I actually remember how to blog!

Looks like my last entry was nearly six months ago. I knew it had been awhile since my last blog but I hadn't realized it had been THAT long. So much has happened between now and then. Some of it important, some of it, not so much. Let me start out with the least important stuff first... updates on music placements...

I landed my second main title theme for the show It's A Brad, Brad World that is currently airing on Bravo. I've also had numerous placements in a variety of other shows such as Access Hollywood, Auction Kings, and Little Couple. And the movie that I wrote the score for, Decision, made it's television debut back in October. I've also been busy writing cues for a variety of other shows but have yet to find out how many have been used yet.

In November of last year I made my annual trip to L.A. for the TAXI Road Rally. This was my fourth time going and it might have been my favorite one. It was great getting to see friends and "family" while I was there though it's amazing how fast the time flies while you're there. This one seemed to go by really fast.

After the Rally I made a big change in my recording setup. I switched from Pro Tools 9 to Cubase 6. There were lots of reasons for the change and maybe one day I'll do a blog post just about that, but after making the switch to Cubase, I can honestly say I've got no regrets. I'm LOVING Cubase!

Now on to some of the important updates... The last couple of weeks have been a sobering reminder of just how fragile life really is. Almost two weeks ago, my papaw (mom's dad) passed away. Even though he had been in a nursing home for over eight years and had been battling Parkinson's Disease for sometime, his passing was a bit of a shock. While it's never easy to see someone you love pass away, we know he's in a much better place now and we have faith that we'll see him again someday. I was able to spend about a week up in KY to be with my family. I wish I could have stayed longer.

I was just about to get back to a bit of a normal life last week but this past Friday saw an outbreak of tornadoes across the Midwest and the South. We were fortunate here in that we didn't see any damage. But the area that I grew up in, Laurel County, Kentucky, was not as lucky. In East Bernstadt, at least five people lost their life and as many as 40 others were injured. It broke my heart to see the pictures and video footage of some of the damage. While I grew up in London, we went to church for many years in East Bernstadt and I have some friends and family that live there. I basically consider all of Laurel County as "home." And to be away from there right now is definitely tugging on my heart. My body may be in Tennessee, but my head and heart are in Kentucky right now.

I posted this on facebook and will do the same here. I'm trying to find 5 people who are willing to donate $20 to the United Way of Laurel County to help out the tornado victims in East Bernstadt. I will match those donations myself and will also buy you a drink or desert the next time I see you in person. If you're willing to help, here's the link to donate at:

https://volunteer.truist.com/cng-uwa/donate/?fdn=19100&_vm10302425432_=UWW_LUW

Until next time...

Seriously wiped out by crushing cicadas on the ground

The title of this post doesn't mean what you may think it means but if you continue reading all will become clear. But before I do that, here are a couple of updates about some items from my last entry.

First off, the Fantasy Factory episode is now online. You can view it by clicking this link. My cue begins at around the 17:10 mark in the episode.

Second, the "Writer's Detour" that I was suffering from finally went away and I was able to meet my deadlines. Barely, but I met them. And now thanks to the detour, I've got a few new tracks to finish in some new styles for me. And now on to the new updates since my last entry...

March Madness!

I don't think I could have come up with a more appropriate title for this entry. As many of you know, I'm a huge Kentucky basketball fan and (most) every year during the month of March they compete in a little basketball tournament affectionately known as March Madness. Well, they're not the only ones dealing with madness this month. I'll get to that in a minute but first I've got a quite a few items to update everyone on.

Let's start with where I left off, and that's with the film score project. In spite of the fact that my main studio computer was down for over half of the project ( It was a power supply issue, and after a poor job by the 2nd service tech that HP sent, I was able to get the machine back up and running by myself later that night), I was able to meet my March 1st deadline.

I can share more about the film now as well. It's a faith-based movie called Decision and it stars Natalie Grant and Billy Dean. I'm not exactly sure when it's going to air but the latest I heard was they expected it to be on TV sometime near the mid/end of April. Once I know more, I'll be sure to let everyone know. It was a great experience working on the film. The production company is planning on shooting more films this year and I've already been told to expect a phone call from them in the upcoming months about scoring those as well. Needless to say, I'm pretty excited about that.

About 15 minutes after I found out that that every cue had been accepted and I was finished with the score, I got a postcard from our water company stating that our usage for the past month was higher than normal. This is where the madness begins...