Backstory Album Coming Soon

Backstory – my collection of older demos will be released later in 2023, probably in October.

What is the Backstory album?

Over the years when I was playing in various bands we recorded demos of the songs we were playing. Typically these songs were the ones that were most popular at our live gigs. And even now as a solo artist I’m still playing some of these songs at open-mic nights and gigs.

Some years I uncovered my collection of the reel-to-reel and DAT tapes from these studio sessions – not the original multitrack tapes but the final mixed versions of the songs. I had them all converted to digital format and stuck them all on a couple of CDs. I used to listen to them occasionally and then after a while I forgot about them.

But after a recent tidy-out I came across the CDs and it was great to hear all these songs again.

Since I’m still performing some of the songs and they generate a bit of interest I decided that I wanted to share them – hence the Backstory album.

What’ll be on the Backstory album?

Firstly, please note that this album doesn’t contain any new material. I have started to record a new album this year (2023) but that album is not likely to be ready for release until next year some time.

Anyway, having collected together the demos and getting mastered versions of them I have to decide which ones to include, and then to decide on the track order.

Altogether there are about 20 songs which feels about right for this album really. I’m not intending to release this album on a physical CD but keep it just to digital downloads and on streaming services like Spotify.

So a potential track list could be something like this. I’ve indicated the bands I was in at the time of the demo as that tends to cover the musicians who played on the songs.

Shnaffel

All of these songs were written by me and were recorded in the mid 1990s.

1. Here By My Side
2. Commit Yourself
3. Inside Of Me

Great Unshaven

All of these songs were written by me and were recorded in early to mid 1990s.

1. Heart Made Of Stone
2. Release
3. Am I really Seeing Things?
4. On The Beach
5. How Did You Know?
6. Unknown
7. The Truth

Aviators

All of these songs were written by me and Laura Fudge and in one case Glen Bishop too. They were recorded in two sessions in the mid 1980s.

1. Batman The Caveman
2. Penguin’s Egg
3. Around The Table
4. Sweet Shock
5. Smooth

Reset

All of these songs were written by me and were recorded in the early 1980s.

1. Streams
2. So Far Away
3. Seychelles Shootout

Further details about each of the songs will be included when things are firmer.

What happens next?

I’ve got a couple of different mastered versions of On The Beach and I need to choose which one to use. The song is quite a quiet song that’s just me and an acoustic guitar so it’s got to sit alongside the other more raucous songs recorded at the same time.

After that I will submit the high quality .wav versions of the songs to CD Baby along with all the necessary details for each song.

When that’s all done I can then upload the songs to Bandcamp so that they will be available for digital download. I’ll also need some cover artwork for the album for Bandcamp even though I’m not releasing the album on CD.

When that’s all done I can decide on the release date for the Backstory album, and then let it happen.

The album will be available from Bandcamp from the release date, and will appear on Spotify, Apple Music, and all the other streaming platforms shortly after that too.

I’ll be posting further progress updates when each stage is complete.