March 20, 2007.
Today the debut full-length Secretary Bird record comes out. It is an honest, solid record and I am very proud of it.

If anyone reading this is in a band or close to someone who puts out records, you know how many ducks need to line up for this to happen. It is surprising that there is so much music out there with as difficult as it is to produce a cohesive finished record.

It is a labor of love, or as a friend of mine says it a "chore of enchantment".

If you get a minute, give it a listen. The reviews are good, people seem to like it.

I'd like to, at one point, get into the changes that take place when writing music. The people who come and go, or come and stay awhile and then go, the different apartments and cars, etc. I don't think now's the time, but someday. It's fascinating.

In highschool there are parties on Friday night, Saturday night, football games, house parties, we used to get sh!t-hammered drunk and hang out at pizza hut. That goes on for awhile and then the parties are more frequent, ditching class, getting stoned in the washes of Tucson, games of quarters at someone's older brother's aprtment at one in the afternoon, pool parties. I hung out with the stoners, and the preppies, and sometimes with the jocks. I think the preppies partied the hardest. They had all the equipment; all the accoutrement.

There were a couple dudes I knew that didn't party as much. One was a shredding guitar player, his name was Brian. There were two dudes in my highschool who could play eruption, I was one and Brian was the other. He played it better than me. He had a friend named Jeff. They practiced a lot, and partied on the off time. We had a band together called "The Entire Population of Nogales", formerly called "Mercenary". EPN was a better name we decided, and went with it, but the set list of Iron Maiden covers and Van Halen and the Kinks, stayed the same. Those guys would skip the highschool parties, or some of them, and practice, or shoot guns or whatever. I think they both became cops.

A lot of the jocks I knew went on to play professional sports. Those who didn't are doing pretty well. Of the three main stoners I hung out with, one went to prison, one is in AA for better or worse, and the third, this dude Billy who swore Led Zeppelin was getting back together, he was killed.

The preppies didn't fare any better, they're somewhere in the middle. A couple car salesmen, a couple deaths, one super wealthy dude, and a lot of fading away.

I love all of this. I love making records and trying to remember that place. There is so much in the middle that gets overlooked. Rock and roll nation is right in front of you. You've got it already.

There was a girl who graduated before me, her name was Jessica. She was a total enigma. She affected everyone around her. She was killed at an early age by a skater. She was a bright light and a pop song and she had an incredible family and incredible friends and she won't soon be forgotten. We saw Al Perry and the Cattle at the FineLine and got drunk, and she loved the Smiths and Megadeath. That was the summer that Guns and Roses' Patience video came out. We were just kids.

Sometimes songs are a celebration of people you knew, people you know. Sometimes it seems a little sad, but for me it makes me feel good, resolved. Reassured. That Bad Company song "Don't you know that you are a Shooting Star" is awesome. That is everything. When I would listen to that song as a kid on my brothers headphones on that waterbed and Johnny dies at the end I'd get really happy not because he's gone but because he's home and that is the story and that story is in all of us and it is rock and roll at it's finest. It is sublime.

I strive for that. I strive to tell stories, sometimes vague sometimes not, but nonetheless it is the story and it's in all of us and you have to tell it. And once in awhile, it will take flight. Once in awhile it all falls into place.

I hope you all enjoy the new record and please just know I did my best to tell a story or two and I hope that comes through.

All the very best,

Mike