My name is Steven Cravis. Daniel C. Bianchino and I met back in 1991 on the Boston Greenline. I was holding a salad. Bianchino said “That looks like a healthy meal”. I added “You must not be from around here – you notice nobody talks?” The tram was packed…That began our conversation…I told Daniel I compose music but don’t write lyrics and he told me he is a poet and lyricist. We exchanged numbers and the rest is history….formed the band 2012 BC recently and have released our first single on iTunes “I Need a Second Look”.
2012 BC (The Rough Draft Album) is our latest ten song release and includes ‘I Need a Second Look’.
I’m a pianist and instrumental composer, but I am not a singer. I was so ashamed of the vocal flaws in my recording attempts with this album that I hid the recordings from everyone, even from my co-writer Daniel. Daniel was infinitely patient with me about this, and recently I realized 3 main things:
1. The message in D.C. Bianchino’s lyrics are cosmic and good and the songs might help get his messages out.
2. Even if people (especially people who know me well) laugh when they hear the flawed sound of my singing voice, at least they are being entertained, and that kind of joy has some value being that laughter itself can be healing.
3. It was ultimately selfish of me to hold back these unusual recordings from the universe and the benefit of exposing the songs to the universe probably highly outweighs the benefit of protecting myself from whatever criticism will result.
Daniel and I discussed this and, with his permission and our delight we present to you our first 10 song album (which includes our single ‘I Need a Second Look’). We wanted to offer it for free or close to free as possible. The best mechanism I found for this was Bandcamp. With Bandcamp we cannot give endless free downloads of the album, but we can sell all 10 songs for $1 USD (Yes…, ONE dollar).
HERE’S WHERE TO GET THE FULL 10 TRACK ALBUM FOR ONE DOLLAR: http://2012bc.bandcamp.com
Thanks for sharing this story! Not all singers have had great voices in their own opinions (Jimi Hendrix, for instance, although I’ve always loved his voice), so I think you could have sung these song for a few people first before publishing them, so as to get their opinion.
I’m not a great singer myself, so for my album “Rim Utan Reson” [Rhyme Without Reason] I enlisted an old friend who may not be the next Caruso either, but can deliver the songs in a touching way (he’s a professional actor). This turned out to be a good move. We also sing a few songs together.
Selling the downloads at 1:- for 10 mp3s sounds a bit too self-depreciating to me – I still haven’t even heard them, but I would rather have accepted my own voice or got somebody else to sing them if I couldn’t. Maybe you still can record versions like that? There are singers everywhere to be found!
I once composed music for some poems, and for those I’ve had different people sing them, although they’ve not been for sale yet, just played from a CDR on Finnish radio. Maybe publish them one day?
Best of luck & looking 4ward to hearing those songs!