St Patrick's Day Gone (Patreon)

Confession time. 

I had very few complaints with Not Every Day Is St Patrick's Day when it was first released. It met most all of the goals I wanted out of it. It was a fun Irish CD. It was packed full of songs. Many were favorites of mine over the years. I even had a song win in the Celtic Radio Music Awards (for "Rising of the Moon"). The album just did fantastic.

And yet... I still had a few problems with the album.

Whenever we complete something, we also have a few small issues. But then they grow bigger with time.

Usually, I never go back and mess with a completed project. It just doesn't make sense. It's done. But this time, I am.

So what did I screw up? 

First, the title. I love it. It was appropriate. But it was not what I wanted it to be. I wanted the album to be called St Patrick's Day. That's because I am a marketer. One of the big goals of this project was to have a good keyword rich and appropriate title. That's it--St Patrick's Day.

Yes. I have creative titles that aren't about keywords, like As Long As I'm Flyin' and Selcouth. I know those titles will not attract listeners. And that is my choice. But St Patrick's Day... 

I listened to the advice of others. It circumvented the entire purpose of releasing this CD. It's a marketing album designed to attract Irish music fans. Later, they will learn that I am a geek. And if they are geeks too, then they will truly love all that I have to offer.

Second is the cover.

I picked it. And I love it. It's artsy. But if there's one thing I learned about myself, artsy is not my strong suit.

That goes with song lyrics. It also goes with art and photography.

It's drab and not beautiful. It doesn't grab your eye. It's not something you would put on your wall. But it needs to be something just like that!

As for the music, most of it is pretty solid. 

I wish I had additional instrumentation for "Whiskey in the Jar". There's a bad note in "Old Dun Cow" (it is fixed on Bandcamp). After repeatedly driving through Castlemaine in Ireland, I've been disappointed with "Wild Colonial Boy". Everything else, I'm proud of.

I pulled the album from all streaming this week. It is now only available on Bandcamp and the last 30 or so copies of the physical CD.

I'm gonna re-release the album in the months to come. 

There is another reason I decided to pull the album. It's a neurotic issue. 

I used to release a LOT of albums, EPs, and singles all for marketing purposes. I feel like those purposes cannibalized some of the success of other albums. So I went through my CD Baby account and removed several titles which are no longer relevant or duplicated on my actual albums. I'm hoping when I finally release St Patrick's Day again, it'll do better.

But it might not.

I'm okay with that.

Ultimately, these are issues that bugged me enough to pull a fun album from production. I think that's pretty telling in itself.

So if you want to own the original version, get a copy on Bandcamp now.

If you already own a digital copy on Bandcamp, you don't have to do anything. I'm gonna update that page directly. So one day, it'll just change. So if there's something you wanna keep, you consider downloading those files now.

Any case, I just wanted to let you know. Thank you for all your support.