In getting these 35 songs out, or now 29 (if you consider dropping the 3’s), all of them need to be recorded. And, for me at least, all of them need to be played live as well. Everything is intertwined, but playing live is different from arranging and recording. If you try and make both versions at the same time, you’ll waste a good portion of your life otherwise better spent.
You also run the risk of getting into versioning hell, making so many multiples of a single songs that you enter an endless loop, never finishing any version of anything.
You are susceptible to the above when leaving the initial writing phase too quickly, not fully completing the first draft. (A huge issue when you have a lot of material to get out!)
So what can or can’t you do? Number 1 is eliminating all of your little unknown rules and stops; the do’s and don’t that you’ve allowed yourself. Who knows where they come from, but they are anti-art and must be eliminated ASAP.
One of my stops is a sort-of clash: overly-comparing my end product with styles I wish I more easily fell into vs. being an advocate of ‘you make what you make.’ My mind says, ‘this needs to fit x to get y.’ And I don’t even know what y is. But I’m also telling myself, ‘this is your own thing!’ I’m perfectly happy with my thing. I fact, I’m proud of it! But I like slotting in. Yikes, right? (And please, this is no sly self-compliment.)
Good news: I think I may have cracked the code on a couple of these stops: song structure and logo/ name. More on these next!
-jd
Alpha Juno Records 