Wasting my front page privileges on a Monday? BRING IT ON RELATIVE OBSCURITY, I EAT MISANTHROPY FOR BREAKFAST.

Table of Contents:

I. Newgrounds Winter Festival

II. Jamuary

III. "Us" Chapter 3

IV. No Boundaries EP

V. Building A Cave In The Snow

VI. Random Music Videos

VII. TLDR

I. Newgrounds Winter Festival

I have a lot of little things going on. Unless I screw up my schedule I'll be hosting a panel for the Winter Festival @ 1:15 pm, EST on Sunday the 30th. The last time I was invited to a podcast by ThatJohnnyGuy I wrote the wrong day in my calendar and missed out. Sad face :C

I forget exactly what I wrote in my application to get accepted for the festival but I plan on doing an audio lecture on beat boxing, music making, stage performance, public speaking, touring, budgeting your sound, and so on. I'll probably start the lecture by mentioning how I built my first drum kit in middle school out of pots and pans and wooden dowels, moved into drumming for bands in High School, then segue into beat boxing as an affordable alternative to music making. I got to know the NYC beat box scene a little bit (Napom, Bloomer, Chris, Gene, Kaila, Kenny Urban) and then participated in the 2017 North American Beat Box Championships. In other words this lecture is not going to come from a perspective that lacks experience. If you want a head start on the lecture, google: beatbox BTK.

II. Jamuary

A song a day? Terrible. I'm slowly collecting all the tunes I'm writing for an EP called "Don't Give Up Until It's Over." Click that link to listen to the progress, this includes free downloads. I've decided to use a photograph from my late mother's photo album. She grew up near Albuquerque and took photos of the hot air balloon festival there shortly before she passed away. In regards to the album, the balloons represent things being over metaphorically and literally. "Hey look, those balloons are over our heads. I guess we should give up ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"

III. "Us" Chapter 3

This is one of my favorite projects to work on. I'm incredibly grateful to Bleak-Creep for these song writing commissions. Her cartoon series focuses on the developing relationship between two young girls. I don't want to give any of the plot away but it's a coming of age story wonderfully rendered in pastel colors. GLBT trigger warning, though it hurts to say that. If you find GLBT topics annoyingly in your face, try burying your head in the sand? I bury my head in the sand all the damn time AND SO CAN YOU.

IV. No Boundaries EP

Gotta keep pushing this. It can be very hard to self promote, I hate begging. This is a very special album to me and I had commissioned MindChamber for the cover art. I have a larger blog about it here but if you don't feel like reading that then here is the BandCamp link to album and here is a Newgrounds Playlist for free downloads because I know my audience is young or can't afford luxuries.

V. Building A Snow Cave

As detailed in previous blogs, I moved off grid with my fiance a while ago. We're up in the mountains of Colorado, specifically Groundhog/LoneCone/BlackMesa. We went out the other night to build a snow cave and ice fish. It got dark way too early to ice fish but we were cozy in our little cave. You make a small fire to melt the walls a little which then refreezes to create stability and insulation. If you have all the right survival gear and a good plan it's actually quite fun. We don't plan on getting lost in the mountains any time soon but it was a great exercise.

VI. Random Music Videos

Look, if your a musician or composer it helps to have inspiration from various places and backgrounds. The following videos are bands and artists that I love watching. Writing music isn't enough, you need to find creative ways to share your funk with the world and these artists are all doing it in their own amazing ways.

Martha Argerich is my romantic era piano concerto goddess, but Hiromi is right up there with her. Hiromi is an incredibly inventive jazz player and world class talent. Here's a solo video of her just having fun in front of an incredibly talented but silent band. A little weird when she gets inside the piano to play the lower register like a stand up bass but WHO CARES, SHE'S AMAZING.

This performance by Bruno Mars and Anderson Paak is infectious. I love watching everyone in this video get down in perfect harmony. Writing the lyrics for this must have been a blast :3

I've probably shared this Reggie Watts video before but it's a fucking trip. I watch this video like once a month because of how ridiculously out there it is. Reggie is an improvisational comedian and music maker. He walks out on stage this time in an ensemble I can only call "The King Of RnB." Reggie is a total clown in the same vein as Marc Rebillet or Beardy Man but these clowns can spawn incredible music. You can tell the band wasn't expecting to jump in from certain ques. The guitar player turns to the band to tell them the key to play in. A bass player hits a wrong note when everyone takes a rest. These guys are all pros so stuff like that is noteworthy. It's an amazing performance if you can sit still for the first few awkward minutes:

I love this next band. They all met at Berklee College of Music in Boston, a guitar player I went to highschool with was asked to play violin for them but he turned them down WHY JACK?? To be fair, Jack had his own thing at the time. I've shared some of their music videos before but not this one. The whole band has a wonderful time performing together. I'd kill for friends like this to jam with:

Ending on a fun note, Luis Cole is a creative fucking dynamo. You might recognize him behind the drums for his clown core side project or from his Knower EDM alias. He's also an incredibly steady jazz drummer. He always seems to have fun regardless of genre or style. I'm sharing the following video because MC Hammer pants.

VII. TLDR

Thank you for stopping by and reading some of this stuff or watching some musics. So much is happening and I literally wasted a couple of hours on this post. DON'T BE LIKE ME. GO MAKE ART. GO MAKE MUSIC. GO DO THINGS.

tldr; there is literally a table of contents at the top of this page. Just go back and read that instead :D