Category: News

  • How Film Inspiration and Tech Breakthroughs Help My Latest Christmas Release

    How Film Inspiration and Tech Breakthroughs Help My Latest Christmas Release

    How often do you watch a particular movie? How often do you listen to a song or album (do you even listen to albums)? How much effort do you put in to anything that you do in life? What is the expected result? Is it like Christmas when you experience the end result?

    These are some of the things that are pulsing through my head right now. Mainly due to how much effort I’ve been pouring into things for the last several weeks. Beginning with some technical shit that is meant to make your experience on this site better. The last step took two weeks of intense testing to make it work.

    Before I get to the technical shit, I’m gonna write that I’ve gone off the deep end with the movie F1 starring Brad Pitt. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a massive movie buff. Often I’m dropping weird movie quotes and references. While I don’t do drugs, I do often over imbibe on movies I enjoy. Right now – that is F1. I’ve watched the damn thing roughly 10 times in the last two weeks.

    Director Joseph Kosinski has another amazing movie under his belt. The true thanks has to go to Ehren Kruger for a very clever script. While I don’t know how many of the lines are ad libbed, I will say there is a lot of fun and well-timed dialogue that really brings each character to life. F1 is just the backdrop to a story about loving what you do and ignoring all the noise beyond that love.

    christmas-past-jody-whitesides

    I apply that same mentality to music. Especially to the music I create. But also to the focus I place on listening to music created by others. It requires a great amount of concentration to really bring music to life.

    The other day my significant other and I were chatting. I had intimated that I hold the Steve Jobs attitude to how I approach doing things. Meaning, if something isn’t seen front of face, it still requires perfection. This comes from the story of how Steve Jobs was ultimately concerned about how the inside of his computers had to look and feel just as perfect as the outside of those computers.

    I apply this theory to music, sports, and all other things that I do. I find that if I don’t put in the effort it ends up meaning nothing to me and I derive no pleasure from the end result.

    Often it’s based not only on the quality of the tools one has at their disposal, but their ability to self assess what they are doing.

    Such is the technical issue I was dealing with for the last two weeks. It relates to my website, my email platform and of course how it operates. Without giving away the goods, I’ll say this. It’s something behind the scenes, not forward facing. What does it do? It’s keeps things smoother for you and improves things behind the scenes for me.

    To that end, this is the re-release part 2 of a slew of Christmas music. Christmas Past. All you need to know is that it’s classic Christmas songs that I’ve put my take on. The re-release in and of itself is a new mix, improved arrangements, and new mastering.

    All that adds up to an audio experience that I’m happier about. That will sound better to you. And if I shall be so bold, will get yet another experience upgrade next year.

    For now, I’m wishing you and yours a very special holiday time. May it be filled with friends, family and awesome experiences.

    Stay Tuned

  • A Hectic Holiday That Inspired Fan Engagement & an Atmos Breakthrough

    A Hectic Holiday That Inspired Fan Engagement & an Atmos Breakthrough

    Pushing thru the eye of the storm. After a lovely holiday known as Thanksgiving in the U.S., there was a mellow weekend. Then Sunday evening and an all-nighter last night led to a breakthrough. Oh, and finally the Atmos version of Delicate Stretch of the Seems finally landed!

    There was a literal and figurative storm around my world last night. Finally Mother Nature did a little dusting of snow after an extremely warm November. Then there was a non-trivial event of the network in front of the server and I was up all night getting it back online. I’m in a state of delirium as I write this.

    The good thing is on Sunday I made a major step forward for those on the Jody Army list. All the points I’ve been planning for fans have been getting tracked, but not reported. Now they are finally tracking, updating and reporting. In the next email going out there’s some peeps that will get a special email welcoming them to the first tier of the Army.

    The best part of the points kicker is that all emails will now give you your current point totals – all you need to do is keep on being you, reading the emails, coming to the website and sharing. Now that the points tracking is in place and solid, I can move on to the next bit of awesomeness. The plan is to announce it January 1, 2026.

    After a large amount of back and forth with the distributor and Apple Music… The Atmos version of Delicate Stretch of the Seems has finally landed! Yes it will sound similar to the stereo version, but also quite different in spacial feel. It’s been a long ass time in the making and it’s exciting to finally be getting it out there and available for your ear holes.

    christmas-past-jody-whitesides

    Lastly to kick off December, it’s finally time to start wishing people a Merry Christmas and or happy holidays. What ever floats your boat in cheerful sayings. To that end there’s gonna be some festive stuff popping up in the next few days and next few weeks as the year winds down.

    I’ve kept up my goal of releasing a new song every week since I began back in February. What a ride it’s been and 2026 will have a lot more of that coming as well.

    This particular proclamation starts yet another trend in terms of timing. Stay tuned!

  • Slowed-Down Songs, Atmos Mixing, and Creative Grit: A Deep Dive Into My Latest Release Cycle

    Slowed-Down Songs, Atmos Mixing, and Creative Grit: A Deep Dive Into My Latest Release Cycle

    Some say that patience is a virtue. There is a portion of a release made almost 2 weeks ago that is holding up that release (meaning the Atmos version of Delicate Stretch of the Seems). Learning that dental implants can take up to a year. And that I may have a new tradition with releases, like last week’s release and the one coming. This past week has been slowed-down in so many ways.

    Despite taking Dolby’s online course and learning all I could about mixing and mastering for Atmos, it’s still in my beta-testing phase – so to speak. One of the songs off the Delicate Stretch of the Seems album held up the release past the release date. Somehow in the transferring of the files to the distributor it lost all it’s metadata. That has been rectified, but they still haven’t given me a time frame as to the day it will release the album. Will have to wait.

    For those that have never broken a tooth, I commend you. I tend to have more than a few stories of broken teeth, most of them mine. I suppose it’s a by-product of being overly active in life and less than lucky of putting a mouth in the wrong place at the wrong time.

    I’m in the midst of getting an implant or two to replace ones that broken in very unfortunate ways. Meaning below the gum-line and unable to be crowned. Extraction is not a pleasant process. And implants don’t get done in a single day. I’m looking at months of waiting and as someone who really enjoys food, eating it right now is a very different endeavor. I’ll say “I can’t wait until I have those implants.” but reality is, I have to.

    This week I unveil the 3rd alternate release of Delicate Stretch of the Seems. Or at least it was supposed to be the 3rd alternate. Delicate Stretch of the Seems (Slowed Down) is this week’s announcement. Much like last week’s sped up version, this stems from those fringe types that would rather hear things feeling like a dirge.

    Again this is a response to things on Social Media, like TikTok. Knowing that people will do this to the music is kinda depressing. Maybe that is the point. They’re feeling down and want to express it with songs they know. Thus now there is a much longer slower version of all 15 of these songs. You will need patience to get thru them.

    Stay tuned, there will be more.