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  To celebrate the 5th anniversary of my album War Surplus, I'm releasing these demos of the songs. I don't usually bother to do full fledged demos for songs I write. But I worked on War Surplus for about 5 years, and putting all the songs together was a bit like a puzzle. As wrote new songs for the album, it helped me to listen to recordings of the songs I'd finished to figure out what would fit best in the spaces I had left.
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  I made all these demos alone, so the instruments you hear, I played or created somehow (e.g., with midi or a drum machine). In two cases, I am forever grateful because someone else heard the demo and sent the song off in a much better direction—Jeremy Middleton (who produced the album and plays bass) suggested completely changing the feel of "Take Me Back Home" and my friends in the string band Big Chimney (especially Avril Smith) greatly improved the feel of "Off My Back" (hear that on the deluxe edition of the album).
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  There are also three tracks at the end that combine voice memos and similar recordings to document a bit of my writing process.
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  I can't tell you how much this album has done for me over the last five years. I got to meet amazing people who responded to War Surpls with their own stories. It has meant a ton to me to hear that people have felt moved or seen by these songs, and it has kept me afloat on some days. Thank you so much to all of you for listening to War Surplus over the last five years, for passing it along to your friends, for covering the songs, for requesting the songs on the radio, for getting in touch to tell me how you feel. I am so grateful to you.
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  Thanks also to the people who helped me make War Surplus successful enough that some people remember it five years on, especially: Jeremy Middleton, who produced it and played bass, Erin Anderson, who helped me figure out a release plan, Al Moss, who got me all over the radio, and Amy Ray & Emily Saliers for taking a chance on me as an opener again after ten years. Thanks also to Welcome to 1979, John Little, Baby Robot, Avril Smith, Paul Niehaus, Dillon Napier, Adam Wakefield, Mary Bragg, Chris Mara, Megan Jane, Kira Small, Shawn Conerton, Chris Watts, Al Hill, Dan Knobler, Big Chimney, Lari White, Maia Sharp, Colby Buzzell, Drew Cameron, Michael Bialas, Chris Wienk, and Quil Lawrence. ... more
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