Year 2005

March 4, 2005
 

Hello Friends,

The recording and mixing of the new STYX CD, "Big Bang Theory" is finished and all that remains is all the little details that need to be gathered as well as the cover art before we send it off to be manufactured.  It was a fun record to make, selecting tracks which reflected the origin of STYX as we know it, from songs which were released no later than 1972.  There was a treasure chest of great music to choose from, but we finally narrowed it down to the list you'll see in May. 

With the ongoing success of "I Am The Walrus" we were motivated to take on some other challenging songs like The Allman Bros.' "One Way Out," The WHO's "I Can See For Miles," Procol Harum's "Salty Dog" and several others which some might see as uncoverable.  But the band rose to that challenge and we're thrilled with the results.

The day after completing my last parts on "Big Bang Theory" I left for Santa Rosa to do the same on Jack's and my "Influence" CD which we began recording in 13 months ago.  Some might assume that Jack and I were following in the footsteps of STYX, but the irony is we had been working on this idea since 2003.  We tried to finish it before going on our spring/summer tours with our respective bands last year, but ran out of time.  Now, after three final days of reviewing and filling in all the last parts, the recording is finished there too.  We have still not signed with a label but we're getting close so it won't be long. 

The STYX record came about after we played "I Am The Walrus" at Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival last year.  We thought there was a live recording of it and we told Greg Solk at the LOOP in Chicago that we'd cut it there that day.  He said "Get me a copy and I'll put it on the air..."  We found out soon afterwards that there had been technical problems and there was not a full recording, so we cut it live in September up on the Oregon Coast at our own show, and that's what you hear now.  Jim Ladd also got a copy and began playing it on his KLOS show in Los Angeles.  Soon we were printing up hundreds of them for friends at radio all over the country.  What we did not have was an album to put it on so that we were not just releasing a single.  We decided then to make "Big Bang Theory" as quickly as we could so that we could include "Walrus" on a full CD.  Crazy, and bass-ackwards from how things are normally done, but the very fact that it was all out of sync made it that much more fun and interesting to do.

As John Lennon used to say, "Life is what happens while you're busy making plans..."  Life definitely happened and I'm glad it did.

See you soon,

TS