"Miss Watson...told me about the bad place, and I said I wished I was there. She got mad then, but I didn't mean no harm. All I wanted was to go somewheres; all I wanted was a change, I warn't particular. She said it was wicked to say what I said; said she wouldn't say it for the whole world; she was going to live so as to go to the good place. Well, I couldn't see no advantage in going where she was going, so I made up my mind I wouldn't try for it. But I never said so, because it would only make trouble, and wouldn't do no good." - From The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain.

A professor of mine once told me that the best stories are always about one of three things: life, love, or death. It doesn't matter if the story is set in some galaxy far, far away, or if it's a story about some kid traveling down the Mississippi and his misadventures while doing so. And I suppose it doesn't really matter because those three things - life, love, and death - are what drive us as human beings.

"Midwestern Devils and Angels" is an album full of stories about the best and the worst of us. The rights and the wrongs. Faith and lack thereof. Love, life, death, and the choices made in between. The choices made because of. It drives a narrative throughout the whole of it…mostly because I intended it to…and because I like albums. Things with layers. Because I think those are the pieces of music that we get the most out of. So, before I go hailing this record as the biggest thing ever, I’ll just say I really like it. I listen to it myself because I enjoy the songs. I’m sure there’s some sort of “checking myself in the mirror” metaphor that goes along with that, but sometimes you just got to say, “I think I look good.” So please enjoy the album. And the songs by themselves.

And because this thing is on BANDCAMP, it also has something you can’t get anywhere else: BONUS TRACKS! And while I think bonus tracks are unnecessary, as in special releases and all that jazz, I do like the bonus songs I put up here. I will say they were all recorded in the process of making this album, but didn’t make it based on various reasons. Some of those reasons include my own half-baked thoughts on the flow of the narrative of the record and the highs and lows of it, and some just include the fact that a song felt good, but others were just better sounding to me. So I hope you enjoy those as well with the purchase of this record.

And like Huckleberry says, "...All I wanted was to go somewheres; all I wanted was a change...". And for me, that's the cliff notes of this album. We are not good nor bad or really anything at all. We are constantly bouncing between the blacks and whites and trying to fall somewhere in between, in that ever-desired gray area of life, and love, and death. All we want is to not get stuck along the way. To change and grow; to go "somewheres", wherever that may be.
See you along the way.........

-Fitz