What is Demoitis, anyway?

Well, demoitis is when an early song recording becomes the definitive version in the songwriter's mind to the extent that when they come to re-record it in a studio or with a producer, it’s hard to accept the newer version.

Obviously, this concept is usually seen in a negative light. However, I’m trying to flip the idea to free my fellow musicians from demoitis by creating a safe space where they can give these fledgling versions of their songs the light they deserve. Who knows, perhaps sharing these demos will allow their creators to move on, or perhaps it’ll just mean they stop worrying about perfection and get their songs (raw or polished) out into the world.

Back in 2019, I started making demos for my own debut solo album. When the pandemic hit, my album was reduced to a 3-track EP, which I still haven’t released. In the meantime, these other songs languish on a hard drive in a drawer. So I have decided to honour them, along with my other sketches and fragments, by putting them online over the coming weeks and months. And I want to do the same for your demos, however rough. 

So send me your songs with some info about them and your project to: demoitis.cure@gmail.com 

If you have multiple versions of the song (e.g. audio-note, Garageband demo, and final production), I’d be interested in featuring all of them to demonstrate the writing process. 

Or just send me the demo. Whatever, there are new rules here (except: be excellent to each other). From time to time, I might write about demos of more well-known recording artists, where the demo version is interesting or perhaps even better than the album version.

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