30 April - Change

A week from today it'll be another Bandcamp Friday. A few days ago, I converted all the songs and albums on my page to "name your price," so there's no minimum fee for anything. Everyone who's downloaded material has been really generous, so there's really no sense in having a starting point listed. It has almost always been exceeded by those who have had enough to spend. And when all's said and done, I just want people to enjoy the music even if money's tight right now.

28 April - Life

Got word from the company pressing the discs (okay, burning) that the audio files and data goodies are ready for proof and approval. So part of tomorrow will be spent attending to all that. This process is still a fun thing for me. I'm gonna have the Beatle Birthday (64) this October, but part of me is still that kid learning guitar and writing songs and playing in bands with school friends, and dreaming about someday playing for a big audience and being able to make records. So every time I step on stage to perform, or work in the studio, or release a newly completed project - even at my humble level - I'm still dead chuffed about simply getting to do all of this.

Remember:

"How successful you become is a matter of luck and business, and is a totally unrelated subject. Whether you leave the house to your mother or if you've got anything materially to leave behind is one thing, but what you do leave behind is your music. Whether you sell a million records or never even make one, if someone's heard you and you've turned them onto it, you've done your fuckin' job. The rest of it is hype and business. That's what it comes down to." 

Keith Richards said that. Words to live by, yeah?

Yeah.

23 April - Shiny Objects

Part of yesterday afternoon was spent taking care of a few loose ends, one of which involved uploading the art and song files for Rising in the Blue to Disc Makers, and ordering some promo copies. No fancy packaging this time, just printed CDs in plain paper sleeves. They're gonna look like this:

19 April - Effective Date

As of today, the Janssen vaccine we received two weeks ago is considered fully effective. But we're still masked and sanitizing, because a whole lot of people still haven't had a chance to get their jabs. Short post, yeah. I just wanted to make note of this point on the timeline.

14 April - Progress Report

Last Monday, the four of us in our immediate family went into downtown Northampton and were vaccinated. We got the one-shot Janssen formula, so next Monday it'll reach its full effectiveness. That said, please don't think we'll be tossing our masks and other precautions aside. This is gonna take a long time, folks.

Earlier this week I was musing on Twitter about the fact that I do more musing on Twitter than I ever did in here. Then again, this isn't really a blog, per se. It was intended to be my primary web presence, as I never really saw much point in having a proper website. But I should probably do more with it, even if no one has any real reason to be here right now. The album's done and out there, my work for Cliff is finished and delivered, and I won't be booking or playing any gigs anytime soon.

So what to do? And then this morning I decided it might be worthwhile to simply keep track of life post-vaccination, and how 2021 compares to the full lockdown quarantine situation of the past year. I'll try to post something each week, and we'll see how it goes.