Yes, it is! After an incredible odyssey, the cover art and audio files for “The Harder They Strum” are finally at the Disc Makers factory in Pennsauken, NJ., where the disc elves are toiling over whatever machinery disc elves toil over these days. My original release date was April 4th. Then the snowstorm hit, forcing Earthman Maxwell, my amazing artist from his Fortress of Solitude in rural Pennsylvania into a hotel for a week until power was restored. Then a workstorm hit, and I was suddenly covering two full days of guitar and bass lessons in addition to five or six gigs I didn’t have until the last minute. Work is good, always. But in this case work delayed my submission of tax data to my accountant. (At least I can pay him!) So that meant that I couldn’t work on any THTS related matters until that was resolved.

Brett Collins of Coverspace did an amazing rush job on the cover design. I absolutely love it, but since there are thirty-five musicians and singers on “The Harder They Strum,” as well as other important credits and information, it took almost a full day to proofread. Then the factory had some design issues with the artwork. So I missed my next planned release date of Apri 18th. But, we have a planned delivery date and an enormous mental weight has been lifted from my shoulders.

I realized today that I have been working on this project for over three years. The planning stage took almost six months, the recording took about thirty hours (spread out over two years between everything else I do), the mixing took almost a year, (spread out between everything I did last year and everything my engineers were doing, often in different continents), and the label dance took a month or so. Though there may be another round of dancing, we’ll see.

I now have a new set of worries: promoting, marketing, distributing, and selling the record. But I’m ready for that now. I made the record I wanted to make. I’m thrilled with the results. I’d love to make enough money out of it to make another one, though I’m not counting on that to happen. Mostly I’m genuinely curious about what the public response will be. The music makes a lot of sense to me or I wouldn’t put it out. But will it make sense to you? We’ll soon find out.