Tag: business

tempered growth

A little artistic progress, and reminder that going slow is okay…

I’m dipping my toe in the pool of promoting a product I’ve been developing all year. It’s pretty exciting. I mean… I’ve only done so by way of FB and Instagram ‘stories.’

  • The website I’ve been developing for the past few months in my spare time (ha!) has not been launched.
  • The webstore has not been launched.
  • I have not posted demo videos (or… made them).
  • I have not yet initiated posting on the instagram page I registered for this.
  • I have not started a Facebook page.

That’s all coming soon enough.

What I DO have is TWO products, a possible 3rd that I’m considering, and a few others in the wings that are at the tinkering phase, and won’t see the light of day for a while regardless.

These are guitar pedals, by the way.

I’ve managed to find a project that combines my knowledge of many of my interests, including but not exclusive to rock & roll music, vintage aesthetics, hot-rodding (by way of style and decor, modification, and customization), sound design (by way of my discerning ear)… There’s a thrill in the pursuit just as much as there is in completing a project.

… and I’ve managed to weaponize my AuDHD hyperfocus.

Primarily, I’m doing what I always do when it comes to artistic endeavors (and there are very few parts of this that are NOT artistic,in my opinion) and that is, I’m making things I want to have. As much as I’d love to collaborate with someone else, The bar for quality at this point is:
Would I use this? Does is have a place in my pedal board?

Recently I got ahold of a program to design some enclosures of my own… and as fun as that was, it was a bit of a let down. I got to a point where I was really excited about a design and when I submitted it for quotes, it was UNREASONABLY expensive… like more than I want to charge for a finished product… for a single part.

It was simultaneously encouraging and discouraging. Discouraging because I wasn’t able to do what I wanted, and it felt like I’d spent all this time developing an idea for nothing… but it was also encouraging, because if I found myself in a place where I had to scale-up to meet demand, I have a pretty good idea of how I would do that.

Not to bolster my own ego or anything… but these are marketable and useful tools of the trade, and with how many people come and ask me about what guitar pedals I use and take photos of my pedalboard after I perform, it’s not a far stretch to say that I am getting a desirable tone from my equipment, and that people will take guidance in that regard from people they’ve garnered respect for.

So I guess I’ll have to stay respectable for as long as possible.

This isn’t my first foray into business. I was part owner of a short-lived record & art store on Whyte Avenue in the early 2000’s called ‘rUckUs’ and have been an entrepreneurial live music artist and bandleader for most of my life… but this is different.

This isn’t an event entertainment service, nor is it a brick & mortar shop with finite hours and a fixed location. It’s a self-developed product, or line of products that is for a niche market of performers and collectors. I’m not limited by performance budgets or music repertoire, nor am I hampered by lease agreements or overhead utility costs.

I am only limited by my own imagination and the current scale by which I can operate… but tempered growth is possible.

What I really want to do is to enjoy the process – and I do – but neurodivergence, excitement, and impatience make we want to bolt for the finish line… so here I am, reminding myself that there is no finish line.

the hollywood version of not giving a fuck

I turned 44 earlier this week. The notion that I’m in better shape, both mentally and physically, than I was at 34 certainly takes the sting out birthdays.

I gotta say, now that we’re past the 1/3 mark of 2026, this year is absolutely wild. There are bonkers-level things happening all around me as I both prepare my child to be become a legal adult and am anticipating being an uncle (again) – I had assumed (and even posted about) the notion that I’d be settled in, riding shotgun for some massive life changes for the people around me.

… then I got a wild (to me, not surprising to many others) mental health diagnosis and decided to start an arts-based side business.

It’s certainly an interesting time in my life, as the combination of so many of the events of my life are coming into view with a much clearer focus than ever before at the very same time that so many of the artistic and business experiences are gathering under the same umbrella.

Every experience I’ve ever had has brought me here, whether significant or otherwise. Every show I’ve played, website I’ve launched, shirt I’ve ironed, dishwasher load I’ve put away, beer I drank, beer I said ‘no’ to… all of it was a step toward this exact moment in time. I feel alive.

I’m anticipating some test pressings from the new Confusionaires record pretty quick here. We haven’t announced anything about it other than teasers but given the 7 songs that are featured on it, I think the single we’ve chosen is atypical. In the past we’ve chosen catchy, short songs (as most of our songs have been catchy and short) but this time around we’ve chosen something with a little more franticness and urgency – it’s rock & roll, it’s got a country riff, and it feels like a surf song, and it’s about something. It doesn’t care what you think.

It’s called “Anything Happens All The Time” andit about how anything can happen on the road, and it does. I’m excited for you to hear it and I am not concerned with whether or not you like it. But I DO want you to buy a record. I’m not certain how release dates for this album will go because festival season is fast approaching now, and I really don’t have any interest in hosting a show at a time when nobody is around to come see it.

How’s that for complex?

I also don’t think we’re doing a video… not a formal one, anyway. Maybe a live one down the road but I the way we’ve been approaching this batch of songs is different than our previous records. We have some Alberta and B.C. dates through the summer.

Perhaps we’re older and wiser.
Perhaps we’re just older.
Maybe we don’t give a fuck anymore… Honestly I hope that’s the case, because that’s where bands always start doing their best work. I’ve essentially been waiting my entire life to stop giving a fuck what other people think.

I always thought I didn’t care what people thought… but it turns out I cared a lot about how I was perceived – and I wanted to be perceived as someone who didn’t care what you thought. I had the “Hollywood Version” of not giving a fuck… which is in the same realm as being “Hollywood Fat” which is not fat at all, just ‘less defined’ in the muscle department (like me!). It’s also similar to the “Hollywood Ending” wherein everything gets resolved, which is a laughable concept at 44 years old.

Life is not like that.
Life doesn’t have an instagram filter, and is certainly not AI generated.
Life is lived.
Life is weathered.
It’s complicated and it gets bloated, and has bad hair days and wears ugly sweaters unironically on occasion.
Life has mustard stains.

At any rate, this is my public journal entry for the week, in all entitled glory.

Some really cool things on the horizon, and I am doing my best to live in this moment, here & now, because I know I will never be here again. I will never stand in this river again because the river is always flowing and I am always changing, growing, and learning.

Much love.