I get lots of messages/tweets/comments/billboard signs (okay, no billboard signs) every day with one general theme…’what the hell are you guys doing’?  I don’t answer, because, well, I don’t know.  I hope I don’t tick anybody off (like especially anybody who’s potentially in charge of my career..) by writing this, but I think people oughtta know what’s going on, so I will do my best to give you my version of the scoop.

The rundown of the past 2 years: In 2008, we released Supergirl..it charted and peaked around #38, had a great run on some cool tv shows, and got lots of love from some righteous female athletes before it started to go away in late ‘08.  Though I’ve done lots of writing over the past several years, Supergirl was released as a single and after it declined, the label decided that we should release another single.  In November of ‘08, i wrote the song “Butterflies”.

(crash course in radio, the Marti version-Top 40 and Adult Contemporary.  Top 40, these days, leans heavily toward rhythmic and very poppy music, while Hot A/C is a good launch pad for singer/songwriter type artists and bands.  Example-Ke$ha is a Top 40 artist all the way.  A band like Train would find a home at Hot A/C.  While Saving Jane has been the most commercially successful at Top 40, when you look at our music as a whole, we sound more like a Hot A/C type band.)  Sooo..it was decided that “Butterflies”, being a ballad and songwritery type-song, should go to Hot A/C.  For a multitude of reasons, this didn’t work for us.  We don’t have many relationships at Hot A/C, and while our team works very hard, they are very small.  I greatly appreciate the stations that DID believe in this song and supported us, but we just couldn’t get enough stations and spins on board to keep it in the charts.  Round about April of ‘09, Butterflies crapped out and there we were again, going, what now?

At that point in time, our recording contract was about to come up.  All parties involved did some wheelin’ and dealin’, and we agreed to provide the label with one more single by July of 2009.   So to answer your question, when are we releasing another album?  It’s obviously a much greater investment for a record label to record and release an album than it is a single.  While I have written enough material for several albums, and while I am DESPERATE to release another full length Saving Jane album, it hasn’t been permitted with the contracts we are currently engaged in.  I’ve tried to keep you and me both satisfied by posting new songs for listening, but I know that’s not the same as being able to own the material and listen whenever you want.  And for me, it’s not the same satisfaction as releasing one whole body of work.   But, it is what it is and there’s not a whole lot I can do.

Now-why haven’t we released a single, if we were due in July?

Well, that goes back to the Top 40/Hot AC debate.  The stance of the label and the management is that they’ve spent a significant amount of $ building a brand for Saving Jane at Top 40 radio, so the song we release has to be something that would be a “smash” at Top 40.  Understandably, they want a return on that investment.  But in case you haven’t listened to the radio in awhile, what’s working is dance music.  And in case you haven’t listened to a Saving Jane record in a while, uh, I don’t write dance music.  So since July, I’ve been turning in material but none of it has been deemed worthy of release.  In fact, I’ve even turned in some Marti-written dance type music, and (irony of ironies), everyone thinks it’s a smash, but it’s “not me”.  (DUH!  That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!)  So basically we’re kind of at a stalemate right now, and we’re supposed to have a conference call next week to figure out what the hell we’re doing.  We’re not working on albums, I’m not writing new pop material…just waiting.  Waiting.  Waiting.  As a band, everyone is branching out and working on other projects until we all know what’s going to happen with Saving Jane.

In the meantime, I have had some cool things happen in my songwriting career…Suzie McNeil cut a version of Supergirl that went gold in Canada, a German tv show used a song I wrote as their theme and a single, and the Kat Von D thing with One Girl Revolution just went down.  I signed a publishing deal, which means it’s officially my job to write songs, and I’m enjoying it!  I’ve made a short term move to Nashville and have been here writing both country and pop material, with the intention of working on a solo project with a more country feel.  There’s lots of upheaval and change right now, but hopefully in the end it’ll be a good thing.  If not, I can always get some more cats and call it a day..

xoxo

M

So.  I haven’t written in a long time, because I didn’t feel like I had anything to say.  I still don’t, not really.  But I’m kind of bored, so in the interest of oversharing, I’m writing anyway.

I’ve always considered myself to be a somewhat solitary person.  I like my own company, which has worked out well for me, because underneath all the jokes and the songs and the party girl persona, I’m kind of shy.  Kind of really shy.  It takes a long time for me to feel comfortable with people, and I’ve never been the kind of girl (woman? lady?) who makes friends everywhere she goes.  But I’m okay with that, because the people that I do let into my life usually turn out to be amazing.  Another part of my solitude is born of necessity-spend a little time traveling solo, and you will figure out ways to be entertained.  There are countless people the world over, in airports and restaurants and windows, who are going about their lives with no idea that once upon a time I studied their clothes, their faces, their body language, and conjured up my own version of their life stories.  (that’s right, cute business-suit guy in La Guardia.  I know you were talking on your Iphone to your secret girlfriend the whole time our flight was delayed.  Also, I totally saw you do the hand-across-face rub thing that was actually a nose pick.  Just saying.)

This is not to say that I don’t have a lot of amazing people that I love to spend time with,  but it doesn’t bother me if sometimes I go to a movie by myself, or eat dinner at a restaurant while I read a book.  (yes, obnoxious host/ess…that’s a table for one.  That’s right.  Just me.  Stop judging me and give me a damn menu.)  And in fact, there are times when you’ve spent 18 or 19 hours riding in a van with four other people, that you just cannot wait to part company.

So what’s the point?  I’m learning this week that I am not as good at flying solo as I thought.  For the first time in my life, I am well and truly alone, with nothing to fill in the blank spaces that I never knew there were so many of.  You see, a couple of months ago, I decided that I should move to Nashville temporarily, so I could try my hand at writing music full-time.  I went about the business of finding an apartment to sublet, and talked everybody around me into thinking this would be a good idea.  And as I am wont to do, once I get something in my head, I relentlessly pursued it until it became mine.  I did this despite the number of times in the past it has earned me something I would have been better off without.  This single-minded gonna-get-what-i-wantness has landed me college degrees (that I don’t use), careers (that are no more), record deals (that shelved me), boys (see albums 1-4 for THOSE disasters), shoes (nobody needs that many), and now, living arrangements.  So here I am.

The place is very nice, although it is capital N-O-T mine…there are no kitties underfoot, no husband asleep on the couch, no Jersey Shore screeching in the background while I surf the web and talk on the phone and read a book all at the same time.  My loved ones are in bed several hours away..it’s surprising what a difference even one hour makes time-zone wise.  No cable, no internet (also no complaining…I don’t think for a second that my lack of convenience is of any import whatsoever-just trying to illustrate for you exactly how very quiet it is here…) I’m almost to the point of hoping for a mouse in the house to keep me company, just so I can stop listening for the plant to grow.  In the absence of that constant contact with something..anything…I am finding out just how uncomfortable I am with silence.

Here’s the mental image for you of me, right now:  I’m wearing the pink flannel pajamas my mom got me for Christmas..they look like someone thought about sex, and then designed the exact opposite of that in a comfortable sleepset.  I’m lying in the teeny little bed..if I stretch my toes, I can tap the tap foot rails while my head is poking out the top. There’s a treadmill to my left that’s doing a killer job of drying my clothes for me.  It’s warm in here and I feel pretty safe, since earlier tonight I sawed a board in half in the bathtub so I could use it to block the sliding glass doors from opening.  I can see down the hall into the living area, but only because the lamp in there is on a timer that I don’t understand how to work yet.  Somewhere I can hear a clock ticking, which is extra weird since there aren’t any clocks here.  And boy, am I lonely.

Sorry if you read all the way to the bottom of this thinking there would be some kind of payoff..remember? Nothing to say. The point is, there is no point…sometimes I just want to write something down so I can prove that I existed in this moment.  And it’s kind of nice, when I’m feeling this alone, to think that wherever you guys are out there, you’re existing too…probably talking to your secret girlfriends on your Iphones and looking all hot in your suits.  But existing nonetheless.

Man.  I gotta go before I start singing ‘Somewhere Out There’.  (oops.  too late.)

xoxoxo

Marti