Dedicated to Your New Album?

Tyler Irish is not just a new friend of mine, he’s also lead singer/guitarist/lyricist for the NY band Take One Car. This band is heavy on guitar, actually guitar to the third power, with some surprisingly solid vocals coming from the often soft-spoken Mr. Irish himself. Being that we are friends, and co-workers, I have been in tune with the process that Tyler and his band mates have endured in making their latest album.

And “endured” might even be an understatement in the making of their new album, When the Ceiling Meets the Floor.  For about five months straight, Tyler would leave his home in NY and travel 90 minutes to work in Connecticut, then travel nearly the same time back to the studio, four or five times per week to record.   After recording into the early morning hours, Tyler would then drive about 40 minutes to get home, sleep for a few hours and then get up to do it all again.  Weekends were spent rehearsing, writing or playing a few live shows.

About half way through the recording process, Tyler’s car was hit from behind one morning on his way to work, by a bus driver. So in the midst of the recording process and $4 per gallon gas, Tyler was dealing with borrowed cars, hospital visits and insurance red tape attempting to screw him out of whatever they could.  Despite a slight concussion, Tyler and the guys held it together long enough to keep things moving forward during their nightly rendezvous at the studio.  Almost like the “two weeks” scenes out of The Money Pit, whenever someone asked Tyler were they were at in the recording process, for months the answer always seemed to be “about half-way done.”

While the personal commitments I’ve outlined are clear, what’s not usually seen or heard about are the personal relationships.  The seven months of recording, mixing and mastering the album cost the band two marriages and one serious relationship.  That’s something that does not show up on the bottom line, but should not go without mention.  Being dedicated to your music or your art, almost always comes with a price.  Those who can do both and keep their family life, business relationships and personal relationships intact, should receive medals.

Now the album is officially complete – See Tyler’s blog post and picture of the final mastered disc. Tyler gave me a copy of the master just yesterday and it really sounds amazing.  I’ll be first in line to buy 10 copies, so if you’re interested in hearing it, sign-up for my mailing list using the form on the far right of this page and I’ll send a copy to the first 10 people who put “Take One Car” in the Notes box.

During our lunch yesterday, I asked Tyler about touring to support the new release.  It sounded like he wasn’t certain.  I’m not sure if he said that because we work together and he would be concerned about loosing his job or because he truly hadn’t given it a lot of thought.  One of the original founders of Take One Car returns to the US in Spring and with the new album being released in March, it just seems to make sense.

After all this time, tragedy and personal sacrifice, the idea of NOT touring to support, and to truly celebrate this effort is totally foreign to me.  And this is not just directed toward Tyler or the band, but to all of those who’ve committed to getting their tracks heard.  To not take to the open road and meet people and visit places you have never seen before, seems like more than a missed life opportunity.  The supporting tour seems like the payoff, the return on your life invested.

There is a great moment in the movie Elizabethtown where a former musician fondly recalls his glory days; “That was my band. This was the show we opened for Lynyrd fucking Skynyrd.”  Whether you realize it or not, these are your glory days.  Please take your bow.

-pjc

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