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OUTSHINING THE SUN

Hello Just Plain Folks! :-)


I write to you today in hopes that you will peruse and write of my 27 song 2 ½ hour digital release “Outshining The Sun” online at https://mahlers.net and https://reverbnation.com/williammahler
“Outshining The Sun” is currently being distributed to every major online retailer spanning the entire globe including Spotify, Deezer and Ultimate China and a couple dozens more too.

Originally I was born 1967 in Weymouth but moved to Eastham early 1968 and remained a Cape Codder for most of my entire life, residing in all towns Yarmouth, Hyannis, Dennis & Mashpee as well as Sandwich for a spell too.

“Outshining The Sun” was primarily created, performed and recorded in downtown Hyannis between 2001 – 2004. On Ocean Street & Breakwater Shores Drive, in my apartment off of Sea Street Ext. and at the famed Prodigal Son coffee house (where Ocean Street Café is in Hyannis now). Mostly done within one to two takes and usually with a live audience. It’s raw, gritty and compassionate about the surroundings and people the album as a whole is about.

Daniel Langlais of Harwich and Audrey Lee Randall – Kelly of West Yarmouth contributed on three of the songs, guitars and vocals, otherwise it’s all me, harmonica, piano, drums and vocals, sometimes a-Capella.
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I cannot write about this without giving credit to my ex-wife Leonda Emmerich who served as my best friend and idea person, main supporter while this music was made. In fact, in the song “Excuse Me” recorded at one am on Ocean Street, she is heard yelling “watch out for that car” as I was inches from being run over on the side of the street. She was responsible for many a photograph and mending a bruised ego or two during the whole four year span as my wife, confidant and best friend. She fell in love with a one time teenage boyfriend of the 1980’s and we divorced by March 2008, effectively ending a rocky 17 year marriage.

The music is a testament to modern times, working by myself mostly, alone from writing, recording, editing, mixing, all production and media relations including countless posts into the Usenet known as Google Groups and email via YahooGroups (soon to be dysfunctional, Yahoo is shuttering the infamous site come December 15th of this year).

I’ve covered two beloved acts, Queen & Warren Zevon and both songs, Queens dramatically and radically re-arranged “Spread Your Wings” from 1977 and Warrens “Keep Me In Your Heart For A While” made its debut on his final release “The Wind” the last song on the opus, shortly before he passed from cancer, RIP.

“Prelude To September 11, 2001 – Leonda (I’m Coming Home)” if you can believe, created and released two weeks before 9/11/01 is a cryptic song about the nations worst tragedy. The family owned company I was a volunteer for since its inception summer 1984, M2 Technologies Inc. became a focal point of the Bush administration with the presidents use of the term “weapons of mass destruction” from our three person document “weapons of mass protection” penned summer j1984 and in the possession of the terrorist leaders, culled from our websites, both now defunct, Mahlers.Com and M2Tech.US. M2 Technologies Inc and its presence is along side Janet & Christopher Morris in Facebook. Their suspense thriller “The 40 Minute War” of which I was a party to in July 1984 became a near direct bullseye sixteen years later, for it dealt with a runaway jet commandeered by twenty Saudi Arabian Islamic State terrorists hell bent on destroying Washington DC. Had the 5th jet on 9/11/01 actually made it to the skies, “The 40 Minute War” would be the mostly accurate prediction to US history, over a decade prior. My song, is a testament to premonitionary mind sets and is all about being the lucky one to come home during September 11, 2001. One night two years later while eating dinner with my wife at Friendlys of Hyannis, the song was broadcast via satellite but performed by my all time favorite drummer from Europe, Roger Taylor, solo from his full time job in legendary band, Queen. His rendition stayed true to mine, with a unknown singer and a drum beat to the a-Capella song. The dozen or so people in the establishment ate as one man recognized me and asked me what I thought of the rendition. I was beyond elated.

“Merry Christmas To You” is dedicated to the 347,000 lives lost during the biggest tsunami since the dinosaurs ruled the Earth, BC, created at home in South Yarmouth, less than 12 hours before the December 25th southeast Asian 9.5 earthquake. The song at its end moves like waves with the words “storm warning” coming from my Hohner Blues G harmonica along the sung words “these waves are crashing down and all I remember is, lying on the ground”. Also for the lives lost at sea off the coast of Rhode Island, a fishing vessel and all it’s crew sank Christmas Eve 2004.

“No Highway” was as I was told by Virginia media after the arrest of the two snipers responsible for dozens of murders at gas stations, is all about the two of them, as if it were speaking to them to give up and “No Highway” was created with collaborator guitarist Daniel Langlais and I in front of a live audience, Prodigal Son October 2002.

“Regardless” is a song that had a limited release in summer 2004 on the internet, downloaded less than 50 times worldwide in almost three months. Come early winter 2005 in Raleigh, North Carolina, as my wife Leonda sat by my side at a bus station sidewalk, two lovers told me the title of this song, “Regardless” within four second of hearing the harmonica intro. Incredible how the internet works. Joe Walsh of The Eagles reportedly tried this song with the Eagles as it has been referred to being one of their own catalog. “Regardless” is dedicated to my younger step brother, Massachusetts State Police detective, US Army Airborne Ranger Persian Gulf war veteran and grandfather to my niece, Tom Forest, from Yarmouth Port, calling Otis, MA. out in the west side of the state his home with his attorney wife Julie and their two police children, both married, Cameron and Ashley along with Ashley’s two small children.

“What Do You Know” created and performed, recorded at the Prodigal Son with a live audience, the night before Johnny Cash went to heaven, speaks of Bruce Springsteen and Melissa Etheridge in a prescient way for they both made choices in their professional and personal lives within days to weeks after the song debuted on the internet that reflect the songs story partly about the both of them.

“Freedom” is a duet between collaborator Audrey Lee Randall – Kelly and I one week after 9/11/01 at the Prodigal Son coffee house with a subdued audience, in shock like the two of us on stage from the week before. The song became a hit on the internet, inspiring my idol Bruce Springsteen to create a near similar solo in his 2005 Grammy nominated song “Devils & Dust”, also nominated for best song and album of the year.

There ‘s much to listen to on this sparse, bleak and really quiet instrumental album but livens up with cuts such as “Any Day” with a chorus sang as if “Lonesome Day” by Bruce Springsteen is evident when the notes to the title are held in much the same delivery as Bruce’s classic from “The Rising”.

“Act Of Mercy”, the lead off song on “Outshining The Sun” is a harmonica and vocal piece, bordering on grandiose with bluegrass/rock roots reminiscent of Bruce Springsteen circa 1975 and his all time classic opus “Born To Run” being his vocal delivery in the master of an album. So much so, Bruce sound checked “Act Of Mercy” in 2005 and it’s reported to be part of his upcoming Tracks II box set, in a few years. I heard his rendition via satellite radio while pumping gas in Hyannis from overhead in the p.a. system by Dunkin Donuts / Speedway on the corner of Route 28 and Bearses Way, early spring 2004, months after the songs debut live performance, late summer 2003 in Hyannis. “Act Of Mercy” made its way to the creative processes of U2 & Melissa Etheridge, both releasing their adaptations of the songs subject within a years time separately with the title “Mercy”.

All this time, I’ve lived a quiet, low key life, light years removed from the star life so often believed to be of musicians, after all I’m just a plain guy.

I dabble in Real Estate, mental health and web development while earning my meat and potatoes over the years on and off as a landscaper for Mid Cape Nurseries of Yarmouth Port, MA and Turf’s Up of Bourne, one time of Sandwich. I’ve also been a culinary arts student to the Massachusetts National Guard, honorably discharge to train for Airborne Infantry of the US Army, only to receive a medical discharge, the loud music took it’s toll on my hearing,thus, unable to hear the enemy if that were to have ever occurred.

I’m not going to get into politics but I will say its more than time for a change I voted for Biden & Harris.

The Cape is forever my home and although I’m staying in Worcester, I have no plans to abandon Cape Cod forever.

I hope you give my album a fair shake with an unbiased unassuming go at the music presented. The lyrics are all at https://mahlers.net/outshiningthesunwords.htm while it streams in its entirety at https://mahlers.net and https://reverbnation.com/williammahler also found in Deezer and Spotify along with dozens others coming within days of this writing worldwide.

Thanks for reading, enjoy the music, feel free to contact me anytime.

Best,

William Mahler
1-774-314-4121
PO Box 866
West Yarmouth, MA 02673

William,

If you want someone to check out a song, post a direct link to a single specific song on the MP3 Feedback board and some folks will likely give it a listen. As an Org, we can't review one members 27 song release without offering the same to our entire membership. We do an awards where all can enter and we recognize the best stuff that way. Since we do all this for free, we depend on people to participate in order to make it work. Whether it is volunteering to host events, or offering feedback on these message boards, answering other's questions, supporting each other as we try to improve our work, it means giving more than you take. If you only take, no one else will give enough for you to get what you want. So for example, if you want feedback or reviews, spend a few hours listen to 27 other people's songs and I bet each of them will listen to one of yours and offer similar critiques to what you offered them. If you come from a place of only wanting to receive, most likely you can get someone to offer their thoughts, but that will be it. If you want to receive, give more.

That applies to life in general. And that's my suggestion, use or lose as you see fit.

Brian