Restoration Project’s 2020 Roadmap

As if I need another idea or toy or project or child to occupy my oh-so-abundant time… Yes, all of what you see on this website are active projects that I’m involved with. The latest time suck has been the brewery. Hours of equipment research, cost-benefit analysis, and the slow purchase of very expensive brew gear. Basically, I’m out of cash and still need to spend a few hundred more just to get the first batch bottled. But that’s not even why I began writing this post! I digress…

Today’s post also isn’t about my Biomes EP series or my failure of a Patreon page. Because that series of recordings is still indeed happening—just not as quickly as I’d like. Again, I digress…

What I’m actually writing about is the 2020 Restoration Project Roadmap. Basically, our plan for moving and growing from now through 2020. I love that we (all of us humans) get to use 20/20 as a refocusing year. It’s coming. It’s coming upon us all. God, am I excited! 2020 is going to be an incredible year. A time for me to refocus with my wife and family, my music, my business ventures. Everything that matters to me, spoken here or not.

So here’s what’s up with Restoration Project: I’m “getting the band back together”, so to speak, and we’re writing a super-secret-but-I’m-also-publicly-talking-about-it series of songs based strictly on the text of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith. We are talking verbatim text-to-music songs here. It’s difficult and fun and puts us in different musical meters within the same verse, has interesting and uncommon syllabic accents. Okay, I know you are officially asking yourself “Why the 1689? What is it anyway?”. Basically, it’s a kick-ass document that outlines a historic perspective on who Jesus is, who God is, who we are, and what’s ahead. It’s great.

Why do I think this is an important and worthy endeavor? I’d suggest checking out the ResProj About page

The plan is to fund this bad boy with a series of small-ish Kickstarter campaigns that correspond with the release of each of each volume of songs (four volumes of eight songs each. so 32 songs in all.) Our Firm Foundation series raised over $12k and we needed nearly every penny of it. This new collection is more songs, more volumes, and just more overall. But I’m hoping to kind-of piece together the funding as we go along. It might be more work, but the hope is that it keeps more people connected and involved through the whole process and for a longer period of time. It falls right in line with part of our 20/20 vision to create a sustainable resource for the restoring of historic and mostly-unknown hymns and Christian documents.

Multiple Kickstarter campaigns. Four albums. A network for sustainability. New old songs. (Does that even make sense!?!?!)

Through it all, thank you. For reading. For listening. For sharing. It’s 2020 time.

Right now, I’m listening to Echosmith’s Inside a Dream EP. It’s fantastic.

Current Projects, the Future…

Winterdienst-Einsatz_24.2.2013_(8503230734)The last 12 months are a complete blur.

Huge family changes, moving, new records released, new bandmates, session work, and a heck of a lot more. It’s difficult balancing family life & music. And I’ve hardly managed to stay on top of it all. You can look at the dates of my previous three posts on this site to see that. BUT if you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you know that I haven’t been idle—even if I haven’t been posting here.

Here’s a quick summary of the past 12 months:

1. We moved! Twice. A little over a year ago, my wife and I decided that we wanted (needed?) to buy a house. In order to save money for a down payment and pay off some debt, we moved our family into my parents’ house. We are so thankful to them for their generosity and hospitality. They are models to us of what it looks like to serve your children.

2. We had a baby! In October 2013, Megan, my wife, gave birth to our third child, a beautiful boy whom we named Wesley, after the great hymn-writing pastors, Charles and John.

3. Restoration Project released an EP. The first in their Firm Foundation series, after a successful Kickstarter campaign. In support of this EP, we’ve played about a dozen shows all over the Chicago area. This project is really where I’ve been spending the majority of my time. In addition to releasing one EP, we also recorded a second, to be released this October. Learn all about ResProj and the Firm Foundation series here: http://resproj.com.

4. I’ve produced and recorded—a lot. I’ve recorded and produced a handful of albums for other artists as well as done some session work for some local acts. Some of my favorite work this year has been with Alex Ishkov and Carl E. King.

Other than performing with Restoration Project, what I haven’t done much of recently is perform. And it’s killing me! AND, it’s changing. You’re going to see a lot more shows getting scheduled this fall and winter, into the Spring, as I gear up for another release, likely a solo album. Stay tuned, and be sure to follow me on Insta/Twit for the latest!