Now that the new CD is just about ready to go (I have 2 definite tweaks to make, and one fix that I'll attempt, if possible), I've been thinking about what's next.

Well, naturally, I have more recording projects to go, and as you might guess, Crazy Quilt #1 is only the first of a series, and I have a LOT of mining still to do on gig recordings that already exist, and there will be more to come.

But for all of these new things that will come at a steady and swifter stream, every now and then someone (I'm looking at you amykb) asks me what ever is to become of their favorite recordings from "before".

Before there ever was a Patches CD, there was a Patches cassette. And before that there were TWO others: Minstrel At Large and Wild Oats. And no, that wasn't the release of A Few Brief Shining Moments from my *band* Wild Oats. WO was the name of the solo cassette project that later inspired the name of the band. These recordings, done long ago, in basements and guest rooms far away, are not quite lost. But they are in *terrible* shape. Also, some of the performances, while ahem "endearing" are not something I'd release today. But there were *some* things on those cassettes that were definitely good, and worth preserving.

Some of the songs, have been or are in a queue to be redone from scratch. The previous versions then will simply become moments in time, and if you have them, you have them, and if you don't, they will simply fade and that's okay. The new versions have been and will be much closer to my original vision anyway.

But, as I said, some of them were fine they way they were and because I don't plan on re-doing them, are worth saving or restoring somehow.

Well, on the to-do list for 2009 is to get myself a real website up and running.
So, among other things on the website, I *will* have some audio.
And thus as I find them, as I clean them up as much as I can, as I get to it, bit by bit, byte by byte, I'll be posting some of those old takes from MAL and WO up on the website as free downloads! I can't see selling dubs of things that were on Cassette tape, with that horrid noise floor. So their interest is going to be more archival than commercial.
But it'll be fun to hear where I was musically in 1986-88, and compare it to now.
Do be forewarned tho, that if I don't LIKE the track, I'm not posting it.

If I don't post one of those old takes, but I still like the *song* look for it to resurface sometime on a recording in the future!
Some of those old songs have been redone, and more are sure to follow.
So, yes, my versions "Little Mattie Groves" and "Twa Corbies" will be available on recordings again- at some point.

Now, I can already see a couple of people who've been bugging me for YEARS about this, champing at the bit. Guys, you have GOT to be patient. I have more than enough current projects to run out my whole remaining clock in this planet, and those (new) projects represent bodies of work that I really need to get out. I can't go neglecting my present just to rehash projects that I'm a long ways down the road from. It's gonna happen, and it's gonna be fab. But it's going to happen on it's time.

I also don't know yet just how much cleaning up I'll be able to do on those old recordings.
If, by some happy coincidence, I can actually get enough of the noise and hash out that I'm happy to hear the results, I may resurrect some of the salvage as an actual release.
Who knows?

But in 2009, look for a website, and sometime thereafter, look for some of those old
"Instrumentals by Maugorn The Stray" to show up again.