"idiotic"

"a collosial waste of my time"

"..."

"genius"

"a perfect soundtrack if you ever wanted to drive off a cliff"

"do you want to make money with this?"

"too long"

"too many short songs"

"what were you thinking?"

"not bad"

"i only got through three or four songs before i had to turn it off"

"did you record this through a boom box?"

"not the worst thing i've ever heard"

"maybe music isn't for you"

"the vocals are terrible. did you only do one take?"

"too sad"

"it just goes on and on and on and on"

"i'll definitely get around to listening to it later"

these are snippets of some reviews that i got when i had first finished recording the original version of the album back in 2010. there were more but i can't find them. to say i was dissapointed is an understatement. i had spent months working on lyrics and music and tinkering with it till i thought it was great. it was recorded in a house with three other roommates, two cats, a dog and a bird. it was recorded all on a webcam microphone by a gigantic window.

i did get some positive feedback on one or two of the songs but generally the response was negative bordering on just not caring about it.

i still consider this one of my favourite things i've ever done. i tried recording it again in a more professional studio but i couldn't remember how to play some parts and it just didn't feel right. i've sent it out to many different people throughout the years and have got back some crushing reviews and feedback. probably the worst reviews were the countless people who received copies and never said anything about it. now i'd like to think that this record left them speechless but most likely they never listened to it or hated it and didn't want to hurt my feelings.

i love this record. some of the vocals are bad. some of the lyrics are bad. you can hear a metronome throughout and the overall sound quality is bad, but i love it and what it's about so i'm finally putting it out on the internet for people to listen to. hopefully someone out there will like it as much as i do.

i've reworked this album so many times over the years trying to make it sound better, but every time i would end up with a product i wasn't happy with. i was stuck without the original recordings also they had been lost. i had some mp3's but without the original source material and access to individual tracks i wasn't left with a lot of options. finally i decided to just give it another go and however it turns out this will be it. no more tinkering no more wasting time. so this will be the "final" release of these versions of these songs.

i'm including a story about each song. if you click on the track instead of just getting lyrice you'll also get some inside information on the track. i'm also including the story of the album.

i had a friend who vanished after highschool. he just packed up and moved without really telling anyone. from time to time i would receive letters from him with no return address. he would give me a synopsis of what was going on in his life. he had found his way down to san francisco.

he had always seemed like a happy kid but i found out that he had struggled with depression and doubts and all sorts of demons. he would write about some of these demons in these letters. he wrote of heartbreak time after time and how there was a point in his life where he almost died due to some poor decisions he had made. sometimes i'd go months without a letter sometimes years. i lost the letters over the years as i moved around but i never forgot the letters. so these songs are about the letters and my friend who as far as i know is still out there. maybe one day i'll receive another letter but if i don't i'll always remember the last line of his last letter "i think i'm finally happy".

enjoy