Safe to say 2020 didn't go the way any of us planned, but at least it's over now, or in a couple hours as I'm typing...
SO, I will be on this recap of this year doing my best not to state the obvious of how bad 2020 was, but on things that happened that were positive. The shows that Dirk Diggler did before things shut down were really good, like we were hitting a new level of sorts. Hopefully that will continue once things start getting back to normal. DD is still on a hiatus, and I'm hoping that that band will be back in action in the next month or two. Reckless Kind has managed to play several shows (Yes, I'm being careful and as safe as I can) over the last few months, and that band is starting to gel too. There are still some rough edges that are being smoothed out, and that is making those shows a lot of fun. There was one really kind of crazy "Spinal Tap" show that happened with them as well. Note to Louie: if the replacement drummer looks kinda like a homeless guy, he probably shouldn't be on stage LOL. The newest band that I'm playing with, Electric Mayhem, is playing it's second ever show Saturday night at Sandbar down here in Cutler Bay, and I'm looking forward to that one. EM's setlist has a lot of songs that make me have to play a little less aggressively, so it's a fun challenge. Here's to all 3 of those bands having the chance to play a lot of shows in the new year. I'm also hoping to continue to play acoustic solo shows as well. I will be doing an acoustic show with a super talented singer named Carolina Medina in February, and that should be a really good time. I met her through the RK guys, and we may not only do some shows but we're also talking about doing some writing as well.
As far as my original songs go, this year was super productive. I "released" on my www.reverbnation.com/timbirkett page 2 albums, "Universal" and "25@50." "25@50" was a challenge I gave to myself on August 25 to write and record an entire album worth of material before my 50th birthday. I got it done with 2 days to spare! Added bonus? The songs turned out GREAT! I have to say, though, the musical project that I was most happy about finishing is something I finished last night. I had been working on a pseudo-classical "electric symphony" that was modeled after Joe Jackson's "Symphony No. 1" album since 2012. It was a piece that at several points over the years I've gone between totally determined to finish it and nearly abandoning it altogether. But something about it kept me coming back to it. Once everything went on lockdown though, I decided that I would use the time that I would have at home (as well as a lot of time at the "day job" with few to no students in my room) and finally try to complete it. And I gave myself to today to have the writing done. When I started full on with completing it, I had the first 2 movements already finished, and the third movement started. I finished the third movement around Thanksgiving, and started in on the fourth movement at the beginning of this month. One of the things that made this process take so long is that I did it old school, and wrote the score out by hand. The finished score on paper is 97 pages! Probably starting tomorrow in between practicing for the EM gig, I will start entering the score into the computer on Finale to do any editing (I'm sure I'll be needing to make fixes) and finally being able to hear it played by the computer. I really hope it sounds like I think it sounds like in my head!
In other recording/original projects, there was some progress on writing with Mike and Rich towards an Incognito "reunion" album. If not for, well...you know... we likely would have gotten together and recorded in person a few of the ideas that we've been working on. At the moment we're hopeful that we will be able to get together soon to work. We do have a few really cool things floating between us, so I'm really hoping that we can get together. I'll even cancel shows to make that happen! I also have the beginnings of a collaboration with a couple other college buddies, Karl and Pat. I participated on an album project with them in college, and we're starting to work on something now. I also may be working with Deb Desilets again as well. We talked about some live-streaming events that she's doing that I may be able to participate in. As soon as I know anything about that, I'll post it here.
WHAT DO I HOPE TO ACCOMPLISH IN 2021?
After 2020, not sure I really wanna make concrete plans! So, these are things I'm shooting for...
- Getting back to a "normal" amount of gigs with DD, RK, EM, and solo
- Getting the "electric symphony" edited and available for everyone to hear
- A "mini album" for wide release by the end of March
- A full on album done by the end of the year (already planning it out!)
- Begin work on a full on orchestral symphony
- Find/recover the digital score of my Master's Thesis piece "Roadmaps" and get a new rendering/recording of it
- Get my previous album projects (all 25 of them) on retail/streaming sites by the end of the year, or at least get the ball rolling on that.
If I can get at least half of that list done or most of it in progress, I'll call 2021 a good year. I guess I'll call 2020 a "well I got through it" year, even with the good that I was able to do creatively. Things hopefully will get better as the new year goes on. I think we just have to try to be patient, and do our best to be good to each other we much as we can, do the whole mask/distancing thing, and then once vaccines are widely out and taken we can finally begin the road back to normal. No one knows what lies ahead for us, but hopefully there is a light at the end of this tunnel that isn't a freight train coming our way, to quote Metallica!
Thank you for listening to my music, coming to see me play and all other sorts of putting up with me and all my craziness!
Hope everyone stays safe, hope you had a great Xmas, and here's to a much better 2021...
For the last time in 2020:
THAT IS ALL...TB