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Hey, Friend,

Happy Spring, or something like it!

The calendar assures me that soon, the grass will start to turn green again, flowers will poke their heads through the soil, and young hearts will turn to love. But that calendar’s 2 years out of date, and I’m only keeping it because I like the pictures of tigers for each month, so I’m not sure how well I should trust it.

Regardless, things charge ahead! The mixes for my upcoming full-length, House of Ghosts, are sounding fantastic. I had the opportunity to give a sneak preview of three of the tracks, and chat about tour stories with Mike Sandy on the CLE show last week – you can check out the interview here!

No release date set yet, but if you want to be first in line to know when that’s announced, make sure to follow my social media accounts to keep up to date.

Editing is also almost all complete on Almost Like Live, the multimedia EP that I’ll also be releasing shortly. Here’s a few still frames from the videos – as expected, Mark Sowers knocked it out of the park on the visuals for this one.

I’ve got a few shows this month, including one TONIGHT in Erie, PA with my friends in Ashley. I’d love to see some friendly faces at those shows!

As always, there’s a chance a few more dates may pop up on my calendar – you can always find all the upcoming shows on my Tour Dates page.

Also, while I don’t usually mention it in these e-mails (they are, after all, labelled as “music news”), one of the many hats I wear is running a board game company. We’ve got a Kickstarter campaign going right now for our second game, a memory game called Flip & Find’s Diner that’s all about trying to remember where you left your noodles. If you’re in to tabletop games, give it a look!

Once again, thank you for taking this journey with me!

Cheers,
Michael

Copyright © 2018 Michael McFarland, All rights reserved.

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Hey, Friend,

Happy March!

My birthday month is upon us. I’ve never quite understood the saying about how “March comes in like a lion” until last night, when I walked to the local convenience store through gale-force winds and thundersnow. Those barbecue chips were totally worth it, though.

Things are charging forward with getting the new record finished! This past week I’ve been listening to the first full set of House of Ghosts mixes Eric (of Eric Bert Audio) sent over, and they’re sounding fantastic. I’ll be getting my mix notes back to him within the next few days, and it’s going to be a wonderfully short document. I intend to have the album artwork complete by the end of next week, so a release date can’t be far behind… be sure to keep an eye on my various social media outlets for the latest news on all that!

I’ve also been working on upgrades to my recording space, Spontaneously Combustible Studio, where I recorded the new record, and am currently producing records for several other artists, including my good friends Kevin Conaway and Sean Benjamin. The studio now features a properly grounded electrical system, snazzy track lighting, and most recently, a logo mural (as pictured) by Kim Kennedy. If you’re looking to hire someone to paint something big on a wall (or something small on a canvas), head to allyouneediskim.com and hit her up.

I’ve got a few shows this month, including my yearly sojourn to Cape May, New Jersey to play at the Singer-Songwriter Cape May Festival, a show tomorrow night in Kent where I grew up, and a mid-week gig in Cleveland with my friends in Ashley. I’d love to see some friendly faces at those shows!

As always, there’s a chance a few more dates may pop up on my calendar – you can always find all the upcoming shows on my Tour Dates page.

Cheers,
Michael

Copyright © 2018 Michael McFarland, All rights reserved.

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Hey, Friend,

Did you see your shadow?

Groundhog day has come and gone. Punxsutawney Phil, despite Bill Murray’s best attempts, emerged from his hole at Gobbler’s Knob, saw his shadow, and predicted that winter is not yet over. Judging by the weather forecast here in Cleveland, that seems entirely believable.

While I was growing up, my parents were avid gardeners, and so I always thought of groundhogs as troublesome beasts, sneaking through fences and devouring tomorrow’s dinner. It struck me as strange that some saw them as sage creatures, prognosticating the weather. I also was confused because I was never quite sure if they were the same as woodchucks (they are), and if so, why there were no clever rhymes asking about how much ground a groundhog could hog (if one could hog ground). Since those days, I’ve learned that these creatures are also known as Whistlepigs, Thickwood Badgers, Canada Marmots, and my new favorite, Weenusks. (Any other good ones I should know about? Write me back and let me know!)

All of this is apropos of exactly nothing, except that it’s still cold outside, which means that it’s good weather to stay in and try to accomplish things to stave off crippling depression. One big thing I accomplished in January: I successfully got all the tracks for my new full-length record, House of Ghosts, handed off to Eric Bertagnolli of Eric Bert Audio for mixing! Which means it won’t be long before these 10 new songs will be heading towards your ears.

Every time I start working on a new record, I worry that what I’m creating won’t be as good as the last thing I released, and that I’ve already written my best songs. Having said that, I’m not trying to be self-congratulatory when I say that when I closed out the recording sessions for House of Ghosts, I felt truly proud of what I’d created. I really love this set of songs; I feel like I’ve written and recorded something that I would want to listen to, and I can’t wait to share it with you. I hope you feel the same way.

I’m starting to ramp up my show schedule a bit, now that I’m done with the heavy lifting of recording the new album:

As always, there’s a chance a few more dates may pop up on my calendar – you can always find all the upcoming shows on my Tour Dates page.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot – I’m also working on a 4-song audio-visual release called Almost Like Live, which will feature 4 tracks from House of Ghosts, recorded in a studio setting, but performed exactly like I do on stage – beatboxing, looped vocals and guitar percussion, the whole deal. Each song will be accompanied by an almost-like-live video shot by my good friend Mark Sowers – he was the videographer on the A Work In Progress music video, and if you’ve seen any press shots of me in the last few years, he’s also behind the camera on those. You can check out his Instagram here.

I’m not positive if Almost Like Live will come out before or after House of Ghosts. What I do know is that my next two releases are, abbreviated, ALL & HOG. All Hog. An apt description of my treatise on Whistlepigs earlier.

Thanks again for joining me on this journey, and special thanks if you made it this far in the e-mail, for allowing me to indulge in these digressions.

Cheers,
Michael

Copyright © 2018 Michael McFarland, All rights reserved.

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Hey, Friend,

Happy New Year!

We’re less than 2 weeks in to 2018, and already I’ve successfully mis-written the year as 2017 at least a dozen times. I think that’s a new personal record!

Speaking of new records, even though I stayed primarily in North East Ohio during 2017, I played more shows over the course of the year than in any year previous. I’m aiming to keep that momentum going throughout 2018, with new music, new videos, and if plans come together, a new tour or two! If there’s any specific part of the country you’d like me to visit, please write me back to let me know… a friendly couch to crash on and suggestions of nearby venues to play would also be great.

Also on the topic of new records (pun fully intended), I’m excited that recording is completed for my new full-length, House of Ghosts! My target was to have it wrapped up by the end of 2017, and I just barely met that goal – the final vocal track was completed at 7:00 P.M. on December 31! Let it never be said that I don’t like to live dangerously…

That picture you see here is of the project file right after completion. If those screens were a mirror, you’d see a my ugly mug sporting a cheesy, self-satisfied grin, so I thought this would be more appealing.

Just because tracking is complete doesn’t mean that the project is over, though! I still have to prep the tracks to hand off to my co-producer Eric Bertagnolli (he also played the drums on the record) of Eric Bert Audio – if you pop over to his Soundcloud Page, you can catch a first listen to the title track of House of Ghosts… though there might be a few adjustments to the song before it’s officially released – and I’ll be finishing the album art while Eric completes mixing and mastering the record. I’ll be sure to let you know when the official release date has been set!

To make sure that release date isn’t too far in the future, I’ve only taken on a light load of shows this month – just two of’em at the moment:

As always, there’s a chance a few more dates may pop up on my calendar – you can always find all the upcoming shows on my Tour Dates page.

I hope your year is starting off well… Thanks for joining me for another spin around the sun!

Cheers,
Michael

Copyright © 2018 Michael McFarland, All rights reserved.

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Hey, Friend,

Happy December!

Every year, it’s always a surprise to me when December 1 rolls around – not that I didn’t expect that it would happen eventually, but the passage of time still bewilders me. Last December seems a lifetime away, and yet this year feels like it’s passed by incredibly quickly.

Recording for House of Ghosts is almost complete – all instruments have been recorded, and all that’s left is my final vocal tracks. Those would have been completed earlier, but I ran up against a bit of a chest cold later on in November, and was also out of town for a bit over a week celebrating Thanksgiving in California with my parents, and the majority of my siblings, nieces and nephews. I’m still not entirely de-jetlagged from the trip, but it was well worth it.

Since it’s December, I’ll likely continue my tradition of putting out a new video of me performing a Christmas or holiday song. No promises to when that will drop, but you can check out the playlist of previous holiday offerings, and subscribe to my YouTube channel to get a notification for when that goes live!

I’ve got a nice batch of shows this month, including one tonight!

As always, there’s a chance a few more dates may pop up on my calendar – you can always find all the upcoming shows on my Tour Dates page.

I hope you have a great holiday season! Thanks for joining me for another year on this journey!

Cheers,
Michael

Copyright © 2017 Michael McFarland, All rights reserved.

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Hey, Friend,

House of Ghosts is nearing completion!

There’s a lot that goes in to making a record: writing the songs, road-testing them, pre-production… but for me, the biggest milestone is always finishing the drums; whether it’s using found objects, like on A Failed Breakup and A Sarcastic Tango, using percussive sounds created entirely on my guitar, like on We Are The Architects, or using a full studio drum kit like on Made a Mess, Waking Up Is A Letdown, and now House of Ghosts, finalizing the drum tracks always feels like the tipping point, where the structure and foundation of the record is complete, and all that’s left is to add the finishing touches.

That’s why I’m crazy excited that this past weekend, my co-producer Eric Bertagnolli came in to the studio for two days, and knocked out all the remaining drum tracks for the record.

This also means there’s a finalized track order!

1. The Things You Couldn’t Find
2. House of Ghosts
3. Fresh Out Of Love Songs
4. Skip
5. The Photograph Lies
6. If I Had Happened
7. The Last Sunset
8. A Work In Progress
9. The Year We Came Alive
10. Starting To Believe

In the course of recording, Eric broke one of this sticks, so I got him to sign it for posterity:

With the drums complete, I expect I should have the rest of the tracks complete and sent over to Eric for mixing by the end of November!

I’ve also got a nice batch of shows coming up this month, including a show at The Winchester in Lakewood, Ohio, opening for a couple great acts on tour:
I The Victor (Atlanta, GA) 
Fletcher’s Grove (Morgantown, WV)

That show’s happening Friday, November 3 – you can find the Facebook event here.

Here’s a list of all the shows I’ve got on the calendar this month:

As always, there’s a chance a few more dates may pop up on my calendar – you can always find all the upcoming shows on my Tour Dates page.

Finally, since we just passed my favorite holiday (Halloween), Allow me a little self-indulgence in sharing this year’s costume (and a LOT of self-indulgence in the presentation of the costume in poster form!) You can’t see all the details in this, but the accessories included a functioning walkman with a playable cassette copy of The Awesome Mix, Vol. 1. It’s the little details that matter!

Thanks again for taking this journey with me!

Cheers,
Michael

Copyright © 2017 Michael McFarland, All rights reserved.

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“A Work In Progress”

Autumn has reportedly arrived, though sitting in 80-degree weather, I can’t say I’m fully convinced. I’m ready to bust out the hoodies and eat too much cheap candy, but only one of those seems reasonable to do in the current weather. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

I’d promised that I would release a new single and music video in September, and I slipped right in under the wire on that one. So here it is – “A Work In Progress“, the first song of my upcoming full-length, “House of Ghosts”:

The song is now up on all your favorite digital platforms – here are a few links for you:
– Bandcamp
– iTunes
– Google Play
– Spotify

The body painting (yes, everything in the video was hand-painted, not digitally added) was done by Kim Kennedy, an amazing artist and musician.
– Check out her art here
– Check out her music here

The videography was done by Mark Sowers.
– Check out his photography here
 

This Month’s Shows:

To get additional details on any of these, head to the tour dates page on my site.

Production on “House of Ghosts” should be mostly wrapped up this month! My co-producer Eric Bertagnolli will be coming in to the studio to record the drums for the remaining 8 songs mid-month, then it’s on me to lay down the final bass, guitar, and vocal tracks.

Thanks again for taking this journey with me, and hope you’re having a great start to the fall!

Cheers,
Michael

Copyright © 2017 Michael McFarland, All rights reserved.

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