“is this sh*t Broken?”… “oh yeah, this Sh*t’s broken.”

I love to make music. It is easily and without a doubt my favorite thing to do (second to consuming music). So that’s what i have done. and that’s what i will continue to do.

Click this if you want to hear it

Click this if you want to hear it AND see it

However, there is a barrier to entry when it comes to making music. That being, money (discounting skill and time and effort and all of that).

Once you HAVE a song that you deem complete, it could easily end up costing you over $1000 to record it, mix it, master it, and distribute it to the public. ONE SONG.

In a world where the consumption of recorded music takes place on streaming platforms, the return on that investment comes in cents. fractions of a dollar.

That sh*t’s broken

Of the 50 gigs i played last year i’d guess ~30 of them were solo acoustic sets. When they were full band gigs, half our set was made up of songs that hadn’t been recorded and released yet (because of the aforementioned barrier to entry).

So i have decided to record my songs and present them in the way that they will be heard live 60% of the time. Acoustic, from start to finish, without any edits.

This type of presentation is a real representation of what the song is. if it’s good, it’ll be good acoustic or with a full band. But if it’s bad, a cool full band production can kind of hide the ‘badness’. and it’s affordable.

Getting the music in front of new people is hard. There are several “gate keepers” that stand in the way. two of which are: Spotify playlist curators, and the social media algorithm.

Without going in to too much detail on that, i will say this… if you enjoy someone’s “art” (music in this case) please share it. Comment on videos and photos, tell your friends. Word of mouth goes a long way. and A share to your instagram story does as well. Follow, like, and subscribe. It’s one click for you, that means a whole hell of a lot.

There’s a lot of sh*t that’s broke. And sometimes that broken sh*t can’t be fixed. So you make a small pivot and change course, while continuing to move forward.

As always, thank you for listening if you have, and if you haven’t…that’s also fine.

Let’s Recap the year

First off, if you’re seeing this, you’ve either purchased a t-shirt or something off of the website, seen me/me and the band play a show, or I scalped your email from google headquarters. 

Since the social media algorithm is a labyrinth that can only be deciphered by tik-tok tweens and pseudo-experts I intend on sharing updates, thoughts, and tunes via this newsletter every so often. 

So if you’ve made it this far, thank you and I look forward to giving a little more of myself with my words than I can show with n number of photos on Instagram.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I beg to differ. 

There’s my disclaimer, so here we go. Newsletter content.

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2021 was quite the year both musically and otherwise.

-I closed on a duplex in December of 2022 and started flipping it in February of ‘21. It has recently been finished. It was fun and equally stressful. With a +40 hour a week day job…the majority of my time was allocated to renovation projects, work, and music.

-All facets of the initial band that you may have seen play some shows in 2020 at Game6 or at other STL music events went their respective routes and a  new version of a band  came together (Jordan Suter and the High Road)

-I, along with the band, had the opportunity to play some absolutely killer shows (See some proof Below).  

Support for Josh Turner at Songs4Soldiers in Columbia, il.

Played at Pop’s in sauget, Il a couple of times

Support for Dylan Scott at O’fallon freedom fest in o’fallon, mo

I’d be full of it if I denied that2021 was a lot of work. With my job, the house remodel, and all of the shows, I found myself remarkably busy. But, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Unfortunately, winter time kills opportunities for the independent musician so I haven’t had an opportunity to play as much as I’d like over the past few months. But there is a co-headlining show schedule at blueberry hill in stl on March 4th.

 Moving forward, I intend on releasing acoustic demo versions of the songs that I have written, because I believe they should be out in the world and able to be heard. If a song can find one person and do for them what songs have done for me, then they’re worth releasing..in whatever form.   

So there’s a quick look into what’s happening. If you’ve made it THIS far, thanksx2. I very much look forward to sharing my songs and my thoughts through this platform
We’ll see you at blueberry hill on March 4!