Your Boy is Growing Up (formerly titled Guitar Songs, Five Year Liberation and Garage Sale) is an album where I compiled all of the songs I have written that I was either too embarrassed or was too early to release on Awkward Stage. The album is my way of transferring from playing guitar to playing piano, keyboard, and various other instruments, as shown through my addition of keyboards in a few tracks.

The reason I chose to drop the guitar is for many reasons:
1) I'm so much more interested in creating more electronically-based stuff that I hardly touch my guitar as much as I used to anymore.

2) being a huge listener to music, I have found myself being bored of the guitar. Being an unapologetic lover of independent music, I listen to plenty of songs featuring the guitar, and there are moments where I question why guitar always have to be the lead in all instruments and that I don't hear enough creativity being used in the guitar from some bands. I almost wished someone would just break out a mandolin or a theremin or something to break the monotony. And...

3) My future projects, including an album explaining to NTs what having Asperger's Syndrome is like, are ones that I think require the keyboard, seeing as how my vision of it is electronically-based, piano-based and as "avant-garde" as the personality of some Aspies. So, I'm preparing to do something more with that.

Now, about the album...

Some of the tracks are, indeed, old and are made to showcase the confidence I have gained over the years just playing guitar, writing songs and singing. Awkward Stage was named so for the fact that I was (still am sometimes) incredibly nervous with singing and recording. I was like a groundhog who was shook at the sight of his own shadow!

Nowadays, I have gained more confidence in singing, after realizing that even though it may not be the kind of voice I have always wanted (my voice was soft enough to do R&B, folk or pop than it is doing rock music, which was what I had originally aimed for), it isn't as bad as I had made it out to be. This is why I named the "mixtape" what it is.

The songs are chronologically mixed up for the sake of musical sequence (along with three other tunes that will be mentioned). Although, I feel more inspired to put down the guitar, I won't say that I will not use it anymore, but after this, I will be taking on music created with various other instruments from keyboards to pianos to anything I can pick up or program via laptop.

Till then...Enjoy! And if you don't, you will surely enjoy future projects. :-)