Boy, life flies at times! Especially when we are busy, and I can attest. I’m going to dump what’s been going on with this musical bandit over the past couple months.

The album! I did it, I recorded, then mixed, and ultimately hired a local studio to master it. Big thanks to Patrick at Earthtone Studio company for applying their awesome gear and ears to this project. It sounds great, I am so glad that the audio is done. There’s still plenty to do, but I feel like I’m over the hill.

Sound man work has been sparse. I hadn’t lobbied hard for nights as I spent so many of them mixing instead. I did get out and work the board at Two Rivers for Hattie Craven and the Moon Howlers. The stage got an upgrade so this was my first night using a digital mixing board. Wow, it is pretty powerful! The band sounded great, the audience loved them. Looking forward to getting my hands on the mix again.

I started a band! Blue Collar Lullaby played its first show at our local brewery, Fountainhead Brewing. My accomplice, Michael, plays dobro, banjo, and guitar leads while adding some vocal harmonies. I do singing, rhythm guitar, harmonica, and percussion. We play folk, country, bluegrass, and blues! A large part of our 3 hour set was my originals. Michael has caught the songwriting bug, and we are actively recruiting others, so we have a nice project going here!

Jamming is life. It’s a great way to spend time with friends and forget about the world for a while. I hosted a few jams, notably for my birthday we had a special session. My bud Rob has set up his drum set in the garage so we get to be loud every now and then. My friends The Jenres continue to have fun jams and I feel like they will be getting out to play soon. I’m still finding time to sit on the couch to play some new things.

Creative Wonderlab, a studio in Auburn, hosts open jams once a month. I visited for the past two months. The staff is friendly, the studio is well built, and the patrons are talented! It’s a bit of a hike to get up the hill for it, but when I brought two friends along for the second trip, it felt like a nice getaway. I encourage you to look this place up.

I think I made it out to 2 open mics, maybe. Both at Two Rivers, as I walk the dog over there very often. I did one song with The Lab Rats, an improv jazz group, at a People’s Mixtape event. That’s in Foreign Native circle of events. Maybe I will commit to exploring some new spots and report back on them. There’s a different crowd at each one and it is fun to see the variety of talented people. Networking is a practicality as well.

That’s about it, music-wise.

I will share progress on the album and info about the music events I attend as I go along. This blog is partly for readers, but a big part is just for me to track what I’m doing. It’s nice to have a history to reflect upon. I’m doing this for me. Even writing this paragraph now is to make myself feel accountable. I will post blogs about what music stuff I do. I will. Promise? OK, I promise.