wait for it
After a longish period (over a month) of fretting over the right decisions to make, of waiting to find the right kind of apartment to fit our band's needs, of wondering how the right band members would come to us, of personal pep talks in the midst of unbearable times of waiting, things seem to be falling into place. We have a committed bassist. Joel has found a reasonably-priced coach house here in Chicago that will double as a studio/rehearsal space. A sound engineering friend we met in Nashville is planning to come from Latvia to help us take the album one last step from our home to your stereo system. But we continue to wait for the right kind of drummer. We continue to wait for the right kind of drummer.
Some encouraging indications: a few people who have been good enough to listen to our album more than six times reported that the music grows on them more and more--that the songs are much richer than they first thought, that there are many great and several "brilliant" musical moments. This has been our own experience with the album, but it's always good to have the validation of your peers.