I AM BACK!!!

HELLO PATREON! it's been a bit, so here's a little update post!

I wanna start out by saying, HELLO TO ALL THE NEW PATRONS!!! THERE'S SO MANY OF YOU THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE! I think we're at over 60 new patrons this week?! Y'ALL ROCK MY SOCKS!

The support here is the only reason I am able to create art at the capacity that I do. Thank you so much for everyone who's supporting. I haven't been active here a ton over the last month or so because I have been touring with the JER band, and life just calmed down back to normal. So I want to address first that i will be updating all the perks! The next youtube video will have an updated outro including everybodys names. This week, i'll be updating the google drive that has wav files of all my covers to date, and for those who wish to join the discord, I will be posting an updated invite link to the discord, and for those who have songs you'd love to hear as ska, I will be posting an updated link to the patreon request form.

Patreon is supposed to automatically send those perks, but over the years, it's simply never worked every time i've set it up lol so I have to manually post it. Which is FINE! as long as everybody is getting the perks!

NOW BACK TO ME BEING BACK! bare with me, I am adjust back to life. I have been gone since september 12th and I travelled nearly 4000 miles by van over 14 days, with 11 of them being days we played a show with 0 days off. Then we had one day to do laundry and pack and fly out to Japan for the JER shows. We landed a week ago and immediately had to prep not only for the JER fest show, but the skatune network Fest show AND playing on the Link 80 and Jeff Rosenstock sets.

NOW IF YOU'VE BEEN FOLLOWING... you know I did NOT have the smoothest time. Starting with our last tour. Touring is integral to being a musician in this day, but it's also incredibly volatile. Especially when you're the opening band. You're throwin in the worst position. You're paid the least, with our daily performance fee barely covering the cost of our van rental and gas. You also open the show, and many people actively show up late and avoid the opening band, which directly effects our merch sales and can be the difference between us affording to do the tour and not. AND TO MAKE MATTERS WORSE, I was hit with a several thousand dollar financial situation that was out of my control, and has thrown me in the red. pair that with United fucking up our flight to japan where we had to rebook our bullet train and book hotels out of pocket... it's been stressful financially. This was why some of our merch has been delayed AND we had to cancel shows.

I say all this as a level of not only transparency on how financially volatile all of this is, but how integral this support is. Patreon is supposed to cover my rent and living expenses so I can focus solely on creating, but lately it's been supplementing a lot of tour costs and covering unexpected finances. I may need to take my car into a shop with my next patreon payout, and Im hoping I have enough to pay rent.

And On top of patreon, I have several jobs that I work. I teach marching band with multiple schools, as well as 2 independent drum corps. I also do freelance private lessons, session work, recording work, touring, and stuff. So imagine balancing rehearsals through the week on top of all the work that goes into touring that they dont tell you about like ORGANIZING BOXES OF MERCH, doing LOADS of laundry and cleaning your home when you get home, loading and unloading a van / all the gear, its a huge adjustment going from being home to on the road and home again. On top of fighting the jet lag going from Japan to Florida lol

My goal is by the start of next week to be back in a recording flow and bringing y'all some more videos and content! To everyone who has been here supporting, thank you so much. To everyone who is new here, THANK YOU SO MUCH! This wouldn't be possible without y'all!