Dealing with reality:

First part of 2019, really for most of the year, I worked on doing computer forensics. Doing this on a couple dozen devices took years. For the better part of three years learning how to deal with the mess I had took center stage. The entire thing was very costly to me and ruined and delayed years of work being finished, and getting done. Not to say though I didn't do new stuff, as usual with me!

Because working on music added some flavor come 2019 when I put together the band WeeWee with my Cousin Wess, whom folks in the fam knew as WeeWee. We cut some tracks in fall 2019-Winter 2020 and released some songs in 2020-21 which is known as the EP Oui, Oui (yes, yes). We tried to get a bass player for the better part of a year and nothing panned out.

Most of 2020, like the rest of the world things were messed up. I started strong once the pandemic lockdown begans getting stuff done for a few weeks, but most of the year, rarely did I work on music. I was "still" doing and learning how to do forensics on machines damaged from when my house was broken into a couple of years earlier.

In the Spring & Summer of 2021 I was able to get most of the stuff off the messed up computers in 2018 onto a new machine to work on music. In the Fall I began the final segment of the Revolution saga now running @ the 10 year mark. I was able to get that and stuff from some stuff from Commando and Omerta to near finishing in the summer of 2022. I began to put down some ideas from a couple screenplays I had been messing with LAUGR & Retro through 2022.

I also usd the ambient tracks from a road trip to see a friend (the legendary Roachman is back!) in November 2021 and used them as foundation recordings for the loose ad-hoc mash called Big Scooby I began to finish by year's in November 2022.

December 2021 - I lost my longtime companion Spike in late December 2021. Though I wasn't the best Dad to Spike, I loved him dearly and he meant the world to me. For along time thereafter, I didn't work on any of my own music. My health was failing rapidly as well. I did begin to sporatically work on some stuff beginning in the spring as mentioned above. By then I also had a new friend, his name is Bruno.

Spring - Summer 2022 - Kept attempting to finish up the long overdue Revelation album. I also laid tracks down for Spirit Commando and some other stuff left over from the ruined mac laptop that I had transferred. All in all there were over half a dozen partially completed projects and about another 7-8 folders with just skeletons of songs with a track or two. Sometimes I'd get a decent amount done, sometimes and usually, nothing I liked. I keep trying though.....

Began listening to the demos from Age Of Fire I had did years before and decided I wanted to finish up the album. I had a few more albums and EP's with a few tracks laid down I began to work on. Once again the Fire Of Creation stays strong and I begin to work on some new material in 2022.

In November 2022 began finishing up mixing the second release from CAMO which turned into the band effort IBC. I had sporatically worked on mixing some of his stuff on and off, mostly off, for close to a year by the end of 2022. We had started literally the night before Spike passed away. Physical problems, including hearing problems, and trying to get some time to work on his stuff scheduled when I felt like doing anything, was a challenge. But the end results were sounding pretty good. He was cutting the stuff with his son, who was just a little kid when we did his first album over ten years ago. It was good to see a new generation coming on.

January 2023 - Digitized and uploaded the Avondale stuff from the Painkillers off a demo cassette I found in a box of tapes rescued from my storage shed of which the roof had blown off a few years back. Theirs and The Plague stuff from the Pat Mell Sessions both from 32-33 years ago were in the box. Great to hear this stuff again. I was producer on both sets of recordings.

So to me nothing was actually getting done.

On the days, increasingly, when I felt like it, I'd take Bruno out for a drive, since he loved to do that, and I couldn't go for long walks with him anyways. Time was further taken up trying to do things like grocery shopping or taking care of anything above being able to get out of bed without hobbling around the house relying on a walker or a cane.

As the heart of summer of 2023 rolled around I again laid out what needed to be done to finish all of what was still open, mostly, by year's end.

August 2023: While digitizing some of the over 250 cassettes from the past of demos and releases bands had sent me, I come across a cassette buried in a box of demos called "Demos 1992". I listen and find out it's a collection of writing solo jams I had did in the year 1992. Including the quarter finished album Institution. I began work on finishing the music and lyrics, because I felt it needed to be done, like a hundred other loose ends needed tied up

Fall 2023 - I sporatically would do a live show and by now for months I would only do a seasonal Trip 248. Originally I had quit doing both in the winter of 2022 after Spike died, but old habits die hard they say. My hearing had serious problems so it often wasn't fun and if it wasn't, I didn't waste the time. I paid for the domain for UGR before it expired, and the registar I used (from Day one NSI) switched payment arrangements forcing me to lose the domain (see Issue 79) that I'd had since the late 90's. So all that was nowhere online except bits and pieces on places like Archive. Can't say if it'll ever go back up.

Spring 2024 - I am deep into finishing up albums I've done some basic recordings on over the past couple of decades. The Gaza War offered me the sound ideas I was looking for to finish The Great Angelic Wars, replacing a few numbers I was never satisfied with. Working on that I found a beat on a song called Rising which I thought would fit the part in the film I was looking to portray. Out of that came Lucifer Rising, filling another missing place in the soundscape which was to be the story made into the film.

While doing the stuff of the direct-to-cassette recordings I did with Sex Coven 22 years (come July 2024) prior. Time grows short over a long time, so I had to prioritize what I could actually ever get done in a few lifetimes. I had the album Living and Dying in progress since Dad had passed away eight years ago, then with Mom passing away in the fall of 2023 just a few days shy of her 93rd, I wanted to finish some things off that album which I renamed LIFE and merged it with some of the stuff from Daddy's , which soundtrack and story were all in pieces and needed compiling. I could get some of each project done as one. Out of that came Muzz and Spike.

In the Summer of 2024 I closed down working on the Circle Of Life soundtrack and began concentrating of the primarily the Sound track and screenplay stuff I had began in 2023. At the top were two songs from Little Red, the Theme or "Down The Path", and Wars For Resources, "I Am The Earth", which came together and I was able to finish and publish by Fall Of The Year.

I had 13 orphaned and unfinished projects I set up to finish, which included everything from a song from WeeWee to a few from Omerta, new entries for The Great Angelic Wars and again, stuff from Revolution.. In all this mess I mastered a couple new singles from IBC, A Letter to Sloke and Rocket.

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