Werkin.

Posted on January 12, 2010

Yeah I know, it’s been a couple months.  Fuck it, what can i say?  I’ve been busy.  Unfortunately not busy with music but busy paying bills.  I moved to Vallejo, had my freelance web design business collapse, took a straight job, and I’ve been working 50+ hours a week ever since.   Between that and working on my new place (we just found out that several of the beams under our kitchen floor are rotten and need to be replaced) I haven’t really had time to do much with my music.    My band hasn’t even gotten together to practice in a month and a half, though that’s as much to do with other people being busy as it is me.

Basically, it’s getting to the point where if I can’t figure out a way to make at least part of my living off my music I’m going to need to walk away. Not that I’d stop rapping – that won’t happen till i’m dead and buried – but the whole recording / releasing / promoting thing takes a lot of time and energy and I just plain don’t have the resources to keep pouring money into it if I can’t do better then breaking even.  With luck there will be a new Beltaine’s Fire Album coming later this year, we had half of it written and recorded before life forced us to take an extended break, but from there I’ve honestly got no idea what the future holds.

Hope ya’ll are well and are making the most out of this new year,

lynx

A Crazy Month

Posted on July 24, 2009

hey folks,

Ya’ll may have noticed that I haven’t been writing much here for a quick minute now.  I’ve had a crazy (good crazy) month working on my new house and getting things fixed up.  On the 10th of this month Laura and I bought a 2 bedroom house up in vallejo.  The place is cool but was kind of fucked up because the previous owner ran a dog training school out of the backyard and so the carpets were all trashed and the yard was full of makeshift kennels that had to be demolished and ripped out.  Once we get it all cleaned and fixed up though the place is going to be awesome, we’ve even got a giant room in the back to set up a full home recording studio and throw house parties.  So that’s been eating all my time and will probably eat most of my free time for a while to come.

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Fiddlin’

Posted on March 30, 2009

I love the fiddle, always have,  and I’ve wanted a fiddler in Beltaine’s Fire from day 1.  unfortunately, we’ve never been able to find a good one that has a solid attitude and can deal with the fact that we don’t get paid reliably because we’re a local independent band.  so i’ve decided to learn myself.   which i guess means my slow but steady transformation into a bonified folk musician is destined to continue.  i don’t know if the world is ready for a rapping fiddler or a fiddling rapper, but that’s never really stopped me before.

anyway.

so far it’s a lot of fun and a *lot* of work.  kind of expensive too, so far I’m in about $300 for the violin itself, new strings, a new bow, and a few other odds and ends,  plus $50 a week for lessons.

my teacher (Michael Mullen – one of my favorite celtic fiddlers on the west coast and someone you may recognize from his guest appearances on my band’s first album) assures me it’ll be at least 5 years, probably closer to 10, of intense study before I should even think about bringing my instrument on stage.  which kind of defeats the reason I wanted to pick it up in the first place.  except that I’m just stubborn enough to think I can probably do it sooner if I’m as obsessive compulsive about this as I am about most other things in my life. we’ll see.  I’ve got a bad history of getting really excited about instruments, playing for a while, then getting bored and moving on to something else, but I think that’s partly because I’ve been so broke for so long I haven’t been able to afford lessons and there’s only so far you can get being self-taught.  now though I’ve got at least a little bit of financial security and can afford lessons so no excuses – I’m going to need to put some serious work in.

anyway, that’s all my news.  hope ya’ll are enjoying the sunshine.  it’s a beautiful day here in oakland and I’m gonna go spend some time outside before it gets dark.