August Update

It has been a rather eventful summer to say the least. A couple of days after my last blog post my parents came down to visit. It was a short visit but a great one filled with lots of laughter and food. In other words, a typical family visit :-)

A few days after that I had a chance to write some music for a new reality show about a pest control service. Not sure if I'm allowed to say more than that at this time. I ended up writing and signing some new tracks in a couple of genres that were new for me, classic rock and hip-hop.

A couple of days later I got an opportunity to write some tracks for a new show that recently debuted on TLC called Surprise Homecoming, hosted by Billy Ray Cyrus. The show is about soldiers returning home from war and surprising their loved ones. It was a very quick turnaround time for the new cues as the show was already being edited. I wrote a few cues and I also did some co-writing with a couple dear friends, Lydia Ashton and Cathleen Weinrich, both of whom are amazing musicians. Cathleen and I had two tracks signed and Lydia and I had four tracks signed.

Perception and Reality

I was having a conversation with my wife yesterday about how I've been feeling that I haven't been as productive this year, from the standpoint of music creation. It's not that I feel like I've been lazy or anything, quite the contrary. I know I've been working as hard but for some reason, in my mind, it feels like I'm "behind schedule" compared to last year. So I spent some time on the subject last night.

Proving Ground sneak peak and Sniper

I don't typically do this but I'm going to start this post off with a viewer discretion is advised warning. Those of you easily offended or sensitive to violent images may want to skip this entry.

I found out last night that the premiere episode of the show Proving Ground on G4TV is actually viewable online at YouTube as a sneak peak until June 6th. So for those of you who don't have G4TV you can actually watch the episode online now. I watched it last night and discovered that I had 5 tracks used in the episode. I'll put a list of them after the video for those interested in knowing which ones are mine. If you want to hear my vocal "debut" then skip ahead to around the 16:40 mark to hear me "singing" about bananas:

1) Thorn In My Eye from 0:04 - 0:17
2) Blues Fun from 2:16 -  2:35
3) Fender Bender from 6:08 -  6:23
4) Going Bananas from 16:42 - 17:13
5) I Don't Even Care from 19:13 - 19:24

For those of you who do have G4TV, the show debuts on Tuesday June 14 at 8pm Eastern and will run for 9 episodes.

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...

April showers bring...

One of first things I had to learn when I decided to try for a career in the Film and TV music business was just how patient you have to be when it comes to getting paid. Take the title of this entry for example - "April showers bring..." - Most of you would probably complete that phrase by adding "May flowers." But to give you a better idea of what I'm talking about, let me change it up a bit and say it this way... April 2010 placements bring December 2010 royalties... So as you can see, patience is a necessity in this business. That's one of the aspects of this "glamorous" business that I end up having to explain the most to my non-music biz friends.

And speaking of April placements... For the first time ever, I know about a placement in advance of the show actually airing! I'm not sure which specific track is being used, but during Act 3 of tonight's episode of Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory, I have a 20 second cue being used. I'm fairly certain it'll be an uptempo hard rock/metal cue. The show airs at 9:30pm Eastern. Check it out!