Yes, definitely getting close to summer... The "day job" is starting to get to the point where things will be winding down, and then I'll have time to work in my studio and hopefully will have a lot of shows happening as well. I have a few more weeks of pretty heavy work at school then I can fully concentrate on working on projects in my studio here. The big thing going on at my school is getting ready for our annual "New Music Night" concert. The program has songs created by my students, as well as a premiere of a piece of mine. Once I'm past that performance, things get pretty easy over there. I already have several projects lined up to keep me busy over the summer. If all goes according to plan, there will be a lot of gigging and a lot of new music created. Let me give y'all a quick rundown of what the next few months are starting to look like...
THE "DIRK DIGGLER" BAND (WAS CALLED MANIC HEPPI): There are already a few shows coming up, including a show tomorrow at Cafe 27. We played there a couple months ago, and it was an absolute blast. Apparently Sunday is the really busy day there, so I'm looking forward to a wild show. Right now it looks like this band will be a primarily covers band, but I think we'll be having a lot of fun with it. ELI CASH: I will be doing a few shows with Eli Cash as well this summer. The band is in the process of redoing their entire setlist, and I think the first show is going to be in June with the new songs. Again, covers, but it will be a whole new set of songs. Should be a good time, as well as a good challenge for me to learn another new ton of music... FORCE THREE: No shows planned at this point. I have been starting to really think about restarting that band up, but if I do I am going to take my time doing it the way I would like to see it. If and when F3 restarts, like I said before it will be with an entirely new lineup. There were elements of what that band was doing that were cool, but I still felt it was lacking a bit. Partially because I was comparing it to Inkognito, I know, but the way that band was evolving up to the "Abuse Your Delusion" album was closer to what I want to be doing. SO, when F3 starts up again, 'nito will be the template. Not going to use any material from that band, but I really want a band that not only does covers, but also does our own songs. Call me crazy, but that's important to me. SWAMP DRIVE: First off, the near reunion with the old singer ended up being a one time thing. Not sure if he's going to try to revive Southern Drawl, but if he is I won't be involved. On the other hand, Dave and I have been talking, and there might be some movement on reviving Swamp Drive at some point. As soon as I know anything I'll pass it along... THE PROJECT WITH MIKE AND RICH (INKOGNITO MK2?): Still writing. In a new twist, we may be working on 2 different albums now. We had a series of discussions over the last few weeks about where the concept album was at, and we decided that we had not only a good foundation for the concept album, but a few really good songs that really didn't fit with the story as well. So, we are going to keep writing, and if some songs come out of the writing that don't fit the story, we're going to compile them into an album of "non story" songs and keep working on the concept album. I think the plan is whichever one is done first will be the "debut" album! That actually works out for me pretty good. This way I don't have to tie my brain into knots trying to make songs fit the story, I can let them develop a little more "naturally" with no pressure. We are going to be doing the recording via email, and, as I have been saying since we started this, there is no time table for this thing, it will be done when it's done and happy with it. OTHER STUFF: I still have a ton of "solo" songs to work on, I am hoping to get a couple songs finished before summer starts to post on my various webpages, then once summer hits, really crank on getting the rest of them done. I also have a couple classical type compositions that I'm working on as well, and I hope to get some major work done on them as well. There are a few songs that I have to arrangements on for Deb Desilets as well. Those will probably be worked on first, as I need to get them to her soon. I have to admit I had to put them on the back burner. Gotta get back on the ball here! I'm also now playing pretty regularly at Little Hoolies as part of the "Open Mic" house/host band. In fact, I'm now the main bass player for the group. Or to put it another way, I'm there just about every week now. It's really good for me in that it keeps my chops up, and sometimes it's a fun challenge to have to play songs that I may not really know all that well. My ear is getting pretty good lately! I'm also teaching private lessons through a store down here, and still taking students here and there as well. I'm trying to do lessons mainly through the store at this point just because it's a little easier, but I'm always open to working outside as well. There is also talk of more shows with 3RG as well, but I don't have any concrete dates with them at this point. I am also planning on trying to do some solo acoustic open mic performances this summer too. I'm starting to figure out what songs of mine I want to have in a set (have a lot more songs to choose from since the last time I did acoustic shows!), and I'm going to start getting them back under my fingers. I'm also going to be working on adding more stuff to this site as well, as it's just about back up to where the old "mac" site was, and I'm still rea Long update, but I think I pretty much covered everything at the moment...
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March 2024
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