Twelve years ago today, on July 4th, 2002, I released my first album, a CD called Stout & Martinis. I’ll never forget how excited I was to see the UPS guy deliver all of the boxes. I’d put out mix tapes before, but a CD. Wow. I was a real songwriter.
The album is actually still my most successful to date. I was gigging then, but I put out a heavily influenced by Bran-Van 3000 collection of electronic fuzed pop, and was gigging with 2002 technology. I think a big part of my stopping regular gigging was not being able to do what I wanted to do live. It would all be so much easier now. Anyhow… Stout & Martinis still gets downloaded and played through Google Play and on this website. And, there are only 5 of the giant run of CDs we had made left. –which is the only way you can take in the brilliant artwork that Gary Peters, Jr. did for the cover and CD itself.
But, I believe that CDs are dead. The last one I bought, I picked up 2 years ago, and haven’t opened it. I ended up buying the digital release from my phone. I’ve put out 11 other albums since 12 years ago when Stout & Martinis came out. All of them have been strictly digital releases. Unless I can start printing vinyl, that’s the way my stuff comes out.
Stout & Martinis has been available on my website for 12 years, and on Google Play for quite some time as a digital release. But today that release got an upgrade in honor of the 12th anniversary.
For the 12th anniversary of this release, on July 4, 2014, I’ve uploaded 2 bonus tracks that were originally intended to go on this album, but I didn’t include for some reason or another. You can stream them here on the Stout & Martinis page, and download them freely on the Google Play page for this album.
Spotify has a digitally remastered version, with the bonus tracks. And apparently it’ll be on iTunes starting this week too. Amazon is set to replace the sold-out CD version with the remastered version this week as well.
Anyhow, I’m rambling. Check out the 12th Anniversary version of Stout & Martinis on Spotify sometime this month. Maybe next week? Or if you want, get the 2 previously unreleased bonus tracks tomorrow on Google Play. For Free. Or stream them right damn now, right damn here. You’ve got choices. America! Happy 4th of July. Happy 12th, Stout & Martinis.
