Thursday, March 18, 2010

Beatnik Turtle is Splitting Up

Yep, you heard right. Beatnik Turtle is officially splitting up.

But, not in the way you might think. That is, we're not breaking up as a band. There's no Yoko Ono, hotel room trashing, band member back-stabbing going on.

But, we are splitting up. About 3600 miles apart, actually.

What, you say?

Well, come Saturday, me (um, Jason, who uh, founded the band) and Tom (who plays all the complicated guitar parts) are moving overseas to Dublin, Ireland. It's a very long story involving our dayjobs, but we'll be over there for a few years while the rest of the band stays here in Chicago. (Hey, someone's gotta watch the place.)



So, after 13 years, Beatnik Turtle will now enter a new chapter and it'll be interesting to see where it leads.

It's a bit sad in that we had big plans to return to the stage and play live. In fact, we did a super double-secret show to an audience of friends a while back to test out some of the (tons) of new material we created during TheSongOfTheDay.com. The show went over well for something thrown together very, very quickly and got us excited about playing live again. But, then well, the Ireland thing soon became a reality and so we had to scrap our any touring plans.



But it's not all sad. It's actually a pretty cool opportunity in that if there's one thing our band has down pat, it's writing music and recording virtually. Just check out TheSongOfTheDay.com and you'll know what we mean. We couldn't have pulled all that off it it wasn't for technology helping a bit.

And now technology will just have to help a bit more.

As a band, we've already worked out how we'll continue forward -- how we'll continue to work together while two of us are across the ocean (email, Skype, Google Docs, etc.), how we'll record overseas in Dublin (Tom and I will be rebuilding our studios over there), and how we'll continue to record the rest of the band here in Chicago (thanks to our good friend, John who's got a state-of-the-art studio just blocks away from our TurtleShell Studios...which is now all boxed up.

So, Beatnik Turtle will be even more virtual than ever before. It's yet another challenge for us, but then it's totally up our alley. We're the "Indie Band Survival Guide" and IndieGuide.com guys as you know. The stuff we learn in collaborating and working remotely across two continents and 6 time zones will definitely find it's way in our writing and the tons of How To's over at IndieGuide.com.

And just so you know what we have planned, we're busy putting the final touches on 3 new albums, all of which should be coming out over the next year:

(1) a reissue and second printing (!) of "Sham Rock";
(2) "When I Was Your Age" (our album from last year's RPMChallenge); and
(3) "The Best Of TheSongOfTheDay.com" (which looks to be a double disc).

And then there's the latest album -- "So Much To Rock About" -- which we just completed in February**. Our plans are to use this album as a test to see how we work together virtually using the interweb. We have plans to record additional songs and material for that album so it's ready for release sometime in 2011.

So, there it is. We're splitting up. But not breaking up!

And so, if you're in Dublin or know people in Dublin, please give Tom and me a shout! We'll be looking for some open mic nights to play...!

**By the way, starting this Monday we'll be posting the songs from "So Much To Rock About" at TheSongOfTheDay.com. So, get ready for 11 weeks of fresh, new music!

Monday, March 1, 2010

We Did It! 4th RPM Album Done in 28 Days!

We did it!


Despite two of the band members uprooting their lives to move to Dublin, Ireland in a week (me and Tom), we managed to write and record 11 new songs and mail it to "RPM Headquarters". Over 2000 indie musicians participated this year. Not sure how many managed to finish, but then it's really not a contest (and it doesn't matter: it's an exercise in creativity and motivation).

The album we mailed in is entitled "So Much To Rock About" based on a line in the song, "Hello Guitar (We've Got So Much To Rock About"). It seemed fitting, especially since this will become our 21st album when it officially gets released next year.



As with RPM albums we've done in years past, we'll be posting all the songs up at TheSongOfTheDay.com in the next week or so. Also, while we finished the album for RPM purposes, we'll do our usual and write some more songs and work on the album over the year. We still need to get last year's album out -- "When I Was Your Age" -- and the ever-forthcoming "The Best Of TheSongOfTheDay.com" (which is a double album, so, you know, it's twice the work).

So, there's a lot more music coming from Beatnik Turtle...even if two of us guys are relocating to Dublin for the time-being.