COVID-19 SUMMER UPDATE
Hey! How’s your pandemic going?
I hope everything is okay and everyone in your life is happy and healthy. Either way I hope you’re coping as best you can.
It’s such a bizarre time isn’t it?
Way back in March at the beginning of COVID-19 taking hold in the US, my kid asked my wife and I if we’d been through anything like this before. And I laughed - from fear, sadly - but then said, “Honey, no one in the so-called developed world has experienced anything like this in about 100 years. So I have no frame of reference other than history.” Which has sadly proven that Americans and some other countries have not changed much. All I ask is you wear a mask as prescribed by the experts and try not to be a dick while we’re getting through this madness.
I’m doing as best I can which I can’t say is necessarily good all the time but I’m alive and generally healthy. The underlying tension, anxiety and fear are always baying at the walls. I sleep well two nights then poorly for three. I wear my mask outside the home though I don’t go out much. I spent the better part of late winter and spring with my head down working at my day job (from home naturally) then making a lot of music after work before hanging out with my family. Basically getting through it as best I can. I hope you are, too.
There’s been some small slivers of happiness in the midst of this. It’s nice to spend so much time with family though we get moments when we’re sick of each other, for sure. The dog loves it and is rarely more than a few feet from my side. It’s been nice to spend time with small groups of friends but the terror is upon us still.
I’m digging the music I’m doing. Woodshedding like this is kind of unprecedented and is exactly what I’ve been longing for in some ways. So for a while I was cranking out a song a day, most of them fully finished. But after a few months of that I realized I was grinding bone against bone, so to speak, and making my mental health a tad worse. So I dialed it back a bit and I’m a little less obsessive. A little. :)
What else?
Well, I’ve been immersing myself in music by black artists more than ever following the explosion of events in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. In short: BLACK LIVES MATTER. If you have an issue with that then take your leave of my site now. If not then head over to www.blackbandcamp.info to find a ton of great music to get during the next time Bandcamp waives it’s fees so you can give those artists the money they deserve. I’m still poring over the $100 of music I got last month because it’s amazing deep stuff.
As for my own releases…
Some of the music I’ve been making this year pre and during the pandemic has been released. I’ve put out SONGS FOR SWINGING SENTINELS on my own site here. I hope you like it. As I noted in a recent interview it’s safe to say this is the first in a series tied into the pandemic and my experience of life during this time. I can safely say there’s another 3-4 albums in this series, if one can call it that.
SLOW YOUR VAPOR is my latest album on Component Recordings. It could be subtitled WEAR A GOD DAMN MASK. Part of a reflection on the insanity we’re seeing that’s a replay of stupidity from 1918. What little difference a century makes, huh?
In a couple weeks a very special release is coming out. As y’all may know I write and draw my own comic called BUNNYHEAD (America’s premier amnesiac robot comic!). As luck would have it people like it and want more of it! Among those fans is Raab Codec, the Component Recordings head honcho. He approached me with an amazing idea I couldn’t say no to.
For the last year I’ve been working on a mini comic for Component Recordings and it’s finally seeing the light of day. It’s a Bunnyhead tale set just before the events of Issue 1 (ENTER A HUNTER). I really dig it. I’ve taken some big leaps both as a writer and artist with it and from what my mentors say it works! In addition to the comic there’s a soundtrack album of CRT music by me as well. As I’m a huge fan of soundtracks this was a blast to put together these two parts of my passions. The music works on it’s own as well as a companion to the comic. SECONDS TOO LATE is a digital only release for now - we shall see, though! ;) - which you will be able to get at Component in Mid August. For now here’s the cover. Exciting!
I just did an interview with Brian G. of Space Couch. It was a blast to talk about my music and its evolution. I really think I grew up in an interesting time and place where there was a great intersection of so many kinds of music. I think that comes through in the interview plus a lot of other stuff. Big ups to Brian for having me on the couch in space and special appearance by Juno the dog! :)
In other news I’ve got some other releases coming up on Voidstar Productions, M-Tronic, Viral Conspiracy and other labels. More on those later.
In the meantime sit tight and take care of yourselves. Oh and vote in November. Please.
Be well!
