8/21 at Mars Bar for the International Pop Overthrow Festival.  If you’re in the Seattle area, this will be a rare chance to hear some of the new songs live, alongside songs from Sunny Days Ahead which we’ve never performed live before.  After this show we’ll be going back into hibernation as a live band, so we hope to see you there!  More details as we get closer . . .

Firstly, Gary and I came to the realization our musical ideas weren’t as compatible as they once were, so SSA has reverted to a solo project again, as it was for the first record.

Secondly, it occurred to me that my contributions so far had a recurring theme of elements – Touch the Sky, Fire and Ice – that I wanted to explore further as some sort of theme throughout the record.  What came to mind was exploring the idea of people’s apparent indifference to climate change – that maybe by the time everyone’s satisfied it’s actually happening it’ll be too late to do anything about it.

Maybe human civilization has come and gone many times before and on some deeper level we know that if climate change wipes us out, human life will always re-emerge through evolution. Or maybe we’re all just narcissists . . . .

How do I take those ideas and make power-pop songs out of them?

Watch this space . . . . .

We’ll also be working a little differently.  Instead of working on a bunch of songs at once, we’ll be working on one at a time until the song is finished.  As soon as it’s mixed we’ll post it online as a free download.  Then we’ll start working on the next song.  Eventually we’ll shortlist the best dozen songs and release it as our next record.

Along the way we’ll be asking for your feedback and ideas and we’ll incorporate as many of those into the record as we can. Instead of locking you out of the process until it’s over, we’re inviting you to be part of it. We hope you enjoy the ride!