Music Manney (Michael) is a self-taught singer-songwriter, recording artist, and music producer born in Detroit, Michigan. His family moved to the Kalamazoo/Battle Creek area when he was seven years old where he began playing the trumpet in 5th grade. By 9th grade he picked up his first electric guitar, and started writing songs with his two best friends. The three remained would be the nucleus of several acts throughout high school including all off of the tracks featured on Music Manney’s Circa 16.5: Walking Into Wednesday and Circa 17.5: Olivet. The three would add a fourth member who became Manney's co-writer for the songs on both albums. The majority of Music Manney's catalog, however, are home recordings of Manney as a solo artist. 

 

Manney learned by mostly stumbling through it, gathering a few tips and tricks along the way from his peers. Over a 20 year period, between his solo project and his bands he amassed a catalog of over 100 demos, which he is in the process of releasing. "It was important to me that these songs be made public, and so that has been my priority...it required so much effort that I had to end a 14 year career to focus all of my time on it...and recording 24 new songs over the next couple of years" Manney says. Manney's goal is to leverage his existing catalog of demos, plus any new demos he creates and promotes as singles over the next two years to finance his living expenses and an EP in an actual studio. "I bought myself three years by working my butt off for 14 years, effectively dedicating my life to my career.” 

 

 

To Manney, his songs and the process of recording them have always been very personal. “Many of the recordings aren’t great sounding” Manney laments, “I had no idea what I was doing...I still don't...but it was more about getting it out of me at the time than anything else, and part of this project was to just release everything as-is because most of the session files are gone anyway.” Manney’s songwriting and recording process continues to be more a journey of self-exploration and discovery than anything else and he looks forward to continuing to release and record new songs over the next couple of years—until his money runs out or a song catches fire.