A lot has changed since I started this website and this blog, and yet a lot of things remain largely unchanged.
I joined a band last year (John Muka Band) as a drummer, and as of me writing this we are set to perform our first live show at JackRabbits in March. Being a part of a band this size has been an absolute pleasure, and we are currently eleven members strong. The music has definite motion and a wealth of emotion behind it, and a story that truly speaks to me as a musician that has been relatively under the radar for so long now. The fact that John and Troy were able to assemble this kind of group with so much chemistry and talent after a decade of being in hiatus is nothing short of a monumental achievement to me, and the future continues to look bright for this group. A lot of work has been put into that project from all of its members and I am proud to be a part of it, but this has subsequently affected my output as an independent musician.
In addition to being a member of John Muka Band I recently started to pick up some gigs with a country rock outfit known as Banjo Brown and The Road Gators. Country music is definitely not in my wheelhouse as a creator or even a listener, but it has been a very enjoyable learning experience to absorb their setlist into my brain and try to duplicate what these tasteful drummers can do on a country record. It feels genuinely good to be a part of a live music scene again in whatever capacity I am allowed, and I wish to continue that trend as much as time allows this year. With roughly five or six gigs between the two bands in the months of February and March alone I am gearing up to have a year full of exciting performances with some wonderful people, and for that I am truly greatful.
However, there is a nagging voice in the back of my mind that is asking me some difficult questions:
Are you going to have enough time to make your own music anymore? If you do complete the music you're working on will you even have the time and venues in which to perform it? Are your digital releases enough to garner any attention without a physical demonstration of your skills?
These questions are coming not from a place of fear I think, but from a curiosity as to what the future holds for me. I want to stay open to opportunities in music, and I think that the trajectory that I had originally intended for myself has been altered by events throughout the last year or two.
In 2020, some friends and I had a live rap cypher with a full rhythm section that we started as house parties where I was renting in Mandarin. Eventually the crowds got a little too big and a little too “lively” to be held in a place of residence that was shared with other people, so we had to move the events to a local kava cafe. I was starting to break into the hip-hop scene in Jacksonville a little bit at a time with my own music and the projects I was working on with others, doing shows with some of the performers that would show up to the cypher we hosted. Our little network of rappers and musicians was growing and gaining some traction, if only a modicum, and this continued for about a year or so.
Over time the attendance for the cypher started to fluctuate, and when it did garner a large attendance, it once again proved to be a little too large and too “lively” for a small cafe in a shopping plaza, and after the business opened a new location thirty minutes away from our home base and focused their musical bookings there, the cypher gradually fizzled out and came to a complete halt around 2021. In the years of 2022-2023 my attendance at performances in the local hip-hop scene also came to a grinding halt in a stupendous lack of momentum. I focused on continuing to jam as a rhythm section with the core members that started the cypher, focusing on making our own style of music that largely gravitated toward rock and experimental styles, but we never really picked up any vocalists to perform with us from that point forward and eventually that came to a halt as well.
By the end of 2024 I found myself alone again as a creator, having to pick up the pieces of all of the shattered projects of which I had once taken part. Some small solo instrumental releases were put out there with no real reception, and it was at that point that I was considering discontinuing any forays into the music world altogether. With the love and counsel of some close friends and family I continued to release some projects in order to get some closure on some things that I had left on the back burner and in 2025 I released two more solo instrumental projects as well as two collaborative instrumental efforts.
It was earlier in 2025 that I had gotten onto BandMix and connected with Troy and started rehearsing with him and John Muka and forming the lineup that would now be considered the full band. Slowly but surely my own creative output started to dwindle as I focused more heavily on being a worthwhile addition to someone else's creative ventures, but I still felt some sense of ownership in my contributions that soothed my need for creative satisfaction.
So that brings us to the present with only one solo rap release on the backburner that will likely be my first and last solo rap album featuring one very patient producer as the main collaborator. Other than that there is only one instrumental collaboration featuring another very patient guitarist from Gainesville, and the rest will simply be my own software maladies being dragged into the light to wriggle under the microscope of listeners far too used to high-end production value to be willing to sit through the stumbling efforts of a neophyte.
Which brings me back to my trajectory as a musician and how I must view these changes from a lens of gratitude and acceptance rather than grief and misfortune. For now, I may not be able to focus on my own creative output, but I am still thriving as a musician and have been presented with better opportunities than I have had in almost a decade of doing this. Things may not look the way I wanted them to five years ago and they may not look the way I want them to five years from now, but the less I focus on the way I want things to be and the more I live in the present, the more I truly believe I will find happiness in where I am at any given moment. And who knows, maybe those dreams I have will still come true, but in a different way than I could have ever expected.
Here's to the now, because it's all we have.
Cheers,
Robert O.