OK, It’s August. So Where The Heck Is Positive Re-Mastered?
Dear JC,
On 24 May you wrote that the re-mastered version of Positive would be available by 1 August of this year.
Well, it’s now the fifteenth and I’ve heard nothing about this for quite some time.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I seem to recall that your last record was also delayed. And the one before that. And so was the one before that.
You know I support you, mate. But let me ask you: Why bother telling people about new albums if you never come anywhere near the target? Why not try putting out a new album after it’s done and not talking about it beforehand?
Hoisted on my own blog-petard. How embarrassing.
The raw truth is this: The sun got in my eyes. So it fell out of me bag on the way to school. And my dog ate it. And then things got really tough.
But seriously ladies and germs, there’s been the usual delays which result from trying to do too many darned things all at once and expecting everything to fall into place. Moving is one thing. The rip off of my drum set being another. The ongoing health crap.
That said, these are all just excuses and my correspondent’s points are all well taken. Unfortunately, in order to sell these coasters of sonic platinum, I kinda/sorta have to have goals. I need to set a time-line if only because I am desperately trying to target another frequent complaint from my most loyal fans. Which goes something like this old joke:
“JC, with your amazing marketing skills, if you’d have met Harlan Sanders back in the day? We’d now know the Colonel’s secret recipe as ‘Hot Dead Bird In A Box For Three Bucks’.”
Guilty as charged. I wanted ever so much to make this record different and not keep missing deadlines. Because the real truth is that if I want to sell this thing like it’s got “a secret blend of eleven herbs and spices” I gotta get it out to “the press” at least a month before it goes into production. It’s called lead time and it’s why I can’t just wait until I “get ‘er done, Larry.”
Anyhoo, rest assured things proceed apace. We’re probably looking at an October 1, 2010 ship date—still plenty of time to get ‘er done for holiday shopping and to stage a wee bit of a comeback tour. (Fingers crossed!)
I was gonna put in some specifically cool things I’m working on to make Positive Re-Mastered the greatest thing since this (Insanity or genius? You make the call!) but shame prevents me from making any other claims that may come back to bite me in the ass.
So for now, I’ll simply tell you that I’ll ping you back when I have more hard facts and fewer predictions on offer. I simply don’t want to oversell anymore.
I mean, seriously, if Positive Re-Mastered redefines the outer limits of beauty and profundity in recorded sound, it’s not something that I should be talking about ahead of time. Now is it?
Positive Remastered — Finally!
After nine years? The first record from JCHMusic will finally be available as a professionally remastered version.
As long-term listeners know, in late 2007 I embarked on a plan to re-master the first four records prior to the release of Home. For some reason, I released them in reverse order, starting with Balance — then Compartments and Superpower. Then all heck started to break loose in my life and I had to leave off.
Until now, this has always been a great personal sadness for me. After more than twenty years playing other people’s stuff, Positive was a chance to finally get the music out there that I wanted to do. So, like many artists’ first records, it contains some of my best stuff (in fact, the sophomore jinx so many artists encounter is often simply the result of one simple fact: they’ve usually had umpteen years to develop ten great songs for their initial offering but then only twelve months to do the second. Do the math.)
The really annoying thing is that, although Positive benefited greatly from the ‘first release effect’ as far as song quality, it also suffered in equal amount from another common characteristic of first records: namely crappy recording quality. And the complexity of reasons that led to thiss can all be summed up in one sentence: On the job training. I was teaching myself the wonders of digital recording as I went and made all the usual mistakes that newbies make.
In my defense, I have to say that I never intended to release Positive to the general public. As I’ve commented on ad nauseum, I was still in the ‘traditional marketing mode.’ My goal was simply to get something out to ‘the industry’, get a record deal of some kind and then record the ‘real’ debut album. With someone else’s money. Putting it on a web site was a complete afterthought and came about only because I was writing shopping cart software at my ‘day job.’ Making it available for sale was more of an exercise in learning e-commerce than in cutting edge music promotion. But for whatever reason, people bought it; I started touring to support it and the rest is recent history.
Now here we are. Positive has several songs that I still think are among my best efforts and I feel strongly that they deserve to be heard the way I meant for them to sound. At my live shows, “Why Don’t You Come In?” and “You Are Loved” always were among the best received pieces.
So while everyone is waiting for me to get on with something truly ‘new’, I’m offering the next best thing in the meantime—completely new mixes of the original twelve songs that I think you’ll find are as striking as seeing the Sistine Chapel before and after the cleaning. 
OK, maybe not quite that striking.
As we get closer to release date, we’ll be posting some ‘before and after’ clips to give you some idea of the differences. At the risk of sounding immodest, I think you’ll be impressed at the difference that nine years and a couple of Grammy® Award-winning engineers can make.
Some Details
- Positive Re-Mastered is scheduled to ship August 1, 2010. As you’ve overwhelmingly demanded, it will be packaged in the traditional jewel-box and include not only the original art, but additional production notes.
- If you pre-order (we’ll start taking orders July 1) you will receive an autographed copy and a personal note.
- For current owners, as before, there will be a trade-up offery. You will be able to get the new release for a measly $5.00. If you ship back your current version, we’ll even pick up the return shipping.
Commitment: Coda
As picayune as my ‘career’ has been by ‘American Idol’ standards, the truth is, that I have been totally blessed with a core following that most artists would kill to have. You who have been so devoted through all my ups and downs deserve the best quality recordings I can muster. It’s not only my pleasure and honour to finally offer Positive Re-mastered, but frankly? It’s the least I can do for everyone who has supported my work. Of course, I hope that this release finds new listeners—better mixes have definitely brought new people into the fold with each re-mastered album, but that’s not the main point. I want everyone to know that I’m back and just as energized about what I do as I was ten years ago. Positive Re-mastered is just the first fruit of that effort for 2010. As I sang almost a decade ago now into the first decent microphone I ever owned:
I am committed.
JCHMusic Now On TheSixtyOne
Add thesixtyone.com to the never-ending list of places you can check out JCHMusic. This site is a great place to see really new bands, with a heavy emphasis on ‘indie’, but every once in a while there are some out of the mainstream acts (such as moi.)
Thesixtyone has all the usual ‘social networking’ bells and whistles. You can ‘like’ and ‘share’ and create ‘playlists’ but it’s real strength is in exposing you to new, quality artists that you might not otherwise encounter (the true beauty of a good radio station is the encounter with the unexpected, n’est pas?)
OK, forget all that searching for truth jazz. Here’s the direct link to JCHMusic on thesixtyone. If you care, start there. Then you can move onto all that other stuff. 
Nice Cuts: Temporarily Sold Out!
Sorry to disappoint, but I found out just a few days ago that the initial run of Nice Cuts is long gone, daddie-o. I’m beyond mortified about the whole situation and am doing my best to rectify as quickly as possible. Until then, we’ve disabled those pesky ‘Buy!’ buttons to keep you safe.
If you’ve just ordered, you should’ve already received a refund and an opt-out e-mail to be auto-magically reminded when we’re back in stock. When there is product, you’ll receive an e-mail with a button to re-order.
Now that said, as with other albums, this gives me a unique chance to re-write history as it were. I’ve got one or two ideas on how to augment the CD as a small act of contrition for failing to satisfy. I may add a new song. I’ll probably re-master a couple of songs that, from the benefit of six months distance now seem a bit less than I had hoped. Or, since I am working on Detroit The Opera, I may just add the overture to the thing—which is now pretty close to being ‘in the can, man.’
Finally, if you already own Nice Cuts and find the above teasers to be absolutely mouthwatering? In the immortal words of Headley Lamar, “Gentlemen rest your sphincters!” As always, just send back yer original CD and we’ll happily send you the brand new version for only 99¢ + S/H. Or, you’ll be able to get the new bits as digital downloads in the Swag Shop. Or you could just buy a whole new CD and give the original to yer brother-in-law. We’re easy.
JCHMusic: The Radio Station
Starting today I’m beta testing my very own internet radio station. That’s right, I’m the DJ and guess what music is on tap?
Actually, although JCHMusic is definitely on the map, my stuff won’t be the only fare–or even near to the majority of fare, on offer. What you will hear is a sampling of my rather <ahem> ‘catholic’ taste in music. In addition to the Brits you might expect from a guy who claims to fly the ‘progressive rock’ flag, you’ll also get bits ranging from Altan to Tom Zé. Was Not Was to Weather Report. Miles Davis target=”_blank” To Material. Shakti to Stevie Wonder. And anyone else I ever thought to steal from.
The idea is to present something near and dear to my heart… a bit of real radio; back when radio was educational, eclectic and unpredictable. You may not like everything, but I hope you’ll hear how it all fits together and you’ll occasionally be moved to explore.
Click here to begin the adventure.
