For the past few weeks, I've been in the midst of rehearsals for the upcoming Every Damn Day 20th Anniversary Reunion Show. In between, I've been working with the Planets on recordings for a new album. As I mentioned earlier, my friend Jim "Higgs" Higgins (Whatnots, Skanatra), has added guitar parts to a song called "Shot of Confidence." Tonight after rehearsal, Jim Van Sickle and I played the most recent mix of that song for John and Richie of EDD. Its lyrics express a fair amount of self-doubt and self-loathing, which led John to voice concern. I responded that the song was written 5 years ago.
There are a few EDD songs that have the same mood or express similar sentiments; "Sudden Spark" is one that immediately leaps to mind. When Higgs first heard "Shot of Confidence," he remarked that it sounded a lot like Pat DiNizio of the Smithereens, a band that influenced some of EDD's earliest work.
Indeed, many of the songs that will be featured on the next Mike Daly & The Planets album are in fact several years old. To my ears, and those of the people I've shared the demos with, they've held up over time. The great thing is that while most of these songs, like most of those recorded by EDD, were inspired by negative life experiences, they no longer inspire unpleasant feelings for me; rather, they're simply songs that I take pride in having written. That's the up side of using songwriting (or any kind of creative outlet) as therapy: Once you're able to get past the pain of the bad experience, you're left with an entirely separate entity that will hopefully strike a chord with an audience.
In the coming weeks and months, we also plan to record material I've written much more recently, including some that is currently only in the idea stage. These songs will be more reflective of my life now: much more confident, positive and hopeful.
And so, just as my newest recordings will feature a rotating cast of musicians to produce a variety of sounds and styles, so will they vary in mood, encompassing what has been a long period of transition in my life. I hope to record and perform the kind of music that spoke to me as I was growing up, and compelled me to create my own.
I'll be offering sneak previews of our latest stuff as this project progresses. In the meantime, I hope to see many of you at the EDD show on 2/26!
