At Home in Storytown

In my last post I promised that next I would whine about the NYC gigging scene, the struggle to find an audience, etc. But GOOD NEWS, f*ck that, I’m instead just going to report on new music.

A couple of years ago I was in a mode of creating videos for new songs and writing a blog post about each one. Then, in an attempt to grow our audience, I switched into a mode of releasing new songs to the streaming services and creating Facebook ads to promote them – and I stopped the blog posts. So, and I apologize for this, I neglected you, my dedicated readers; I didn’t let you know when there was a new song. Today I am bringing you up to date.

I have created a Spotify playlist that collects songs that I have “formally” released since the release of our debut album, Welcome to Storytown.

For that album, I felt the need to go “semi” old school and have CDs pressed, complete with multipage booklets with lyrics and cool graphics evoking a “music in NYC” vibe:

FWIW, I have plenty of those CDs left over (of course), so let me know if you want one. At the very least, the booklet is pretty cool.

As the streaming services have come to dominate music listening, listeners have focused more on single tracks and playlists. Certainly nobody buys albums much anymore – I don’t think. I’ve steadily been writing and recording songs at home, and I’ve wondered why I should bother with releasing a formal “album”. Thus I’ve just been releasing single tracks, roughly once a month, for a while. This strategy hasn’t really helped grow our audience (I know, NO whining), but I’m going to continue the practice anyway. And I figure it’s time to bring you up to date.

I’ve created a Spotify playlist, “At Home in Storytown”, that collects all those single tracks. They were all recorded at home. Information and streaming links for each one can be found on our website’s “Get the Music” page, so, for the record, some of the info here is redundant.

As is typical for me, each song is a bit different from the others, and I do worry that it hurts Storytown that the music may lack a collective stylistic “coherence” and that it doesn’t neatly fit into any single genre. Those of you who know me know that a deep touchstone is The Beatles, and one thing I appreciated about them was their freedom and willingness to create music that was all over the map style-wise. So, f*ck it, I need to feel free to do the same:

Here's the Spotify playlist link again: “At Home in Storytown”. There are more songs coming, so if you like the music, follow Storytown on one of the streaming services or periodically check our “Get the Music” page.

Coming soon: Some musings about the role of AI in music and about whether the “singularity” is already at hand ;-). And a new song to accompany all that.

As always, thanks for listening….