Stars

<p>Michael Stevens is a singer-songwriter from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Stevens was born in Reading, Pennsylvania where he lived most of life. He began writing songs at an early age influenced by listening to his two older sisters record collections of the 60's and 70's. He began playing the guitar at the age of 18 and began putting songs of his own together. He played at a few open mics and played in a small band which never amounted to very much. A few years later while working a full time job and going to college he continued to write songs but was not playing on a regular basis. This process took ten years and consumed most of his time. After moving to Lancaster for a teaching job he acquired his his masters degree in education and found he had plenty of spare time on his hands now that he was finally finished with college. He went to see a local band called the Silverhawks one night with a woman he was dating and saw how much fun the guys in the band were having so he decided to start playing again. As luck would have it the next day a big snow storm hit Lancaster and the schools were closed for a few days. He decided to listen to the bits and pieces of the songs he put together during the ten years of going to college. He had about 50 songs and began playing again and recording again on his state of the art $30.00 karaoke machine. He rented a house were he could wail away without disturbing the neighbors and began practicing everyday in his basement. Not getting a quality recording from high priced recording equipment he decided to try a budget recording studio to record a few songs. While at the studio the engineer put some drums, bass, and strings along with his songs which made Stevens think " with a little help I may not stink as bad I thought." So he sent some of the recordings to a company which said they would listen to the songs and give him feedback on the songs and send them to record companies if they were good enough. The response was the same for every song, they said, " You have to paint a clear picture for the listener and we are not sure where you are going with your songs." After calling them every name in the book Stevens realized they were correct. He said to himself," I know what the songs are saying and what I am trying to say, but I am not clear enough for someone else listening to it for the first time." Although the response from the company got him really mad it was the best thing that could have happened to him concerning songwritng. He began taking his time some more writing songs and looked over them like the 2000 papers he had to write while going to college. He tried to make sure the whole song was clear and in the proper tense throughout the song. He decided to back into the budget studio to make a new CD called "Anything I Can." He concentrated on the lyrics but not his voice. Stevens replied, "This is where a music mentor would have helped due my lack of musical knowledge." Stevens replied, "It kind of sounded like I was singing underwater, it took a few months of listening to the CD to realize I needed to work on my voice, I was singing way out of tune but didn't realize it at the time." He practiced a few months and decided to try to play out in public again maybe just one time mainly because it scared the heck out of him and he said, "I never allows fear to keep from doing anything." He went to a local coffee shop where local artists would play and asked the owner if he could play there hoping she wouldn't listen too carefully to the CD he gave her. He noticed there were only about 4 or 5 people there listening to the singer and he thought this would be a good place to start. She said yes and when he went to play there for the first time there were about 40 people there. "I shooked for the whole 2 hours of playing but I didn't make any mistakes. I thought I stank pretty bad but the lady said she would call me to play again, "I thought she was just being nice, but she did call back and I played ther about 12 times over the next 2 years and at few more coffee shops in Lancaster, Reading, Allentown, and Pottstown." On his next CD "Important," the voice range was much better but the recording levels were way too low. The people that bought it said they liked the CD but they had to turn their sterios all the way up to hear it. Stevens decided to re-record his first CD and called it "Dreaming About the Past", but results on this CD were the same as the others.He decided to take a year off from playing to improve his singing and guitar playing, and also to learn computer recording, even though he says he hates sitting down at the computer. After a year of torture sitting at the computer two to three hours each night, and some help from some friends, he recorded his new CD "Stars" and decided to get it mastered by someone who actually knows what they are doing. The sound is much better. "I think I'm getting closer to a decent sounding CD." Stevens is practising again and is expecting to be out playing in public again by summertime. He says he wants to make sure everything is right this time. His musical influences are Neil Young, Bob Marley, and Van Morrison.</p>