And I’m not alone. There are many of us sick of the processed rubbish. So I did something. For over a year I’ve been writing and recording hundreds of my own songs on my laptop using a Line 6 tone port, a Taylor acoustic, a Fender strat, and a Shure mike. I call the set up The Hexyl Circle.

In 2006, I uploaded enough tracks to fill a CD which I burned and called Shedworks. One track, Feel a Little Love, has been downloaded 105 times on Itunes alone.

Maybe people thought they were downloading Depeche Mode’s Dream On, can you feel a little love. Sorry. If you are one of the 105 people listening to my song Feel a Little Love, or any of my songs, on your I-pod, tell me what you think. I’d love to hear from you.

So now I have 36 minutes of new music on my Hexyl Circle Myspace profile, which in no small way makes up my second CD, call it, Some Day Soon:

1. September 73 (sit back, relax, rock and pop are dead)

2. Who Am I To Disagree? (ft MiNiMaL_aRT) the remix of my song knocks me out.

3. Whatever It Is I Want It – I just visited the Beatles houses, see my last post for photos.

4. Not Strong Enough (ft MiNiMaL_aRT) this amazing remix smooths my melody into a new groove.

5. I’m Not Strong Enough – the original. Not supposed to be there, but Myspace won’t let me delete it.

6. Some Day Soon – you might have heard it on my other Myspace profile. Here’s what they say: “‘some day soon’ is just beautiful, the guitar playing is wonderful, the lyrics are pure poetry and the melody just blows me away with its dynamics…
…great one!”

7. Don’t Spoil It – Plastic Dave wrote the verses and recorded voice, bass, drums, and sublime banjo.

8. Looking Back – new song looking back in time, it’s never nice to look back in time.

9. New Blue Jeans – this grew into some kind of morbid jazz blues.

10. Who Am I To Disagree – the original.

11. Don’t Know What I’m Doing – Bombero made a great final track out of my wobbly dirge. Well I never claimed I knew what I was doing.

Download, kick back, headphones on for the full squeaking chair surround sound effect. No expense has been spared in the recording of this material. What I like most about writing, recording and publishing my own songs is I have the freedom to write and record anything I want. Complete artistic control is about having power. Mainstream music is full of rules, marketing, profiling, conventions, restrictions. I wouldn’t want anything to do with it.

You can download my songs at Libsyn. Myspace downloading is broken. Here’s a taster of the tracks, MiNiMaL_aRT’s remix of my song I’m Not Strong Enough.