THE SHARK

My first solo effort self titled "The Shark" came out yesterday. I'm excited about it because it represents the culmination of a lot of musical ideas I've had floating around for a while and also represents a significant amount of time spent over the last few months hammering out those ideas and developing them into something resembling songs.

I'm still putting the final touches on a physical release so that probably won't be ready to go for a bit still but it will be something special I think once it is finished. At that time hopefully I can play a show or two to support it as I really want to let some of these songs breathe in a live setting.

Beyond that, the future holds a little bit more time to rest and enjoy this release before I get back to work finishing up a Not Equal project.

Last but not least, the fort worth music fest is this weekend! Only five bucks for great music and then you can get in for free to any of the after parties happening that night featuring local bands tearing up. The one you should be most interested in is at the grotto where I will be playing with Dru B Shinin! we are being preceded by Dallas band BASS DRUM before the night is closed out by our friends The Skeeves. Gonna be a part-ay yeah!!!

The Shark

Gonna be trying to do some cleaning up around here over the next few weeks.  I'm going back to the studio to finish everything up this Friday!  In the meantime, gotta make everything look nice and consistent so I can effectively try to promote this record.  Being an independent artist is like being a record label and an artist all at the same time so I'm grateful to my Sphere Music Group family for helping me keep things together!  I probably won't have much else to say here from now until the album is out so now you can begin to wait anxiously if you like...  The Shark is coming!

Layover

So everything is pretty much done, the usually eternal mixing process cut short by my desire to just really try to focus on the basic elements of each song and make sure they are heard. The rest is just icing on an otherwise well crafted cake and I want it to be able to speak for itself. Too much mixing might result in it sounding stiff and inorganic.

I can't believe I forgot to record vocals for a song so I'm gonna have to go back to the studio to get that done this week and also to get my friend Sean's guitar parts recorded as well. It won't take long to do and once done, those elements can be easily added to what is mixed down on those songs so far. But it's a matter of scheduling the time.

So I feel like I've been talking about nothing but me me me all the time on here lately so I'll take this time to talk about a couple friends of mine that have projects out or coming out soon as well.

First up, Wrex Washington put out a project a couple weeks ago called The 22nd. It's a banging 8 track ep filled with Wrex's introspective lyrical stylings combined with a cool confident flow that anyone should be able to get down to.

Next we have A-Roy's new album Commencement coming out, a debut for the rapper if you don't count his rough draft ep or exercises in style mixtape. I think a lot of people are gonna be surprised by this one when it drops tomorrow.

Later this fall, Dru B Shinin drops a mixtape and a new album that I know everyone should be looking forward to. Check out his past work here as always.
Look out for sphere music group this fall, we've got some big things happening coming up and it would be a shame for you to miss out!

The final countdown

Well, this is it. All features and guest musicians are arranged, all songs are written and demo'd, the recording sessions are planned and scheduled. Rehearsing with EyeJay Thursday to get the drums down and then after this weekend, if I don't have a full album recorded, it won't be for lack of trying.

No turning back now!

Progress, schemes and dreams

So work on writing for my project has been progressing nicely. I've got most of my album done being written, just trying to crack the last two songs for it and go back and refine what I've written so far. It's always funny to me how the process of creating songs from scratch feels like cutting and pasting a collage of ideas and mashing it flat and trimming off the dangling bits until you have something that resembles a well thought out piece of work. 

EyeJay has been helpful and patiently letting me use his brain to help produce the demos out so I have a good foundation to teach someone drums to and then record at eagle audio some time in august. I'm pretty much doing the whole thing on my own cause it's easier than finding session musicians but I can't play drums and I'm trying to get a little string section together to perform on one of the songs. 

Lots of planning and doing coming up, the not so fun aspects of creativity. I'm looking forward to having the project in my hand to be able to give to people especially since I've seen the art development so far and it's looking pretty good if I say so. Justin Kiehl killing it as usual. And that is it for my update!

we are always under construction

Alright, well it's been a long time since I posted anything here and I recently was invited to get to try google + so I figure since this is a little more visible through that at least, I should come in and dust things off.  Some things have changed, others haven't but you probably didn't even notice anyways, did you. All my hard work and effort gone to waste...

Okay so the last thing I worked on was another project for Dru B Shinin' who you may or may not know - if not, get to know him here and listen to his latest EP The Clean Up!  I play pretty much all the guitars you hear and co-produced while up and coming super producer Eyejay arranged everything and made all of our ideas into actual songs that a person can rap over.  I co-wrote and produced Just Got Home for which I also added vocals  as well.  I hope you like it, to me the album is a great collection of songs to listen to especially on a summer day but it could inspire you on a winter one too.  I'm proud of the end result!

Most of the recording for the album was done at Eagle Audio Recording and if you live around fort worth and scrape together the money to record a project of your own, take advantage of the friendly people there and the ridiculously awesome facilities they have.  Jeff, the engineer there makes it his job to help you sound as good as you can.

Let's see, other than that, I am working on a solo project in my spare time that I intend to get recorded in the next month or so and my Midi McFly work almost never stops.  So get at us if you need a track or a song or any guidance with a project your working on!