Hello All-
A few days until the The Mahogany Door, the first book in a series of fantasy-adventure books for young readers, is available at www.jmarkboliek.com. We are in the process of making it available at other outlets. But at the moment, if you order from my online store, you get a signed copy, the CD, and free shipping. I hope to be able to sign your copy.
"All Alone" and "In the Afternoon" are pretty special songs to me for the sole reason that I wrote them. It is a pretty cool thing to put something together that you never thought you could and it actually sounds pretty good. Of course I had a LOT of help. Jon Murray let me borrow his pipes by singing the two songs because I can promise that I would not have sounded up to the part. As my wife tells me, "Mark, you can sing, but you should never be recorded."
Scott Jackson lends his music ability on the guitar and my wife lends her voice for the backing vocals. Of course, without the skill of John Plymale's engineering and producing, well, none of it would have been good.
I picked "Here is My Anger, Here is My Pride," which Scott and Jon wrote for a former band they were in because the original song was very powerful.
What is so interesting is that I really liked the sound of its hard rock flare. But one day last year, Scott played it on his acoustic guitar, and I actually liked that sound better. So we started to fiddle around with another arrangement. Originally, the song was only vocals, acoustic guitar, and strings. But John Plymale felt that it needed balance so he added an R&B flare beat. I think it came out great, which proves that the song is so strong that it can work in different styles.
When I heard the finished arrangement, I felt it described my antagonist -- named Charlie -- exactly. I felt that the argument in the song the singer has with God not only speaks for Charlie, but it also speaks for me when I found myself in a very dark time in my own life some years ago. I almost felt that God had abandoned me. In reality though, it was I who abandoned God. My anger and pride got in the way of what is truly important in this life: my relationship with others and my relationship with God. I thought my way was the only way, and it got me in some pretty nasty trouble.
I hope you like these songs we'v inserted on the player. Jon Murray provides the vocals with a little help from my wife, Jill, on "All Alone" and "In the Afternoon." They will be up for a couple of days, then I will preview the entire album for you in context and order as we release the book.
OH YEAH! Another thing that makes "In the Afternoon" so satisfying is that Jill hated it when I first wrote it on an acoustic guitar. But now, with all the bells and whistles of production, it is one of her favorites. Nice!
As always, thanks for your support,
Mark
http://www.reverbnation.com/themahoganydoor
