100th Career Blog! What a Milestone!

thank you, thank you... no, thank you. no I insist. please everyone be seated, settle down, you're too kind. yes, today, my 100th blog. If everyone could just block it out of your mind that I've had this blog for like 7-8 years, then it would seem that my entries are quite few and far between. but to those naysayers, I say, "you shut your mouth when you're talking to me."

OKAY then... So I didn't decide to write this blog today just to reach the milestone. No, no, I am that selfish, but no... I have been working sporadically, however diligently, on a full-length debut album for HighMay. For anyone who has not checked in with me since circa 2009, HighMay is my musical entity/project. After a little hiatus from touring recording in the mid-2000s, I came back with a lot of new material, and have still been touring and performing these songs since '08-'09 and through just this past Spring. But many of these songs have not been recorded, other than basic demos.

So Today, and probably for a few weeks, I would like to make available to the 3-4 people who read this blog - a special sneak preview of 3 new tracks which are completed (but are NOT mixed). In music terms, these are called "ruffs." which means that there is no real mix applied to all of the various sounds which have been recorded. these sounds can me exponential depending on a given arrangement from song to song. My songs (if you have heard the "Belong EP" by HighMay last Fall) have been a lot more elaborate in production compared to years past ("Time is Right" & "Low Carb LP"). Given this approach to production - and working with some amazing producers (both musically and personally amazing) - The idea of a rough mix might not sound all that good to the average listener, or it could sound amazing to an average listener. You might think, the vocals are too high, or that guitar drowns everything out, but that's just how recording goes. Then when I pony up the big bucks, and pay my producers what I owe them, they lock themselves in the control room for 20 hours a day and keep listening to the same couple of songs over and over and over and over and over again all day, until their heads explode.

... and that is how an album is made... in layman's terms.

So here is a link I just created on my website where you can hear these unfinished, and unpolished, raw new recordings of songs that you may have heard before, live, or solo, but never in this capacity. Needless to say I am terribly pumped about the music that has been created thus far for the album. We have 8 total songs completed in terms of recording, and some just need to be mixed, and mastered, and we have to record about 3-4 more before it's all said and done:

http://www.jimmyatto.com/previewtest.html

You can not access this page from anywhere on the jimmyatto website, only by pasting or manually typing in this link.

So I hope you enjoy this, and there is much more to come I can assure you.

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In other news, I have been working hard on putting together a steady live band. Yes a band of musicians that play HighMay music; and we will be going steady with one another, in a sort of musical romance collaborative. This stage of the process is a long time coming, and some have seen a couple of thrown together band shows over the past few years, that - in my opinion - were kind of rough, but still got the point across. This setup, however will be quite the opposite: tons of rehearsals, tons of song development, and the right attitudes above all else: playing music to play music and nothing else matters. Sounds cliche, right? Cliches are cliches for a reason.

So come the Fall, we already have some full band HighMay shows scheduled across the country, at a couple of colleges, and wherever else the dots connect in between. So keep an eye out for the live Fall schedule (some of the dates are already posted up on HighMay's Reverbnation page: http://www.reverbnation.com/highmay )

Also, as an extreme side note: I have a Twitter account. Mostly due to immense pressures from my sister. Regardless, I have two followers, and hell, I am a goal-setting man, and my ambitious goals for my Twitter account will not be conservative. I want to have at least 7-8 followers on Twitter by 2012. Let's do it America (and Europe too, I guess)!

In closing, I'd like to quote another great James that I know:

"love, peace, and jimmy atto hair grease..."

-J.A.

P.S. Do you like the new Off The Records logos?