My 2021 was dominated by the completion and release of my new album, “The Way.” The year began in the middle of the recording stage. Recording was finished by the end of February, then came editing, then mixing, and finally mastering. The audio portion of the project was completed in early July. Artwork was completed in August.

The album, without promotion, would cost me about $20,000. I ran a pre-order campaign among my fans to raise funds. That brought in $2,500. My fan club, The Misfit Club, contributed another $1,000. Revenue from sales of previous recordings added another $1,500. The other $15,000 I raised by sales of guitars and amps, and by borrowing from my retirement fund.

I sent those who pre-ordered their downloads and/or CDs in August. The album was released to the public in November.

In August and September, I worked with videographer Jamie Krutz on the first video for the album. In October, “Metadata (We’re Watching You),” was released as a single with the video. Making the video was a lot of work but it was also a lot of fun. Jamie did a great job, and the video was nominated for video of the year by Chris K’s Colorado Playlist.

In the summer I began recruiting a new rock band. I already had bassist Ryan Watts, who played on my album, and has become my musical right-hand man and a good friend. While waiting for the band to come together, Ryan and I played a gigs as a duo, and sometimes with others, the highlight being the Rob Fest at Gennaro’s on August 28, where singer Janet Lipson and percussionist Sam Caston joined us.

Lead guitarist David Shaffer joined the band in August. We went through three drummers, none of whom worked out, all for different reasons. We did not find a keyboard player. So we are still looking for a drummer and keyboard player.

I scheduled the album release show at Herman’s Hideaway in Denver on November 12. I recruited three well-known Denver performers to open for me– Luke Schmaltz of King Rat, Wendy Woo and Brent Loveday and the Dirty Dollars. I worked hard to publicize the show, and we had a very good turnout. I also played a live internet solo acoustic release show for my out-of-state fans on November 29.

The Denver weekly, The Westword, interviewed me about the new album, and ran a great feature article on their online edition. The Denver magazine, 303, listed me as one of Colorado’s Top 5 up and coming musical artists.

Now that the album has been recorded and released, my focus in 2022 will shift to getting the rock band fully formed, stabilized, and playing regular gigs. I also plan to play the occasional acoustic gig once in awhile, including a solo acoustic tour of Colorado’s smaller cities and towns.

Other goals include one or two more videos from songs on the The Way. And I plan to get back to songwriting, both rock songs for the new band, and maybe some new acoustic songs. In fact, I started on that in December.