10/25/25
Well…. 7 months later. Feels like 6 lifetimes. I like to read the last post before posting.
The amount of catch-up needed to catch up over the lapse between now and then would require several hundred pages of text. I'm currently at the end of the the worst two days of the year. It's the weekend of Dia de Muertos - I have been working for the Dia de los Muertos Festival aka Muertos Fest for a long time. And it's huge thing and a big deal. It's an internationally recognized and praised, cultural event. It's also not the only one in town. I've worked for several others. I still, in an ancillary way, for a competing event. But it's not my competition, I'm a service provider, I work for whomever I choose. Their issues are not my problem. That is also my side hustle. I'm a saxophonist, that's my gig. And I've been dipping on the work to do my “day job” which is, generally speaking, a night job. For example, I did my Thursday night gig, I had a gig tonight with a DJ doing some Afro House, I've got my jazz brunch tomorrow. I went off to do all of that rather than gut out a 16 hour day helping to run aspects of the event, also I left after 8 hours at one event, to finish off a specific service I was hired for at another event. And put in 9 hours at that one. I'm also trying to get my soul-tet record out, as the recording is done and I'm staying up in the wee hours of the morning checking mixes while being exhausted and covered in Lidocaine patches. Good times.
While I'm good at it, I don't enjoy the event work. I have to bring a vibe to that, that is not for the weak. I have to run a crew of men, who are strong and have a fighting spirit to do some oddly specific things, that require brute strength and a few other non-compatible talents and I have to get them all working together as a team. I'm actually awesome at this, but I don't like. I have to be extremely direct and loud. And there is a time crunch, and I have to do a lot while this is going on, and guys come and go, cuz event workers are not regular people, as a regular schedule and life is incompatiable with this kind of work. I don't like the boss man. I don't like how I speak to my friends and my crew. And those who hire me to do this, should they be so stupid to witness how I execute, generally don't approve, at which I simply say, then do it yourself, I hate this job, you don't pay me, please fire me or shut the fuck up and do it yourself. Pretty much anyone who hires me, knows exactly what they are getting and are smart enough to not poke the bear. But after a week of long days barking at people getting massive amounts of work done, the results, as always, are undeniable. And so the client returns, year after year.
But my distaste grows. Some would say, well don't do it like that, do it in a way that makes you happy. To which I can only say, shut up dumbass, you have no idea what it takes to do this. I simply have to stop. To change is to fail. The clock is ticking and feelings and discussions are great ways to waste clock. I do not waste clock. But I can't do this anymore. It's too hard physically and the mental/spiritual funk it puts on me is a lasting stench. And when I wander out into the crowd to fix things or move things or do anything, the mind numbing stupidity and lack of awareness and just the plain old I don't give a fuck attitude is disgusting to me. The shit today alone… I can't be doing this work anymore. I feel so toxic. I just got out of a spell of time where I was so mad, and so hateful, but I recognized it and tried not to splash my issues on anyone. Finally ditched all that and boom… I'm back in the thick of it again, just tired and angry. And that's not who I'm trying to be or live. It ruins my music.
I had some moments at the gig today, just kicking back and letting it flow, really settling into the beats, not over playing, making it sexy and dynamic without overtaking the track. And then bam, bounce back out and hateful mind trip spins…. Gotta make that change. That's not the life I've been trying to live.
Got a the Soul-Tet record recorded and in post for that, all of the above makes for a terrible mindset to put a serious piece of work. It's extremely hard to evaluate things on that, as I'm questioning my own judgement. Playing a lot, trying to do some other things along with marriage, a house, and the aches and pains of a man 2,000 years old who hasn't been granted the gift of death yet.
It's been a lot, time to hit the hay, I wish y'all had a clue. Here's a tiny sliver of what my life is. The Dooding Videos.
3/5/25
Well…. things have been going great so far.
The Wed night gig ended, which wasn't a huge surprise. But had a bunch of other work roll in. The Sundays at the Dodging Duck are now quartets. I'm looking forward to writing tunes for that group. Thursday at the Fairmont should start anytime now. Had some great shows, playing with some great guys.
Gigs for the Soul-Tet picked up and there's some beautiful new opportunities on the horizons for that. Still a ton of work on that grant to be done. Picked up some nice work for the jazz group as well. The record is picking up some spins, although it's zig-zaggin a bit on the charts. So far it's hit 187, currently 208, we'll see where it lands again tomorrow. I'm getting some nice feedback from some of the stations and DJs. Sent out another 20-25 CDs in past couple weeks. Still obsessed with data that comes in on it…..
Buncha studio work has been happening with some great new partners. Really happy about collaborating with artists and making new stuff. Getting a chance to delve into the archives and get some new GrooveTronX stuff out as well.
Events have come in, passed on some. Managing myself better on others. I'm blessed to have such fine folks to work for. I really love my clients. The amount of trust you get from working over and over with folks meeting their needs and adapting to ever changing budgets and programming… well, there ain't nothing like building relationship, and San Antonio is a relationship town. I do my best to give my best.
Although…. sometimes…. Suffice to say, we all have our moments, and for those who don't like me, the feeling is mutual and probably much stronger on my side. And yeah, there are companies I don't like, and won't work for, or with, same with individuals. That's currently a thing out on several levels. And as time goes passing by, I expect that to continue. Gotta root out the baddies. It's a fact of life. Soo… if we're still working together, that should let you know that is a professional endorsement. Whilst the money needs to be right, money doesn't make everything right, I'm for hire, not for sale. Weird tangent…. apparently I need to reflect on this post.
Moving on….Mahler had a moment… I understand that moment. I'm having a Mahler moment. If only my works were as popular as Mahler.
When you're in the time where the sailing is smooth, not perfect, but smooth, it's hard not to second-guess, doubt, and fret. But the other thing is to revel in it, to soar, to let your voice loose and roar. What else do you have but now? Tomorrow is promised to no one. Tread carefully. And yet with reckless abandon.
It's 1:45am, my wife stumbled out of bed to check on me, make sure I was okay and fed. I'm not ready to turn in, thoughts raging through the brain… event stuff, gig stuff, composer stuff, life stuff, husband stuff, home owner stuff, contract stuff, client stuff, saxman stuff, biz…
Anyway, I'm doing everything I want. Got a great partner to do it with, got some great guys I'm making music with, some great folks I'm working with. Life is sweet.
Trying not to get fatter. I've given up on the waistline. I'm never getting back into 32s unless I get a disease or cancer. And that's not really the way. Aging ain't for the weak. Although the thing in my house is this: we work. I work, my wife works. At everything. We're on the phones, on the computers, I have a stationary bike, she has a treadmill, we're always doing something…working while we're working. What was hilarious today, she was on the treadmill, on a call, jumped off the treadmill, did some computer work, jumped back on the treadmill while I'm doing some PT exercises, I'm on the phone, doing some computer work, back on the PT stuff…. and this is how we live our life.
Time for bed. Ready to get some sleep, next studio session is ten hours away.
1/27/25
So I saw how long it's been since last I blogged. I felt I needed to put something of an update. I don't even know if anyone reads this.
Anyway…
The rest of year went nuts. Crazy busy. My “new” client expanded their demands of me and I met them all with professionalism and invoices. They seem to be content with my services and I have a handful of things scheduled for them for 2025. Events got stacked up and somehow I made it through. My crews were awesome. They had to step up as I'm physically just not up to some of the tasks anymore. But enough of them have been with me long enough that they are stepping into leadership roles with not a lot of errors, and most of them are of no consequence. There was this one thing though….. oof. Kinda blame the client though. There's a chain of command for a reason and when you direct my crews without going through me - boom, every-time there's a big boo boo. That's why I'm the boss, that's why you hire me. For me to do it right. Micro-management is always bad. Anyway…..
What went even more nuts was gigs. Oct-Dec was gigs every Wed, Thur, Fri, Sat, and two on Sun. Sometimes two on Thurs, Fri, Sat. That's on top of the event work. So it's no wonder I didn't have time for blogging. Once Christmas hit and the gigs stopped. I slept. 12-14 hours a day for a couple weeks. When I wasn't doing that I was working on getting my new CD mailed out and working on taxes.
That ends today. Last week I put 270 pieces in the mail. Today is the last 23 international mailings. I'll take those out this afternoon.
After that it's taxes, a little bit of event work, and then pedal to the metal on music! Can't wait. I'm itching for it. I haven't been this eager about music in years. Years…maybe a decade, maybe more. Anyway….
I'm very excited about how the record will be received. It entered the jazz charts this week at 297. It cost a small fortune to mail out. Anyway…. back to work.
1/24/25
New Year, New Me. Everybody laughs at that now.
Can't believe I haven't written since May. Here's a new article on me at All About Jazz.
That's part of a campaign I'm running for a new CD “Coming Home To You.” Spent hours yesterday stuffing packets. I'm going to head out in a little bit to get the first 200 in the mail. Between that and taxes, everything has kind of stalled in the ol' office. I get like that with big projects. Everything else waits until I get something else done. That seems normal, there's only one me and ain't nobody else gonna do it.
It's always a head trip on sending a record out. Will people like it? Will they play it? I've gotten better and more feedback on this than anything else I've put out so far, but the number of people responding is still so small it may as well be zero. And it's not like I'm going to sell any. This is just for airplay and hoping to get some good reviews. Although I ain't Bird and that's the standard, so anything that's not an insult is a win.
As I said, it's a head trip…. anyway. Need to do a couple of chores and head to the post office.
5/29
I was laying in bed yesterday thinking about a blog post. Mostly because my entire body was aching. My neuropathy is next level these days and my extremities hurt. I've greatly adjusted my work so I'm not hurting myself, but it's so bad it doesn't even matter. Normally I sit on a stool to play sax. Over the weekend I had a show where I stood up and moved around. The next day, my back was hurting. I didn't even do anything. It's crazy. I used to be in fantastic shape. And even when I wasn't, I was still strong and able to work hard. Nowadays… yikes. I was looking around at these old men the other day: limping, canes, wheelchairs… I was like fuck, that's gonna be me. Oh well, I'll take care of myself as best I can and deal with whatever comes.
Moving on….
Jazz is smoking. Having a good time and playing with some great cats. Sundays and Thursdays are going well. Picking up some extras here and there.
May was unexpectedly busy. A new client (kinda, some umbrella organization, new department) filled up my weekends, which was hard as I've got a Sunday gig every week. But the extra money was nice, I had good help, and it wasn't super physical. I got to stay in some nice hotels and eat fancy food. I liked that a lot. That with some extra gigs and what I thought was going to be an easy month to prepare for the summer turned into basically no time for anything. I got some chores around the house done…. but that was about it. So now I'm back logged on house stuff, office stuff, music stuff, and I'm sitting here typing this instead. I've got a gig tonight, and I need to figure out some light exercise.
The event this weekend is Pride. I thought I was just doing A/V, but they wanted me to book the talent as well. While I've certainly done talent booking before, it's not been for this kind of program. And I don't have a lot of contacts in that community. It's not like that's a typical topic of conversation among one's colleagues. Kinda massively unprofessional conversation to have actually. Anyway, I did find some fun performers that I think will put on a great show. Since the programming was so specific, it took a little doing to find good, and appropriate, performers and mostly, performers that are capable of doing the gig. Add in being professional enough to get it done...sheesh. (And yeah, I got some hateful messages, posts, and texts all from people who wanted to perform) I don't get why people have to make this stuff so dramatic. After this experience I also understand why the client didn't want to touch the booking end of things. I went to the client's social media for the event…. wow, nothing but hate. And now I see why they aren't really promoting it either. It's a touchy subject. All in all, it'll be fine, but this hasn't been the most positive of experiences. I'll do my best. Like I said, I've got some fine talent and nice folks booked and try not to let the bad apples spoil the show. All shows are like this, but due to the specific nature of this event, it's a lot more dramatic, it's a lot more political, it's a lot more vocal. I'm sympathetic for the client. It's a no-win situation for them. Do it - get hate, don't do it - get hate. No matter what, they get hated on.
Moving on….
3/6
Wow... I didn't post for a bit because there wasn't anything to post. Enjoyed a few weeks of some time off in January and rested. Normally I do that in December, but December was all work.
I quite my the zydeco band. I had had enough. It was past time. I'm happier because of it. Don't regret a single gig. It was a great time.
Jazz gigs seem to be the new me. Last year was all about jazz, and this year is promising to be even more. Got my Sunday jazz brunch, just started up my Thursdays back at The Fairmount Hotel. Did a ton of gig/calendar postings today. That is some tedious work. But I'm leaning into it. I always knew I'd come back to it, but I didn't expect it to now.
Got some new music out, but I'm not pushing it on everything. I've got a number of things I want to try out, and I want to see what that impact looks like without a bunch of things going at once.
Events wise I've made some decisions on that as well. I've walked away from some things. One client wants to deepen the relationship. This seems like a good time for that. The opportunity in the air these days is palpable. And it's a good time to pass on things. Gotta keep the wife happy. Me being home and happy is a big part of that.
The post-production is done on the recording. There's what you wanted, and there's what you got. It's pretty good. I've got a 43 minute CD and a nice handful of singles. Gonna pop the first single in a couple of weeks. I'm moving a little slower on getting the CD “out” than anticipated. But it's fine. I'm in no hurry. There's no time line. I've started culling my mailing list, basically when I get that done, off it goes. But I'm going to drip the singles to get things going. Got some other stuff going as well, but it's not directly related. Still… noise is noise. And there's some great stuff on it. We'll see what the world thinks soon enough.
Got a night home to myself. Did some tedious tasks, had a morning full of meetings and gonna call it an early bed-time.
I wish I didn't feel so old and my body didn't hurt so much. It's a good life though.
1/3/2024
Nothing like a little procrastination to inspire a blog post. It's nice to not be buried and behind. Still got some things to do of course…. taxes, house projects, etc… but nothing major and crushing. Got some projects to get out but there's no rush on that either. I'm a little antsy to get back to making some synth jams though. But got some other things to do first. And I'd really like to get past this nagging cough. There are things to do and there are things to do. All in it's own time.
I've been strung along for a couple of event things for a bit now. I don't like that. Makes me lose respect for those I'm waiting on. Makes me less willing to go that extra mile. I mean, when it comes time for my ask, and I'm completely blown off… what do you think is going to happen when you ask me for even more, again? I don't like it.
The recording session didn't go as well as I was hoping. Although we did lay some good things down. So it goes. I prepared the guys and myself as best as I could with the time and budget I had. It doesn't suck. That's for sure. Had a call with the engineer today to pick the takes. So he's gonna start on the mix and we're going to pick the tracks for the CD and the rest will be singles. Got the artwork done. My wife loves getting involved with that end of things, I think we came up with a nice cover piece. Even watched some music documentaries and saw some albums that looked similar and a lot of the shots of the interviews basically were my cover art, so I'm not worried about that. At least it's somewhat current and hip.
Should be a good year. Business opportunities are there. I'm getting some marketing assets for my jazz group. Got a couple of seasonal things to work on, so as long as I don't get my plate too full, I should be able to handle it all without too much stress.
I'm looking forward to writing more jazz tunes, I wanted to explore, a lot, into artist grants, and see what more I can do in that realm.
I guess we'll see how this post holds up over time.
12/17/23
I can't believe I haven't written since July… I've certainly though about it. Here's what today is…..
Just got home from the last gig with the quartet for the recording. It went very well. Got one more rehearsal and then it's on. It should turn out great. Everyone is taking it very serious. It's great. My tunes are popping off. I love it.
Things have been life at full speed. Although the fall event season is officially over. Got a couple things yet, but it's limited rools so, it's not taking up too much brainpower. Haven't been able to touch the synths. It's been all jazz. Really working that thing hard, getting some extra gigs, getting the band ready. It's coming together even better than I hoped. That's pretty much ruling my mental space. We record on Wed. Lots of other things going on trying to tear into that focus, but I'm not letting it get inside my head. Just dealing with it as I can and making choices about time spent. What else can you do?
Just need to take a minute to get some thoughts out of my head. What a trip this has been…..
7/31/23
Got a minute to clear the head before jumping back in.....
Practice is going well, really turned some corners on the synth stuff. Totally got my eyes opened on the Moog and can effectively patch it. The MS-20 remains a mystery. It's fun to learn things although I feel like having some knowledge of electronic components and theory will fill the gaps.
New releases came out today. Pushed them in the usual spots and some new spots. As always, we shall see.
Got a rude phone call from an agent. All I can think is, wow, you're really bad at this and it's too bad that band has to suffer through your shit bookings because you suck at your job. But then I'm like, just the usual Austin bullshit, which is why Austin sucks so why am I surprised? Answer. I'm not. I'm just disappointed because you always want the best for the folks you think you might end up working with. And then I'm all like... sheesh, what's it going to be like to coordinate logistics with this idiot? Answer. Pass on that band. Also pretty sure it was their mom. Guys.... at some point you need to have professionals or handle that shit yourself. #lame
Speaking of lame, I was going through my music book for my jazz stuff and I'm not happy with it. And since I have always prided myself on my composing skills, and really only like to record and release original music, I said to myself - just write new stuff. Duh.... And so I am. Got the first new tune done and I'm gonna make my guys figure out some of the harder stuff. They're good tunes and I'm gonna play 'em. So that's the next chapter. Composing frenzy....
Haven't heard back on the electro-cumbia (La Raza) mix. Waiting semi-patiently.
7/18/23
Oh how fast things change.... Landed the regular Sunday, the Wed postponed due to heat, and blah blah blah.... so goes the struggle. And, now, with regular gigs, the substitutions have begun. And it's a small pool of jazz cats down here. We'll see what happens.
In other news, I'm continuing the deep dive into becoming a better musician. I'm keeping up as best as I can with practice. And that's thing. I'm really putting time into it. Just crushing the basics and plan on living there for a while. I'm also trying to up my knowledge of synthesis. So... got a book or two, got some videos, beginning that journey. Already learning some valuable things. I don't expect this particular journey to ever end. The real problem is time. There just ain't enough of it.
I think I have the electro-cumbia track done. Shipped it off to Zach (O.M.N.I.) to see what he thinks and maybe have him finish off the mix/mastering. Gotta go... need to have some dinner and spend some time with the wife.