingling out of my legs. During that consultation the surgeon casually mentioned that part of the surgery would temporarily relocate a nerve connected to my vocal cord and that one of the risks of surgery was that I could lose my voice.
As a singer and songwriter, this was terrifying to me. I am not prolific as a songwriter, but I always go back to it when I have something I really want to say. It was eating me alive that I had unrecorded songs that could be lost forever so I decided to do something about it. A week before surgery, I recorded these six songs to document that moment in time when I thought I might lose the ability to ever sing again.
My setup was simple. I used just one microphone. That means no overdubs. I didn’t even want to waste any of my remaining singing voice by warming up. These six songs are everything I was able to record that night before my voice tired and the numbness in my fingers got so bad that I couldn’t play guitar anymore.
(Here’s a snippet of “The Jackpot”)
The good news is that my surgery went well and I got my voice back. But, after listening to the recordings, I decided that I wanted to share it with the world anyway. There’s something about the performance to me, that perfectly captures that moment in time, that makes it worth sharing. I don’t know if there’s an extra little bit of desperation in there, or maybe an extra edge fueled by the nerves and doubt about my future. Regardless, I am proud of it and I hope you enjoy it.
We played a show for DoHM and The Family Riot on Halloween. It was a tough draw, but we had a lot of really nice fans show up. Here is how we opened the show with Blink. This song has been recorded recently for our first full-length album. Here is a raw version.
The Company Line was supposed to be at the Beachland Ballroom tonight, but the show has been put off due to the blizzard, until April 5th. All tickets for tonight’s show will be honored on April 5th. Please watch Beachland Ballroom’s website for details.
If you missed it, go check out the eVite for the show. It has been updated for April 5th.
We have two shows scheduled right now.
We will be playing at the Beachland Ballroom with our good friends The Family Riot, and soon to be good friends, DoHM on March 8th. This is the CD release show for The Family Riot and you don’t want to miss these crazy M’Fers when they hit the stage. But seriously, don’t look Joe directly in the eye when he is playing guitar because he has been known to melt some portion of a fan’s brain in the past. If only he could use his powers for good. If only.
CLICK HERE FOR PRE-SALE TICKETS FOR MARCH 8TH
We are also playing April 23rd with Run Run Run from California, at the Grog Shop. It is another Wednesday show, which I know you don’t all love, but hey, what else were you going to do on a Wednesday night? You might as well come out to the greatest little rock club in the HISTORY of Cleveland rock music. (Somebody better tell the Euclid Tavern the bad news.)
No ticket info yet for that one, but keep clicking this link for TicketBastard to check.
Hope to see you all there.
We had a great night at the Grog Shop with The Casting Out. It was a tough draw for a Wednesday, but that didn’t stop The Casting Out from rocking the place until the night was over.
Very nice people, and very cool show all the way around. We made sure to help pay for gas money by buying all the various wares they had for sale. You will see me proudly displaying my t-shirt at a future date I am sure.
Come on out and see The Company Line for the first show of 2008 at The Grog Shop in Cleveland Heights.
Check out the eVite by clicking here!
We will be debuting three new tunes. You might have heard them in various forms on here in the videos or in the PracticeCast, but they were meant to be played live and there is no better stage in Cleveland than the Grog Shop.
