A New CD, ASAP

Wednesday November 25th, 2009 - Kenosha, WI/Lake Villa, IL

I’m moving steadily ahead on my new CD project, I just hope I can make it pay off with some sales. This has been a long time coming, probably too long. Now I know why bands sometimes wait several years between releases. It’s a major undertaking to get one done.

My first one came out in late 2003. I recorded a week of shows in Louisville, KY at The Comedy Caravan and ended up using one of the weekend shows as the CD. It was a fairly representative example of what I was doing at the time, so I just released it warts and all

In the past, comics have edited together the best bits of multiple shows but I didn’t have the time or resources to do that. I suppose I could have, but I just wanted to get something OUT. I spent some extra money to have a nice package made, and I’m very glad I did. It’s received all kinds of compliments and I’m flattered to hear every one, but I can do better.

I want to be proud of what I release, not just piece together some half assed compilation of murky recordings I made with a Kmart cassette recorder in 1987. I want to give people their money’s worth and more. I like bonus tracks and liner notes, as I think it adds value.

I really do care about my fans, even though I probably don’t have as many as I could by now. In my mind, I should have been releasing yearly recordings for the past 12-15 years but I was too busy working the road and dealing with things like having to testify against my best friend at the bank robbery trial. Life squelched my recording career significantly.

Radio didn’t help much either. I was doing comedy the whole time I was in radio but it was all I could handle to keep my jobs in Reno and Salt Lake City and The Loop too. I’m amazed at the schedule I kept all those years. I’d do comedy clubs at night, then stay up to do the morning radio show, then sleep most of the day. I’m sure that will affect me later.

I did what I had to do to survive. I was too busy working to build a career, and now I’m in a precarious predicament. How do I make all that hard work pay off? I’ve got a backlog of material the public hasn’t heard, but how can I get it out? This CD will be my first test.

I’m very pleased with the recording that’s being used for this next release. It was a good night at Zanies with a positive vibe in the audience and I remember it being very fun. I am also including bonus tracks of a funny Mr. Lucky country song my friend Joe Dell’Orfano wrote plus an interview I did with Jerry Agar recently that’s hopefully interesting to fans.

Today I drove to Kenosha to have Lou Rugani voice the intro track. He’s one of the best voice guys anywhere and did it as a favor to me, which I really appreciate. I had him play God, and explain that Mr. Lucky was created so people would always be able to laugh.

It may work, it may not. But I wanted to try it, so I did. Now all I have to do is package it up and get them printed and I’ll have a new product to sell. It’s way better than the last one, and hopefully the next one will be way better than this. Still, this one doesn’t suck.