An album? About time!

Madeline gives my mixes a final review and approval.

Spalding Gray, in a stage monologue adapted for the screen, referred to his only published novel as a "monster in a box." I can't exactly claim my circumstances compare to Gray's, however I have referred to this project as my own "monster" and given it a hyperbolic title: No One Expects An Inquisition.

And yes, that title was lovingly ripped off from a Monty Python sketch.

Suffice it to say that it has never taken me so long to record an album. Five years is an eternity in the world of popular music - and I'll have only ten songs to show for it. Admittedly there's a voice inside my head chastising me for those ten songs when in two years I thrust The Forever Syndrome out into the world with a whopping fourteen tracks. Hindsight tells me that album could have used a bit of trimming; I have a tough time listening to it all of the way through. Then again, who buys albums any more? I fully expect Inquisition to be picked to pieces as individually downloaded files - the same à la carte that has been the fate of The Forever Syndrome. Far be it from me to tell people how to listen to the music they enjoy, especially if it is my music; I'm just pleased that people are listening.

I'm just kind of shocked at the moment. I listened to the ten songs on Inquisition from front to back and just said to myself, "it's done." I played them for my fiancée and she said, "it sounds good." My daughter didn't say much of anything coherent, however she refrained from crying for the fifty minutes the album played, so I'll take that as a tacit sign of approval on her part.

A lot has happened since I began work on Inquisition. The session files have been through four living spaces, three girlfriends, two keyboards, two laptops and one rebuild of my desktop PC. No one expects an inquisition, indeed!

But now, here it is...done. It's waiting to be sent out into the world to see if it can stand up and accomplish anything worthwhile. If you've been to any of my shows for the past few years, you've already heard at least one song from it. I'm sure I've posted tentative track lists before, but here's the final version:

1. Triangle
2. Impact
3. What Might Have Been
4. Vertical
5. Amnestyville
6. Retribution
7. Resolution
8. Lungless
9. Two Thespians
10. Ayn Rand Shrugged

In the next few weeks I'm going to be putting together the artwork and then shipping the disc master off to be duplicated. Fates willing that won't take another five years to accomplish.