In some ways it was a very good year gig and creativity wise...
In other ways it sucked beyond all belief...
BUT I GOT THROUGH IT!
Events of last year have made me more determined to make my music more widely available and out in the world, not sure how I'm gonna do it, but I'm gonna do it somehow.
ON TO THE NEW YEAR...FORWARD!
There are already a lot of cool things that are going to be happening, so let me go ahead and give you the rundown of where my projects stand...
Dirk Diggler News:
Late last year we were told that our drummer wasn't likely going to be able to play with us on a full time basis, and we spent time quietly reaching out to other drummers, and we ended finding our new drummer this last week. We had a surprise gig at Cafe 27 pop up, to fill in for Hangar 5, as their singer was sick. Greg invited a drummer that he wanted to bring into the band to come jam with us. The gig ended up being a "top 10" DD show, and by the end of the night, the drummer (Kenny) told us he wanted the gig! Our old drummer Jaimie will still play with us on occasion, but Kenny will be on the throne behind the boys from here on out. We'll be returning to Little Hoolies in March, and hopefully expand out to other venues in the near future. Gonna be some fun stuff going forward!
Triad News:
Yes, there is Triad news! After a long hiatus and drummer search, it looks like my old friend Mike from Train of Thought and Force Three is going to join up with me and Scott. We'll be starting rehearsals I think in the next few weeks once our schedules align. Hopefully we'll be out playing by spring, that's what I'm shooting for!
Solo Stuff News:
Well, last year I ended up making 2 "Albums," and got them both up on my reverbnation.com/timbirkett page, and hopefully everyone liked a few songs from them. As you know, last year I started (albeit slowly) doing acoustic solo shows again, and I'm going to be continuing that in 2019. I had a couple fun shows at Pub 935 last year, and I know I'll be back there in the spring, and in addition to that, I'm going to be doing my solo show at Cafe 27 on February 1st, and I'm hoping that will also turn into a regular or semi regular thing. I'm also going to try to find some other places that will let me come and make some noise.
On the composition end of things, I've been making progress on a new piece that I started up a few years ago. It's kind of based on Joe Jackson's "Symphony No. 1," in that it uses more of a rock band instrumentation with a few horns to create a semi symphonic piece. I had started the piece a few years back, and then hit a wall with it, and over the last few months I started revisiting it and was able to get past the writer's block that I had for the piece. I'm hoping that I can finish writing it out and then transfer it to Finale and get it up for everyone to hear by summer. Once that is done, I'm going to FINALLY start writing my first full on Symphony. I've got sketches of ideas going back a long way, and I think I'm finally in the right headspace to take on that challenge. Stay tuned....
I'm also going to be working on getting my music up for sale on the usual sites this year finally as well. It's long overdue I think. Not that I think Ill make a ton of money or anything, but it's time to get it out there. I'll also be making some changes here and paying more attention to this site as well.
For those that know me from the WIU days, this year is the going to be the 25th anniversary of Incognito's lone album "Abuse Your Delusion 1 1/2" and me, Mike and Rich have decided that in honor of it, WE WILL BE WRITING AND RECORDING A NEW ALBUM THIS YEAR! I"ll be making trips up to Illinois for the 3 of us to do the work needed to make this happen hopefully this year. We have done some long distance writing over the last 3-4 years, but our schedules have made getting together to actually record kind of difficult at best. We were texting each other over New Years Eve and we all decided that we want to make it happen. Right now, the first writing/recording session will likely happen in late March. I always felt that this lineup of the band had not run it's course, so I'm way excited to see what we can come up with!
I've also been filling in with the band Reckless Kind on some shows here and there, a nice no pressure gig...show up play bass sing maybe one song...in other words a fun easy gig. I'll be updating the gig calendar a lot so make sure to check in to see where I'm playing, and with who!
Long update I know...look for a new post in "The Woodshed" later today or tomorrow...
That is all...TB