22 Songs In 32 Days

I bought an electric guitar and amplifier in 1989. I taught myself how to play by listening to Ramones records. I was the "singer" in a band called The Dislocated when I got the guitar. Singer is in quotation marks because I couldn't really sing. I still don't think I'm much in that department, just the other side of horrible really. I wrote the lyrics to The Dislocated songs, but I was also wanting to write some music. Before the band split I had learned enough to write lyrics and music to "Hippie Bus" and "What Do You Want From Me" and I almost felt like a real musician.

This led to further exploits in the land of music which I've chronicled here before. The last gig I played was in January of 1998 with Jimmy Cunningham and Bret Wilkinson from Jack backing me up as The Most. I had always planned on The Most becoming a real power pop band, but I never really pursued finding others to back me full time. I kept writing songs even if I wasn't going to be playing them live. I recorded rough demos of them on a cheap 4 track and I've shared them with a few people.

Now I want to share my songs with you, the loyal Soulfish Stew reader, in an unprecedented (perhaps) internet event I'm calling 22 Songs In 32 Days. What I'm proposing is this: I will send you 22 songs over the course of 32 days beginning November 21st. They will be in the mp3 format. The novelty of this event is that I will record each song the night before I send it to you. So sonically they're not going to be all that special. And I don't have a drum kit so don't expect many beats. Some will just be me and an acoustic guitar. But they will be guaranteed to have been done just the night before.

There will be a mix of some of my old material re-done, newer stuff I've yet to record, and at least 3 songs I haven't even made up yet. The style will veer from power pop to punk and somewhere in between. After 32 days you'll have enough of my stuff to make your very own CD that you can either play for pleasure or use to get annoying people to leave your room.

Why am I doing this? It might be simple narcissism or just the impulse to throw my songs out there to see if they can make it out there in the cold, cruel world. I could say it has everything to do with sharing my creativity and artistic nature, but I hate that sort of talk in addition to not being able to believe it if I said it. I don't even consider myself a musician. That's something far more talented people than me are. Ultimately sharing the songs comes down to this: it's something fun to do and hopefully it will bring some fun to you too.

So if you want to get 22 Songs In 32 Days just send me an email and I'll put you on the list of recipients. If you're an old friend of mine I've probably already got you down so you might want to send me an email asking me to let you off. Ha-ha! wallybangs AT hotmail dudes and dudettes!