It was the Summer of 2012. I had just been laid off from a pretty well-paying job at a startup company. I was pretty much the entire department.
When we lost our biggest client, I knew I’d get hit. So, I already prepared for the layoff.
I had plenty of cash at the time. Instead of looking immediately for work, I decided to spend the entire Summer learning orchestration. My Metal band was going nowhere. At the time, we were a Progressive Metal band that sounded just like every other Progressive Metal band. Real awesome musicians, vocal lines secondary.
The drummer had already left, but we stayed on good terms. He said that we needed to do something completely different. I think he got bored with musical masturbation. To be honest, I was getting bored as well.
One day, my wife brought home BBC’s Eroica from the local library. It was BBC’s interpretation of the events which started Romanticism. I almost didn’t see it because the due date came up and I never got around to watching it. My wife extended it from the library, so I finally got around to putting it on.
That one video changed my life. I realized then and there that I needed to take the band in a completely different direction. I changed the band into a Symphonic Metal band and never looked back. (That band broke up in 2017).
The birth of Siren’s Song
Siren’s Song Suite were my very first pieces of orchestration. By my standards of today, they’re mediocre and I’m working on re-orchestrating the entire suite. However, I have the song Siren’s Song itself written for band + string quartet. I fixed that song earlier this year.
In the middle of orchestrating for the Suite, I learned that my mother had cancer and the doctors discovered it too late to save her. I immediately got on a plane and flew to Texas.
So, I decided on the flight, I’d dedicate the entire Suite to her. That Summer, I finished the entire Suite. However, we still had to record it.
She died before we finished the recording. My mother never heard the Suite.
So I’m sitting here with four songs that pretty much mean something only to me. I decided to break up the Suite and re-orchestrate it and put it together another day. For now, Siren’s Song goes on our upcoming album. You’ll get to hear it next year, and I can guarantee you that you’ve never heard anything like it.
There’s a short story that goes with it
I decided this morning to get back into fiction writing. I write short stories. The people who’ve read my short stories like them as they flow very well.
The stories themselves are weird, and always deal in the fantastic or the metaphysical realm. If I had to label them, I’d call them Fantasy. But not regular fantasy as they’re all on Earth. They just generally deal with the myths and legends of Western culture.
Like the Siren for instance. If you’ve read Greek mythology, you already know about Sirens.
This is the video we’ll be shooting in the Caribbean in 2019 and also Italy and/or Croatia next year. I already hired the scuba team, and the main actress.
I just have to write the story. It’s been in my head for a very long time.
Of course, I’ll dedicate the story to the memory of my mother. She was a highly intelligent woman with a fierce sense of independence and justice. For instance, she’d tell a doctor to fuck himself right in front of his face and walk out. The thing is, she was so highly good at what she did, she’d have a job in another hospital within a week.
Those of you who don’t work in hospitals don’t realize how there’s a pretty high percentage of doctors that are fucking assholes. Yes, some are wonderful, wonderful people. But others are self-centered and righteous assholes who think they’re better than everyone else and know everything about everything.
I of course don’t know this first hand. I’ve never worked in a hospital. But I’ve heard all the stories from my mother. She never held back. And she never lied.
Original fiction is on its way
So keep your eyes open my friends. I’ll start on Siren’s Song, the short story next week. And I’ll eventually publish it in eBook form with plenty of pictures. Of course, 2020 would be the launch date. I’ll call the eBook something like Siren’s Song and other short stories.
I take my photography seriously too, not just my music and my writing. It will be beautiful. Well worth purchasing. I can guarantee you that.
If there’s a market for it, I’ll make a hardcover book as well. But for now, I’d rather focus on the eBook.
You’ll be able to find most of it on this site. However, it’s always nice to have everything together in one place. Also, it will contain a lot of unpublished photography.