Starting Over

I've been laying down tracks on the OilCan drive album for the last week or so. And every day I've worked on it I thought about quitting. Nothing seemed to sound or feel right as I laid down guitar track after guitar track. I was questioning myself on a daily basis and quitting seemed like an easy way to take this weight off of my shoulders.

But, I kept going, laying down tracks daily, telling myself I could fix the feel and sound once I got into the mixing stage.

But, it never felt right.

Yesterday, while at lunch, I talked to one of the girls at the restaurant who I had given a few of the Bob Dylan cover songs I had done. Of the three, It Ain't Me Babe, the acoustic demo track for It Ain't Me Babe, and When I Paint My Masterpiece, her favorite was When I Paint My Masterpiece. It's also the song that got me attention and was chosen to be played on the radio. That always confused me. It's an old song I recorded years ago with some bare bones equipment that doesn't hold a candle to the gear I have at my disposal now.

But, listening to it again, there is something there.

So, I took the day off yesterday and took a ride into the mountains with a friend. It was nice to get out of the house for a while and spend some time in the mountains, climb some rocks, and even watch a train go by.

Last night, while taking a quick nap on the couch, I had an epiphany.

As Paul Reiser said in Mad About You, "When it looks like I'm doing nothing I'm working very hard in my head. When it looks like I'm about to fall asleep I'm approaching genius."

I woke up, pulled out my old guitar pedals, messed around with every guitar setting I had previously set up, and made the guitars sound SOOOO much better. You can actually hear the guitar playing now instead of just a wall of distortion. You can feel the human being playing the strings. It sounds and feels much better.

So today I am going back and tearing down the previous week's worth of work. It was a hard decision to make since the album had a lot done on it. But it was the right decision.

Sometimes to have to take two steps back to take three steps forward.

I finally feel like I'm moving forward again. And I haven't thought about quitting once today.

And that's a nice feeling.