ABOUT THIS ALBUM: My Fellow Normal People Everywhere, With no intention or awareness that I was working on a new record, I began the process of purely documenting a bunch of new songs, quite crudely and undoubtedly rough around the edges, basically just to get this **** out of my head and down here for others to hear, react or relate to. On most of the tracks I started out with a single mediocre microphone duct taped to a broom handle, as I performed in a cramped bungalow’s 6’ x 6’ four-doored enclosed hallway between the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and living room. There was an obsolete gas heater built into the wooden floor that reverberated like a boss bass drum every time I stomped my foot on the floor to keep the beat… so I went with it. I realized at some point that what I was working on could never compete with the corporate backed produced-to-perfection flavor of the moment glamour that dominates the mainstream, so I made it my mission to go completely in the opposite direction and to make a record for the rest of us that defies all industry standards. My only standard was that there was no standard... except that I had to feel strongly enough about the song itself. In fact, there is nothing slick about this record. It assuredly cost more to manufacture and deliver the copy you are holding than it did to record and produce the recordings it contains. I even told the photographer not to bother coming and shot the photos myself using the ten second timer on my cellphone camera on the way home from a couple gigs late at night. My one biggest challenge in this whole process was finding a poignant title for this unassuming collection of acoustic driven melodies that I’d hastily slapped together with tape, glue and house paint. Then finally one afternoon while bouncing around the grimier streets of Los Angeles, preoccupied with this undertaking, I happened upon a gallery of Crude Folk Art… and thus my album’s title was revealed to me. JOE NORMAL, Spring 2015 For song lyrics and free downloads, please visit: www.JoeNormalUSA.com Twitter.com/JoeNormalUSA Facebook.com/JoeNormalUSA Email: JoeNormalUSA@gmail.com Send gifts and parcels to: P. O. Box 1531 Sierra Madre, CA 91025 Joe Normal is endorsed by GRETSCH GUITARS All songs written by Joe Normal (The Hutchinson Library / ascap) except: Be Bop A Lula (Gene Vincent, Sheriff Tex Davis) Bookends Theme (Paul Simon)