I often think of myself as a bit of a shapeshifter. Not in a creepy way, I swear! But I have looked like many different types of people, and I have lead many different types of lives. Constant change and transformation may be uncomfortable, but it sure makes for interesting art :) So now I find myself transforming into the captain of my own ship. So in the nature of all things captain-y, I'll now relate my addled version of a captains log of current events.
While there are a litany of announcements that I should like to make, the eggs of many have not yet hatched and survived the process. However, the noisy little creatures currently peeping in my life are as follows:
I am diligently working on a new website. Which is not something I have ever really done before (like most things I do...). There are several exciting aspects of this, including our first real custom website that
feels like Dionvox. But what really takes the cake (and is taking so much time to mix and bake) is that we will FINALLY have physical merchandise for sale on the internet! Shirts, tanks, sweatshirts, cardigans, notebooks, pillowcases, dreamcatchers, bags, blah blah blah and whatever else I can think up to make. And for the folks who have never been to a show and seen our merch, it's all handpainted and one of a kind. So it will be great fun to see where these pieces end up in the world.
Which leads me to another "product" that I'm working on. A book. A collection of early poetry, as well as all the lyrics for songs we have published or are about to publish. So far my song count (which is very roughly a page count) is in the 80's. I actually have to give my father credit for the idea. We were all hanging out in the studio, listening to songs from different years, and he mentioned that it would be great to have a book of all the lyrics. To paint the picture more clearly, we have literally thousands of songs, hundreds of which we have actively worked on. And a couple hundred of which have lyrics and vocals recorded. The delight in working like that is that we can then pick the cream from the top. Say 100 or so...
Speaking of a sickening amount of music in our vaults... The third massive project we have going on right now is finishing the 8 albums that are all charted and tracked out. When I do the math, it's about an album a year as far as recording goes. But the reason why I waited so long was because each album has it's own theme. And since I don't like to try and control what
kind of song I write when I'm in the creative process, it took a while to create a large enough body of work that there were entire collections that all fit to a theme. Now that we are finishing them though, I find myself getting goosebumps when I listen to the mock ups and demos all sequenced together.
I feel like a bottle of champagne waiting to burst open! I simply can't wait to get to share all of this music with the world. Whatever that may mean.
Because we are so deep in the trenches of the above projects, as well as maintaining supply lines for other ones, we are scaling back on our live shows for a few months. This is a bit of a bummer for me, since I love to travel and I love to perform. I also love all of the wonderful friends I have made and continue to make in all the towns and cities where we play. However, I would REALLY LOVE to be able to bring them some new albums, live songs, and merch. So that settles that.
Because a picture is worth a thousand words, here are a few of them.
