Hello. This is Chris James here. Unlike the rock stars of now, and of old, I don't really have my "press ready" cliches and rhetoric in order. Talking about myself is not exactly my favorite thing to do. I belieive in letting the music speak for itself as does any other art form. But, since you don't have my album yet, I guess I'd better manufacture some of that musicians charm and say in as few words as possible why exactly it is that you can't live without my album "The Sign". Let me first say that I don't have a hidden agenda. I don't have a candidate to support, a concept to develop, or a hair to split. To quote a well know movie popular during the youth of "GEN X"; "I don't want to buy anything processed or sold, sell anything bought or processed, or process anything bought or sold." Good music is the means and the end. My passion in life is to create, record, and perform good music. My focus is to be the best musician I can be, and concieve the best compositions possible. It is with this humble philosophy that I have crafted this album. It is a very accessible, acoustic pop style effort, recorded to one inch tape, painstakingly, and with great attention to detail. It is marked by challenging pick and fingerstyle guitar parts and multi layered vocals. The songs are tightly arranged verse/chorus forms with instrumental interludes and strong memorable melodies. It touches on a myriad of different styles including Folk, Rock, Pop, Jazz, and even Latin. I have priced the album conservatively in the hope that many of you out there in cyberspace will take a chance on the product on my hard work. I can assure you that the music is well worth the price of admission...but don't take my word for it. The follwing coments are taking directly from the albums first two write ups. Thank you for reading and listening. CHRISTOPHER JAMES REVIEWS Providence Monthly Magazine James is wonderfully dexterous on acoustic, electric, and 12-string guitar. I was pleased to hear a healthy dose of semi-complex finger picking inter- mingling with the more classic rhythm strumming; a sign that James spent time with the building blocks of these songs, as opposed to throwing together a few chords that have been hanging out with each other in a billion other songs. James' vocals were fantastic, confident, and not over- bearing. He has wonderful pitch and never attempts an inflection he can't pull off, which is mature for a first record. On the more "rocking" tracks ("Stars That Fell," "No Time," "I Am Not Sleeping," "Good Question") he employed a louder and whinier tone, most likely to rise above the full rhythm section. I actually had to check the liner notes to make sure it was still James singing... I was impressed with the production on this album. The sounds of all the instruments were captured quite well (notably to tape and not digital, as some of the punching in and out on the vocals is a little rough and some of that good old tape hiss survived the mix- down). The background vocals (multi-tracked by James) complimented the main vocal wonderfully, and it had an overall "big" sound... The crafting of the songs are very mature - things progress at a nice pace and never get too redun- dant. The layering of guitars was particularly tasteful, something I would attribute to the fact that there is only one ego to deal with in the songwriting. I was glad to hear an instrumental in the middle of the album -always a sign that the artist is sure enough of his musicianship to let an instrument other than voice speak for itself. SAKONNET TIMES INTERVIEW WHAT ARE YOUR SONGWRITING METHODS? "I get a few chords and a tune I like, then whichever feeling or situation or experience I'm dusting off in my head that day become the lyrics. Tunes come easy; lyrics come hard. I use the music to kind of figure things out about myself. The subject matter are situations I'm in in life and I use the songwriting time as a way of working them out. In the end, after the project is finished, I usually have an answer to whatever my problem is, too." WHERE DO YOUR IDEAS COME? "Inspiration does hit usually at strange times, when I'm not really thinking about it. Brushing my teeth or taking out the trash a clever line pops into my head. And the best ideas are the ones that just come and you don't question if it's a cliche or preachy."