I hope this is finding everyone full of vegetarian turkey and ready to attack the coming holiday season with vigor. Another year would not be complete without a few aural stocking stuffers from yours truly, so I have decided to let you all in on the previously withheld material from the full-length version of Wherever You Are. As most of you know by now, these tracks were all produced in 2002 by my long-suffering friend and mentor Stephen Hague. They were performed by yours truly and two of my best friends in the world, Ethan Eubanks and Whynot Jansveld, with help from programmer Chuck Norman and Mr. Hague on accordion.

For those of you interested in a partial history of the sessions, you may find it [in the journal]. I never finished a complete version; at this point, it could probably be summed up in a nouns: Bath, Real World, Tchad Blake, cows, lanes, Peter Gabriel, pints, London, rain, tea, Bobby K., Man of the Year, corporate merger... oh, the bitter end still leaves a bad taste in the mouth. But we have made it this far, which is reason enough to celebrate and clear the pallette with a nice cup of mulled cider.

As you listen, keep in mind that these tracks are unmastered; in fact, they still contain remnants of other tracks at the beginnings and ends, a product of an old cross-faded master sequence that I am taking them from for the purposes of quality and protection. On the bright side, they are still quite possibly the most expensive Christmas presents that most of you will be receiving this year. As always, I would ask that you use them for your own enjoyment exclusively; anyone found to be manipulating the hard work of so many good people for their own financial gain will be summarily hunted down and beaten with a large slab of frozen beef.

WHEREVER
An intro piece originally intended to open the record and lead into "Hold On"’ The background noise is a train passing outside the Real World Studios in Bath by a very nice asssistant named Marco.

ONEPLUSONE (original version)
The original and, admittedly, superior version of this song probably would have been the first single from Wherever You Are had it been released in its originally intended version. It includes a stellar drum track from Ethan Eubanks and some hilariously well-enunciated “V’s” on the background vocal track. At the time of the recording of Indiana, I was convinced that all of the tracks from Wherever You Are would probably spend their lives on a shelf somewhere. The eventual decision to record this song again in a fashion more suitable for that album was difficult but necessary. Its overall mood needed some elevating and I seemed utterly incapable of producing anything very chipper at the time.

BEAUTY (original version)
The tape recorder mumblings at the beginning are from my dictaphone recording of the song before it was much of anything. I really like Chuck Norman’s touches on this version; it may be the closest you’ll ever hear me come to ripping off Eminem. Another revisitation for Indiana; I prefer the later versions, but you can judge for yourself.

ATTITUDE
"Attitude" is one of my pet songs from the Wherever You Are sessions; I don’t think we ever got the arrangement or the mix quite right, and working through the red tape and locating the funds to correct them at this point would probably be very difficult.

LITTLE SISTER
At the ripe old age of 28, I was obviously still feeling (and being told on a regular basis) that I should occupy some spot in the ClearChannel/Infinity Radio/MTV universe: Voila, Little Sister! We tried to have fun, assuming that if we were really going to go for it we might as well be laughing. Enter Big Guitars, Tongue In Cheek, Possible Michelle Branch Sightings, Alcohol... and it actually rocks pretty fucking good. So here you have it, Two Minutes and Forty-Eight Seconds from the Year of Living Dangerously.

GROWIN' UP
This one started smelling funny somewhere near the end; I seem to recall a last-minute effort on my part to make it fit with the rest of the album by forcing Chuck to do a few things against his will and better judgement. I also recall Tchad Blake protesting the ‘atrocious’ sound of my 12-string guitar during mixing. I have a demo of this kicking around somewhere that Ethan and I did in his apartment, a demo that truly kicks the ass of this misdirected piece of ninny. Whatever. I am committed to historical accuracy, and this is the version that would have graced the full-length album. “Ringo was Richard and he said that it don’t come easy.” Go figure.

PATIENCE
"Patience" was a song I had written on a train in Europe. I was very proud of it but the version we were putting down in the studio sounded like a competent Ron Sexsmith imitation and not much more. I felt like it could use a few curve balls and everyone obliged me in some experimentation. After running it for an hour or so, E was playing an understated-yet-funky back beat on two drum sets, Y was playing his bass part on a Casio keyboard and I was back on the Telecaster with something dastardly through the Memory Man. The finished product was far more interesting than where it started. I'm happy we took the time to refine. It's pretty cool, I have to admit. It's about five nd a half minutes long - there's a certain brooding tone to this record and that was the brooder of all brooders. I felt like it was a little too much by the time the record was done, but Stephen Hague really wanted that on the record. I should have put it on the EP; occasionally, I am overwhelmed by stupidity. This sounds more like how I actually felt during this period than anything else from the sessions.