Me, performing at the Spilled Milk Open Mic at the Corner House.

Me, performing at the Spilled Milk Open Mic at the Corner House.

Whoa! February flew by. They call it the shortest month for a reason! (Because it is…)
Let’s do a recap.

February’s project was releasing a split EP with my buddy Brian in A Day Without Love. We dubbed it the Young Professionals EP. The EP was recorded over Christmas break, so there wasn’t much to be done as far as mixing. This project was about promotion, building some buzz, and releasing music I’m proud of. And of course, I aimed to learn as much as possible along the way.

Week over week, here’s what I crossed off my to-do list:

Week 1
Posted announcement video
Began to gather blog contacts for outreach

Week 2
Posted a live video of an alternate version of “Kim”

Week 3
Posted a live video of a cover of A Day Without Love’s “Pity”
Wrote press release for the split
Sent press release/early review info to blogs

Week 4
Released the EP!
Posted lyric videos for every song on the split
Posted song meaning videos for every song on the split
Played an open mic 

That breaks down to 9 YouTube videos, 6 blog posts, 3 of my songs on iTunes, Spotify, and Bandcamp, and other digital services, 1 open mic, and a lot of hard work :). Overall, I’m pleased with my first month of stuff. I haven’t focused on music so exclusively for a long time, and it felt good to put some time into it. The response to the EP surpassed my expectations, particularly the feedback on a lot of my video content. There will be more musical months to come in this, the 12 Months of Stuff. But I have a feeling even after 2015 is done, I’ll still be working music into my daily routine, from songwriting to performing.

I learned a lot over this past month, and I’ll expand on that in depth recap on specific topics. But for now, my key takeaway from my first month of stuff is this: I have much more time than I think. There’s no doubt I lost sleep over some of these videos, posts, and parts of this EP. The week of release with six YouTube videos and an open mic was particularly challenging. So much so that as you may notice, I took a few days off from March’s project. But at the end of the day, I got it all done. I silenced the small voice in the back of my head that constantly chattered about running out of time. Looking towards future projects with this in mind is one of the most rewarding parts of this project so far.

Lastly, if you’re reading this, thank you! Thank you to everyone who listened to my EP (even if you didn’t dig it 😛 ), posted on socials about it, watched and shared my videos, and gave me words of encouragement on the EP and project as a whole. It means a lot to have my hard work recognized, and I hope I can keep you coming back for more cool stuff in March and beyond. 

And remember, if you want to get to where you want to be, it starts with that first step :). Subscribe to the blog, my YouTube channel, or follow me on Twitter to keep up with my 12 Months of Stuff! I’ll have more info on March’s project tomorrow.