I haven’t released a new album since The Coal Room EP in December of 2014 but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been musically active. The last six years have been rather productive, actually. I spent some time as a member of the band Robots From the Future, also a stint in the band Fistful of Data’s, I played a handful of solo sets, I released a couple singles with music videos, I sat in on drums for a couple “adult jam” style gigs with friends, and then I joined up with my current band, Awkward Bodies and we have played some great shows and released a few singles as well. Still, I have missed being a recording artist unto myself so this year I hope to change that a little.

I’ve accumulated a bit of a backlog of solo material, enough for more than one album. I’ve winnowed the list down to a decent dozen or so and I expect that I may just start working my way through recording them. It’s no exaggeration to say I’m overdue for a legit solo album.

Since I was in sixth grade I’ve always been involved in one band or musical project or something and have only had a few years where I didn’t at least appear on some sort of recording that was distributed for public consumption in some way. Last year I appeared on three Awkward Bodies singles, the year before that I released a video single for one of own songs, Ostrich, but 2015-2017 was a three year dry spell right on the heels of The Coal Room (and the rather obscure RFTF single “Bloody Baby” which appeared on a comp). And that’s OK. I’m at peace with it. During that time I took some sax lessons, I played shows in a few bands, I kitted out a new studio at a new house, I wrote and recorded new music, I was involved in a pretty cool upcoming Nuclear Gopher documentary… basically, I was very active, just not in the recording arena. But I miss it.

Just this week, I had a recording session with Lemuel “Ace” Herlihy (Michael Heuer) for what will (hopefully) be a followup to our 2014 ambient/experimental/noise smash hit album “Nininger”. The mess in the photo above is from the session. That was really fun and if all goes according to plan we should see that record done in time to submit it for this year’s RPM Challenge. I’m thinking we should call it “Nininger 2: Electric Boogaloo (Return of Ignatius Donnelly)”.Awkward Bodies has been an extremely rewarding experience and tonight we will be having our first practice with our new lineup. Lem Herlihy and I will get together again next week, I hope, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll do what I did with The Coal Room and lavoneloveletter and just take a single session to get the bones of whole new album laid down and then finish it off with overdubs over the course of a few weeks/months. I have the songs. What is stopping me?