Because it took me so long to complete 'Ria', I wanted to get some more music out as soon as possible.  I signed up for two contests that run for the length of February 2010.  The first is FAWM (February Album Writing Month) the challenge was to write 14 new songs during the month.  The second was the RPM Challenge (Record Per Month).  The goal here was to actually record an album of at least 10 songs or 35 minutes of music.  I finished both.  I only focused on recording 10 songs though since this is a bit more time intensive.  'February Sessions' is the resulting album.  Here it is a  mere 5 months since 'Ria' was released-another complete album.  I'm really happy with it.  I still consider some of these 'demos' since I'm wanting some different drum parts and a tiny bit more polishing, mostly on mix levels and things like that.  Then again, the more I listen to it, the more these become the versions of the songs.  So maybe it'll stay like this.  

So that was the first goal--work a little faster!  The second was to not use ANY tuning.  There're so many artists/songs nowadays that get by with so so so much Auto Tune that you know what Auto Tune is.  And most of you are probably not musicians.  I did a bit on 'Ria' mostly to backing vocals, but here I'm happy to say that what you hear is what went into the microphone.  There may be a few bum notes, but it's all natural.  

Take a listen.  I hope you like it as much as I do.  

There are 7 completely new songs on here.  Only 3 existed in some form before hand:  

Escape: this is an idea I started developing on the last band tour for the 'Myself Again' record.  I'd put it in the set list as "Song 1 in G' which annoyed my drummer.  I never finished it and the melody for the first half of the song is completely new, along with the lyrics

'How the Story Ends' actually goes back to 'Reach'  I had the main guitar riff then but could never finish it for one reason or another so everything else came together during Feb.  This was called 'JMELL' for  awhile because to me it feels like a John Mellencamp song.

'Coming Home' was in the final running to be on 'Ria' but I felt I already had some slower songs that felt better.  This is actually a whole new arrangement and a bit faster than what I had before.  Prior to this it was much more of a guitar song and slower, but something always seemed 'off' about it.  When I revisited it, I sped it up and put in the piano and a whole new direction was found.  

Here's a little bit about the rest:

Circle:   I came up with the music for this and 'Find Your Home' on the same day.  I'm a big big REM fan and, well, there ya go.  

La La Song:  I had the intro chords floating around since last October.  Every way I tried to keep the song going ruined it.  And the original melody was a bit clunky.  I finally got the acoustic guitar break down idea and the song just finished itself.  I called this my 'Beach Boys' song before I had lyrics.  For some reason the acoustic part into the 'lala's' reminds me of the feel of some of their songs.  

She Said:   My mom died 5 years ago.  After a visit with my Dad and brothers for New Years, I found out my brother was having a baby.  Made me think about my Mom.  This is kind of a snapshot of advice etc she gave, and how it feels to have her gone.  The instrumental out always reminded me of classical music and was the original part of this song that I had.

You Will See Me:   Ever meet someone and just feel an incredible rightness about it only to never see them again?  Many conversations with friends over the years are consolidated into this idea.  I like the guitar lick.

This Is:   This was supposed to be an acoustic strummy thing a la 'Rocky Raccoon'.  Once I played the first electric guitar part you hear, everything changed.  I really like this one.  It's bouncy, a little mysterious, and makes you dance.  Once again, it's a sort of early REM homage as I left the vocal a bit back in the mix and maybe you can or can't understand the words, the voices are more like instruments than 'lyric driven'

Find Your Home:  My dog Morgan died in my arms back in October.  When my Mom died, my two brothers were sleeping in the room across the hall and watched her final moments.  Having my first dog die brought up all kinds of emotions related to my mother and thinking of my brothers witnessing it along with him dying in my arms led to this.  I thought this was going to be a bit tamer, originally it was just the acoustic and chimes.  One day I screwed around with a lead part and the electric guitar was pretty and angry at the same time.  I like the effect.

Coming Back Down:   I 've had the chorus for this for a while.  It's in 6/8 which I love.  This was the last song I finished.  It was really strum based on the acoustic which made it boring so once I came up with the new acoustic part things were off and running.  Sort of related to 'You Will See Me' thematically.