By now, the members of Ghetto Fame-Us thought that they'd be putting the finishing touches on their second album, taking care of all the details that crop up between the recording sessions and the CD-release party. And that's what they are doing now, except they haven't graduated to their sophomore disc just yet. One year after the group's debut Add On! was recorded, mixed, and ready to be sent to the pressing plant, the disc still hasn't hit shelves. As the group learned, recording an album is the easy part, only requiring the talent and time to make it happen. Releasing it, on the other hand, doesn't require any talent at all, just enough money to pay the bills.

Which is why Add On! has been able to be heard only at Ghetto Fame-Us shows and Eddie D's Saturday-evening radio show on KNON-FM (89.3) for the last year. But that will soon change, as Add On! will finally be available when the group performs at Liquid Lounge on November 6. Of course, the band had made that same promise a few times before. The record was originally supposed to come out at the beginning of the year; a review of the disc even appeared in the Dallas Observer around that time. The band then pushed the date back until March, before finally deciding that telling people the record would be ready didn't make sense until their dollars did. Along the way, they realized the album they recorded wasn't the one they wanted people to hear anyway.

"The money was the situation at first, getting everything pressed up because we wanted to do it all ourselves," says Dread, one of the group's MCs. "And then we had some songs we wanted to go ahead and record, because we'd changed since we recorded the other ones. Those were who we were then, and the new songs were who we are now. So we had to go ahead and make the necessary corrections."

Still, the version of Add On! that finally hits stores next week isn't that different from the promotional copy that surfaced at the beginning of this year. If nothing else, it reflects a band -- which also includes Wiz, Ron D, Boo Love, Tamara, and LD -- maturing together, growing even tighter in the last year than it had in its first three years as a band. And even though it was a struggle to get Add On! from their heads into stores, Dread knows they would do it all over again. In fact, they are prepared to do just that, as they are making plans for another release on their own Load Zone Central Recordings next spring. But Dread isn't making any promises.

"It's hard, because we don't have distribution deals or anything like that," Dread says. "But we've done a few shows testing out the response, and it's all been favorable, so I know we're doing the right thing. It's tough to do what you want to do, but sometimes, that's why you do it."