This month marks my one-year anniversary as a full time musician. I’ve played live shows with two bands, Scupanon and Dorian, played solo, and hosted an open mic. But I haven’t been very good about blogging. Sorry. Mainly I’ve been working on new music, and am now preparing to record some of it. Here’s what’s happening:
Rob Roper Solo Album(s)
This actually might be two or three albums or EPs. I have 3 spoken word songs that I have written and recorded demos at home over the past few years. They are “Wave the Flag and Give ’em God” from 2006, “Indigenous” from 2009, and “Accept, Embrace, Surrender”, co-written by Nancy Farmer, from 2012. Some of you may have heard the demos. They are now being re-mixed by Brian Hunter and myself at Sawtelle Studio at Swallow Hill. We are improving the sound quality and also adding a few new wrinkles to the songs.
I’ve also written some “normal” songs in the last couple of years that need to be recorded, both electric and acoustic, rock and folk in style. At this point I’m not sure exactly how I’m going to combine the three categories of songs. I could do three small EP’s, or combine the three categories in some way.
Or I could just release all of them as digital download singles, with no album. That is certainly a lot less expensive. Personally I still like to have a hard copy record, with notes about the songs, a list of musicians, and so forth. Not to mention that the sound quality of a CD is significantly better than mp3’s. What do y’all think?
Total Flower Chaos
The record will be the debut album of Total Flower Chaos, which is what I call my hard rock and spacey rock music project. It will sound very different from all my previous recordings. I will record at Evergroove Studio, a beautiful studio owned by Brad and Jenny Smalling in the mountains outside of Evergreen, Colorado.
I will serve as the overall producer, but I’m also excited to be bringing Dan Tracy as a co-producer. Dan is a very talented New York City-based actor, singer, pianist, songwriter and guitarist. I ran some of my song ideas by him, and his critical comments were among the best feedback I’ve ever received. So I decided to hire him. Brad Smalling will also serve as a co-producer, as well as the engineer for the project.
This recording will be done differently than my other recordings. Brad and I are putting together a team of musicians. I’ll be bringing in unfinished demos, jamming with the musicians, and finishing them in the studio. For many, I’ll be writing lyrics after the music been recorded. Other songs will remain as instrumentals. It’s risky and scary for me, but also exciting.
I’m still writing music for this project, and will continue to do so right up to the recording date in June. If you’re curious, you can hear the rough demos I’ve recorded at home at http://soundcloud.com/totalflowerchaos/sets/demos Keep in mind that these are NOT the finished recordings; they are just demos that I’ll bring into the studio to get the process started. They will be reworked substantially in the studio by the other producers and musicians (and recorded better).
Funding
As I mentioned at the beginning of this blog, I am now a full time musician. I’m loving it. But that also means I can no longer pay for recording projects from my own savings. I’m going to have to reach out to my fans and friends to help make these projects happen. I’ll be creating a fund raising campaign on Kickstarter or one of the other crowd funding sites. I’ll announce that in the next month or two.
I hope you’re ready to hear some new music from me! I’m very, very excited about these projects!
–Rob