By Chris Moore:

It’s been a month now since I posted my tongue-in-cheek statement of goals regarding YouTube.  Since then, September has been dominated by my teaching and my working for a class on literary criticism and research writing that I’m taking this semester.

In short, no recording this month…

While that is more of a bummer to me than I can properly translate into words here, this month hasn’t passed without some news to report.  So, here goes…

First of all, I’ve written a couple new songs that have significantly altered my conception of the album.  I feel great about having newer material that is, frankly, better than some of the songs I was planning on recording.

Since I last wrote, and up until the past couple weeks, I’ve also been playing guitar more than I have in a long time.  I’ve been playing and playing and practicing on my own (I think my girlfriend Nicole knows the songs on the album by heart now!), and I’ve also had a couple of jam sessions with my friends and colleagues Dan and Larry.  Dan is an accomplished performer and recording songwriter, so I’ve been trying to pick up whatever I can from him, and Larry is one of those people with an ear for music that can’t be learned.  He must have harmonicas in at least seven different keys, and I’ve been picking up what I can from watching him alternate between them.

Finally, and perhaps most significantly of all, I’ve now played many of the songs that I’m working on for Mike Fusco, who has lovingly endorsed them as my best work yet.  I don’t take this compliment lightly, and I keep it in the back of my mind whenever I’m tempted to stop recording because I don’t have the time, or because I don’t have an end in mind, or whatever other excuses one might develop to avoid the work necessary to properly complete such a labor of love as a full-length album.

I am still quite active with The Laptop Sessions blog, as well.  I’ve been posting at least one installment of The Weekend Review each week (usually on Saturday or Sunday; big surprise, right?).  I just reviewed Michelle Branch’s new EP on Friday, and my review of the new Broken Social Scene record just posted this morning.  I hope you’ll continue to check in regularly at The Laptop Sessions page, for these reviews and all the other great material available there.  Some people — friends, coworkers — have been asking what the future of the blog is, and all I can say is that I will complete my goal of 52 reviews by the end of the year, and reassess my role in January 2011.  I have greatly enjoyed my years contributing to this ambitious blog, and I hope to continue to find a role that is meaningful and rewarding.

On a side note, I also spent the last couple weeks of summer putting together the manuscript for a poetry book that I’ve been working on since last year.  I have much more work to do, writing more poems and revising the ones I’ve already written, but it’s tentatively titled 52 Pickup and I hope to release it as a companion piece to The 2010 Project.

Which brings me to my final piece of news…

I’ve slowly been coming to the realization that it is unrealistic to expect that the album will be completed before the end of the year.  And I certainly don’t want to rush it out in a month like December, which would be tantamount to tossing all my efforts into the black hole of new music release months.  Thus, I’m officially announcing that my plans are to release the album in the first few months of the new year.  I feel good about this.  And, no, it won’t be re-titled The 2011 Project.  The title stands, as this is a document of a very important year for me (2010), one which saw me reshaping the way I perceive my world and the way I live my life.  I’ve spent a lot of time in my life, more years than I’d like to admit, thinking about change and writing about it, but never actually accomplishing any of it.  Certainly not on the inside.  So, I will continue to record and write and practice — not necessarily in that order — and I will continue to post my recording logs here on my website.

I hope you’ll continue to come along for the ride!