And we back and we back and we back and we ba-

I've been telling myself I'm going to bring back the black forever now. And by forever I mean probably 2 months...

I always romanticize finishing work early on a Sunday night and then lighting a candle and writing a blog before going to bed earlier than I normally do.

That's never the case and probably never will be the case so tonight I just said fuck it.

I don't really know anything about Scooter Braun, but my roommate Danny and I and been watching docs on our new TV and a long interview of his came up that I just watched. He was talking about visiting his brother at some point in his story and about how his brother would travel and write online when he found wifi.

I heard that and told myself that I'm never going to finish early on a Sunday so I might as well do it tonight,

It's currently 10:38pm. Not that late but I like my sleep and ideally I get up around 6 or even 5:50 sometimes.

I was up late last night trying to get some editing done. It's funny how much time I put into a 20 second TikTok sometimes... and I still have no idea what I'm doing even if my friends/new followers think I do.

I went to bed around 1 and my scumbag brain woke me up at like 7:30! One of the two days each week that I don't need to be up and I didn't even get to use it hahahaha

It's been a weird year so far but I think my years always start out kind of bad? January and February of last year sucked for me.

But I have a lot to be happy about.

Junie wanted her own office space at our old spot so she asked me and Danny to leave. We found a good place in a really really dope area, and when I say 'we' I actually mean Danny. I'm excited for when shit opens back up. We're in the thicc of Los Angeles.

I also got my wisdom teeth out last week and that was kind of crazy. I don't remember a lot of it, obviously. In my head when I got knocked out they were gonna put a mask over my face and ask me to count backwards from 10. I thought if I got a voice memo of that it could be cool to use in a song or something. I got the voice memo but they didn't do it like that, I think they injected me with something.

I wanted to try and make content out of being drowsy but nahhh. I was too fucked up. When I finally woke up I thought that I was fine. I swished some water into my mouth and a bunch of clots came out when I spat out the water. After that I walked back into the kitchen and rested my arms on the counter as Danny asked me if I wanted eggs, and I completely fainted. I woke up a few seconds later (I think?) and said, "What the fuck happened?"

Danny mashed up some bananas and peanut better for me to eat. I don't know why but I kept putting my hand over my face and then I started crying. It was such a weird headspace where I was mostly normal but still a little bit high and I was trying to crack jokes to lighten up the situation but there were also tears in my eyes.

I was in a decent amount of pain all week but I was also on a shit-ton of ibuprofen. My diet was pretty whack and I felt super light-headed after lunch at work on Tuesday. I probably should have gone home but I didn't ask anyone.

That's Exactly Why comes out on Friday and I still need to make the lyric video. It never ceases to amaze me how much of the work that goes into music has nothing to do with music. I'm really happy with how it came out though, and I have a couple more songs lined up for the next 2 months so I'm kind of set until April. Hopefully I will have 2-3 more songs done by then. I gotta start getting my music ass into gear if I want to put out another project this year.

My brain just comes up with so many ideas... I need to start writing songs again too, even though I should have been doing that all along. I should be meeting up with John next weekend to write something so hopefully that will go well. I'd like to set up some sort of blogging schedule but I don't really need another thing to suck at right this moment.

Idk man, I've got lots going on. And I'm still not making any money from anything other than my day job🙃 I'm gonna start selling merch. Not sure how it will do though. It's probably too early but I never accomplished anything by waiting until I was ready, did I?

I'm not sure who would read this, but thanks for tuning in if you have. I used to do all my online journaling on Tumblr but these days with my content-forward thinking I thought I should just post it in on the website to have something extra for people to check out if they ever come here. The word 'branding' has always annoyed me, but I'm trying to get evanknapp.com instead of evanknappmusic.com

I don't know when my thinking changed but at some point this last year I got kind of excited looking at myself as someone who doesn't only do music. I enjoy making the funny little videos. It's been weird kind of transitioning into someone who does sensitive music (or whatever) and also makes people laugh. I think eventually it will boil down into something that makes sense. Or at least I hope so. I just hope I find my thing on TikTok soon.

It's 11 and I already know I'm gonna feel like shit when I wake up in the morning so I think I'm gonna hit the hay.

Peace and until next time,

2018

1. What went well this year?

Music (to a certain extent). I played my first festival in Richmond, VA this year in April, played my first sold out show, put out my first EP, put out the first documentary about my career, started to learn how to play keys, and learned some fundamentals of production/mixing.

Travel. I mean, it was decent. I visited my old life in Switzerland, went to Virginia and Missouri for the first time, and spent like 2 days in Boise.

Reading. I don’t think I actually read that many books, but I’ve made it a habit to read each night before bed. Started that towards the end of the year.

Quality Time. I do think I did a good job of spending time with people I care about this year, especially when it comes to talking about things that matter rather than small talk.

Willpower. There’s always room for improvement here, but after taking last January without coffee, I decided to give myself a challenge each month of 2018 to help build habits/more willpower. I stuck with all of them pretty well and it’s something I’d like to continue with this year.

2. What didn’t go well this year?

Shows. I really didn’t play any shows this year. I played one in January at Dante’s, one in March at Mississippi Pizza, and the only other one I played was my release show at Alberta St. Pub in October, aside from a couple brewery gigs for money. The shows all had good turnouts, but I feel like this doesn’t look that good for me on paper. To be fair, a lot of that time went to recording and promoting, and it’s hard to tell which is more important sometimes. To me, shows seem like a good way to keep me relevant to people who already know who I am and what I do. But as far as reaching a new audience goes, I’m not sure that playing shows helps at all. It’s really difficult to tell.

Work. I wasted a lot of time working at restaurants that wouldn’t promote me and ended up going back to a job that I left when I was 20. It pays better, but backtracking never feels good to me. I always waste a lot of mental capacity by thinking about my jobs and how I could be doing them better rather than making music.

Moderation. When it comes to doing a lot of things for me, like writing, recording, or learning new things, I’m either doing them every day or I don’t do them at all. I don’t think it’s realistic to do everything I need to every day and still have a job and a social life, but I do think I can find a better schedule where I can be creating more.

Response Time. I need to get back to people faster. Not that I’m worse than average, but it happens all too often that I get a text from someone and won’t respond for a day or two… even though I end up texting them the exact think I would have if I responded right away.

Foresight. I haven’t been good at planning things in advance, which doesn’t come in handy when all of my friends are playing dope festivals in the summer and I’m stuck at work.

I don’t know what category to put this under, but I don’t think I did a great job with hanging out with people who inspire me this year. I think the hardest part about working in restaurants is being around people who aren’t very motivated.

3. What Am I Working Towards?

I want to be a more self-sufficient musician… at least in terms of output. I want to produce and mix my own songs. I want to make music, which is something I spend a lot of time talking about but less time doing. I want to release my next EP this year, but I want to do the release better than last time. I want to build more momentum leading up to it, I want it to be heard by more people, and I want the songs to get on Spotify playlists. 

I want to be more focused and effective. I want to spend less time floundering between tasks and more time planning and executing. 

I think it’s important to note that I do think I’m doing a pretty good job being the person I want to be, but there’s still a lot more that I want.

That’s all for now. This does feel a little half-assed, but the end of this year came up so fast that I didn’t give myself much time to think about it.

My Favorite Funk Guitar Line of All Time

It's a close call between 'Doin' It' by Herbie Hancock and 'Aaron's Party' by Aaron Carter.

... but I think I might have to give it to Aaron.