Happy Birthday TJ!

Happy 21st birthday to my son TJ, who is unfortunately spending it by himself in CA today. It's hard to think that he is by himself today, but I guess those are the hard choices you need to make when you're chasing something bigger. Just a sad situation that we really hope improves as time goes on.

Anyway, back to this new Chad & Jeremy release. The bright spot here is perhaps Chad's solo on "Another Time," which has grown on me a bit today after a few listenings. There are a few things happening with synth sounds and percussion that are distractions more than anything else going on in the background, a somewhat obvious drum machine, and I'm not sure that the "another time" theme is really fully developed lyrically within the song, but there's a nice melody and a nicely restrained vocal and some nice harmonies as well to make it all quite nice in the end.

I'm not especially fond of "Dragon Wanted," the Clyde/Pierce composition, because I think it lacks the humor and social commentary that marked previous attempts by this writing team. I'm thinking of course of Tell You Something Else, Some Small Town, Lady Wants a Gentleman and Made for Each Other from their recent past that worked so well for them (and us). This one isn't up to that level, lyrically or performance-wise. Sure it's listenable, but again, not as interesting overall as what came before.

While I myself am disappointed with some choices here, there is certainly some good music here, and the overall musical package is much more satisfying than was the Christmas release, with about 7 minutes of new Chad & Jeremy music (we don't count Ms. Stuart-Baker's performance, nor the 2 songs that were previously released as free mp3's on the web site). I think that release got off on the wrong foot for me when it was announced as "we've decided to offer it at the low price of $1.99 as our present to you." I had thought that a present by definition was given freely and without compensation, so that whole thing came across to me as "here's my gift to you, now pay me $1.99". And it's not the paltry price, it's the somewhat condescending way it was presented. Just my opinion, and I know I read too much into things. But sometimes it seems that there's a whole lot of smoke being blown up our collective skirts by the "official" channels, that my head always seems to be shaking in wonderment. In the next week or so, I hope to report back on all of the projects mentioned as in the works that haven't yet seen the light of day, and which seem to fall under the general category of "smoke".

There's also what looks to be some less than good news on the horizon. If I'm not mistaken, by this time in years past we've seen quite a few more bookings than we've seen so far for 2010. I just wonder whether they've decided to cut back on touring, or if there is something else going on. I guess time will tell. Makes one wish for a live concert DVD or CD so their performances might be archived and enjoyed for years to come. Hope does spring eternal, does it not?

Superbowl. Meh.