Work on another studio album is progressing at an agonizingly slow rate - like that would be news - but it is progressing. While I wouldn't want to give away too much about the album, it will contain both the very recognizable BOSTON sound plus some surprises I think everyone will appreciate - as long as you like Big Band Swing and Rap ... just kidding!

Writing, arranging and recording BOSTON music for hours day after day is frustrating, exhausting, and lonely, yet strangely enticing. My dad used to ask me, "If the song is 4 or 5 minutes long, why doesn't it take 4 or 5 minutes to record it?" The catch is, figuring out what should happen for every second of that 4 or 5 minutes for all the individual tracks on one song, and trying the hundreds of variations on each instrument or vocal takes me typically 4 or 5 months. For every measure of BOSTON music that survives the cut on an album, a week of work ends up in the trash bin.

Meanwhile, the rest of the band members are busy with their own lives and projects, and all have already contributed in some way to the new BOSTON album effort. These are understanding and patient people! Unfortunately I don't expect to have the album finished in time to prepare for a tour this summer, but we are all jonesing to play again.

Much more urgent and serious is Haiti. These poor people were living a wretchedly impoverished life before the earthquake, now it's worse than a Hollywood disaster movie come to life. Those that have survived the initial trauma now are faced with an almost impossible-to-survive situation. Even in this recession, seeing and hearing the stories from Haiti makes you realize how good we have it. Please dig a little deeper and donate as we have, through any of the numerous organizations mobilizing to help.

Let's all try to look out for each other!

Tom Scholz