The Reframing Experience Project

When I'm looking to record music or to do a specific project, I've always looked at the big plan of recording a whole CD of music, having a record label (Dot Time Records being my latest) produce copies and help promote, booking a tour to promote the music and musicians, and the whole nine yards. Though I look forward to doing that more in the future, 11 records in as a band leader, this past year + has made me think a little about how to adapt to the current world and how that can shape how I produce some projects in the future. I have a lot of music still I'm looking to record. Releasing singles on Bandcamp will allow me to think a little differently on how I produce and release some of my music in the future.

This leads me to this current little project that I have been thinking about for some time and has gone through some different iterations. What I am now calling my "Reframing Experience Project", based in part on a class I taught at Kent State this past Fall semester, I was thinking about writing music that was based off of my personal thoughts and experiences on the world around me. The first of 4 compositions "the Religion of Conformity" is based from my experience of watching the insurrection attempt on the Capital late this last year. It made me think, like in a cult, how people conform to the thoughts of one person (or more) to do awful things with no concern for others, and how this can become like a religion (not from a spiritual standpoint per say) to them.

Again, this is one of 4 compositions I will be promoting. If you feel moved by what you see or hear, please support me and this music. I want to thank several people. First, I would like to thank the supporters of this project. Thanks to Kent McWilliams, Nancy Kehrle, Jon C. Peterson, and for this specific composition "the Religion of Conformity", I would like to thank Marge Kralik Franks and the Franks family. Next I would like to thank the musicians who performed this music. Thank you to Tommy Lehman, Joey Skoch, Anthony Taddeo, and Aidan Plank. Your playing was inspirational. Thanks to Chris Coles for the continued discussions. And thanks to Ian Anderson and Kent Stark for the beautiful recording space and engineering. Please keep a look out for more promotion of this very personal project. I hope to be working on a larger scale interdisciplinary and multi-media version of this later this year.