This ended up being a super productive summer I have to say. If you've noticed on my socials, I have finally officially release ALL of my solo albums up onto, as I announced it "your favorite streaming or digital gratification sites!" It took a little bit of work, and now that they're there I'm still amazed that they're all there. I'm super stoked about it! On top of getting the back catalog up (Basically everything except the Incognito album, Caesar's Ghost, the Southern Drawl album and the Conspiracy Inc. "box"), I also just releasd 3 new albums!!
The first of the new albums is "The Impossibility Of Silence," which is the one I've been working on since this last spring. It came out killer, and there are a few songs on there that I'm really proud of, mainly "October Moon" (which you can get as a stand alone single plus a non album "B-Side"), "The Storm Within," and the title track, just going off the top of my head. Also, the super cool artwork was done by my amazingly talented daughter!
The other two albums are complications of more of my classical pieces. The first one, "School Days: Works Volume 3" is another compilation of songs from the school band I had a few years ago. It's a companion album to the "Randomonium" album. It's 10 more of the pieces that I wrote for that band, and it's just about all of the pieces that I wrote for that band. I say just about, because while I was looking for all the scores and organizing them, I found 5 more songs, but when I listened to them to see if I could include them, they needed some editing for various reasons. A couple of them had some really funky note clashes going on, and I decided that I'd have to fix them before I could put them out. One of them is I believe the first piece that I did for that school band, and I think you'll get a kick out of hearing that one. I'm hoping to finish editing them and adding them onto the next "Works" album, which may or may not see the light of day by the end of the year. It'll depend on whether or not I have enough pieces to warrant a new volume. The second one, "Excursions: Works Volume 4," finally has the string quartet "Spheres" getting an official release, as well as a cool little orchestral piece, a string quartet dedicated to my mom, who passed in 2018, and the premiere of my first symphony, aptly called "Symphony No. 1 Electric." I mentioned this piece a while back, as I worked on it on and off from 2012 to 2021. It's not a traditional symphony, as I used a different instrumentation, and it was loosely based/inspired by the Joe Jackson alubum "Symphony No. 1," a fantastic album that you should check out if you like that sort of thing. I'm SUPER SUPER proud of how my symphony turned out, and yes I'll be doing another one (a traditional orchestral one no less) in the near future, I'm already starting to gather ideas for it now... Needless to say, check these albums out, as well as all the other ones as well!
These "Works" albums have also inspired me to go back and resume my "digital archive" project that I was doing several years ago. This way I can not only get my old pieces from my college days (daze?) on the computer so I won't lose them, I can also get them heard again, or for the first time when it comes to several of the pieces! Plus, obviously a way to get newer pieces out and into the world. I think I'm gonna have a lot of fun getting this project going!
IN OTHER NEWS...
Limerock and Electric Mayhem have been doing shows, and they've all been really good, even in the super nasty South Florida heat. Both bands are starting to get new songs in the shows, and both bands have been discussing doing some original material as well! Both bands have merch, so make sure to hit up the bands. Limerock's new shirt design was done by my amazing daughter, have to brag about that! Limerock will be debuting at Piper's Pub in Pompano Beach this Tuesday night for our drummer Louie's birthday, so that should be a great night. I don't have the exact day yet, but Electric Mayhem will be debuting at Sunset Tavern in South Miami sometime this fall I believe. Mayhem have a couple of shows at Hog Heaven in Islmorada coming up this month, and the "Mayhem Duo" acoustic show (me and Daisy) will be at Whale Harbor in Islmorada the last Friday of this month. September and October will be a little slow, and then both bands will be busy the rest of the year, so it's going to be a fun run of shows this fall.
As far as my other projects, there really isn't anything to report at this time. I'm going to be doing some more updates to the website, including updating the gear list, and probably adding an entry or two to "The Woodshed," as well as some more pictures and other odds and ends, so keep looking...as usual, the gig calendar is always being updated so check that out too...
THAT IS ALL....TB