Don't Let Your Music Exist Solely on Your Hard Drive; Set it Free.

Don't Take 23 Years to Release a Demo

In 2003, I walked into a basement studio just outside of Baltimore, MD. I was serving in the Marines at the time. I had worked with the studio owner once before; I recorded some guitar tracks for a fellow Marine’s country demo. I noticed the studio owner was using a Roland VS1680 and commented that I had one too and really liked it. He said he was hoping to buy another 1680 at some point so he could link the two. He needed more tracks to finish his band’s demo. I didn’t know it at the time, but that casual conversation would be the impetus for me to record my demo.

When I went back to the studio to do some overdubs, I posed the question, “Would you be interested in a trade? My 1680 for studio time? He said yes, and we worked out a deal. One stipulation I had was that I needed a drummer. He volunteered his band’s drummer (who would later add a stipulation of his own: beer!).

The resulting sessions were extremely awkward. I had never been in a studio. I had never worked with the drummer, and I had to sing and play my songs in front of strangers. Eventually, we all worked through it and recorded satisfactory drum takes for six songs. I was tight on time, so we recorded guitar and some vocal overdubs in a long session that included a co-worker playing bass.

My initial intent was to re-record guitars and vocals at home, then mix and burn the songs to CD. I did this. Made two (maybe three) CDs. One song never made it to the CD. I was overly self-conscious about my playing and singing on it (even more so than the five that made it to the CD). Then I forgot about it. It was like my mind completely erased the memory of it.

In 2020 (-ish), my family and I were cleaning out my mom’s house. My son was interested in her record player and started going through her albums, CDs, and cassettes. In a CD case with a plain white and black homemade label was a CD titled Ken Tinnin, Feed the Beast. My son started asking questions, “Is this really you? Did you make a CD?. Later, the questions changed to: “When are you releasing this?” or “When is the 2025 remix?”

Sometime in 2025, I decided to maybe re-record the songs. I needed a break from teaching guitar, and maybe I’ll take one to “work on my music” quest began. It went through a lot of iterations. I tried to learn EZdrummer to create drum tracks, then I learned about stem splitters (this did not work as the CD quality was so poor that the stem separation was horrible), then eveything changed in October when I found an old back up DVD that had the original demo session tracks, a couple of other homemade demos and a folder of lyrics-some dating back to the 1990’s.

Listening to those sessions was nostalgic to say the least. They were so raw and, at the same time, so full of energy, angst, and emotion. They were far better than the CD mix I had made decades prior. Then, I found the song that never made it to the CD. I imported the tracks into a DAW and listened in trepidation. I immediately remembered the embarrassment I had previously felt. I hesitated to push play. The riff started, I liked it; the lead guitar kicked in, I liked it. The vocals came in, and I didn’t hate them. They were off-key, but there was a rawness to them that was kinda cool. What had I been so afraid of? Why was I so embarrassed? I made something. I took a risk. The quality was irrelevant. The rough demo made trumps the great demo that was never made every time.

The day the demo was available on Spotify, I was ecstatic. I texted family and friends. I even made a Facebook post (I NEVER post on Facebook!). Again, what was I so afraid of? I didn’t die. There was no public outcry, and I was not arrested by the bad music police.