Tuesday, December 31, 2013

2013 in Review

I suppose I'm not immune to the urge to look back and sum up.

This will be the 51st post to this blog in 2013. The majority came during National Poetry Writing Month in April, but there was a somewhat-steady stream of music, both originals and covers, and both informal and...less informal we can say.

There were also videos!  In fact, the two most-visited posts of 2013 both featured videos:

1. We Didn't Start the Science (for my 10,000th tweet)
2. The live solo acoustic preview of the song MarcoPolo

MarcoPolo was the only new Bandcamp release this year for the Gedankenband and I, featured along with its B-sides in this post:
3. MarcoPolo, the single!

And I was filmed performing MarcoPolo for a European planetary science audience, presented here:
4. MarcoPolo, live and under duress!

Other originals featured on the blog this year included (link to music, not the post):
5. Dear Kate Bush
6. Bisbee Blue
7. But Of Course
8. Congress St. Blues
9. I Still Reckon 
10. Solitaire: New Deal
11. Ceres Ferdinandea I: The Monk and the Prodigy
12. If I Can't Be
13. (I Couldn't) Keep Taylor Swift Happy

All the poems were pretty much collected in April, here in reverse order:
14. April 2013 on the blog

Though one poem snuck its way into May:
15. NaPoWriMo Bonus Poem

Thanks for reading, or listening, or whatever it is you're doing. I hope to bring you back for more in 2014!



Saturday, December 7, 2013

Potentially Coming Attractions, and a Question for You


As 2013 starts looking for its coat and does a last round of goodbyes before heading for the exit, I'm thinking about another music release. While most of the visits to the blog come during National Poetry Writing Month, I do think of this as a music blog first. Since the last full-length album, The Cheese Stands Alone, I've put a couple of EPs up on Bandcamp (Local Technique and Not for Having, But for Tasting) as well as a couple of singles. And it's looking like the MarcoPolo single will be the only music released in 2013 on the Gedankenband site (though some bits and pieces are here on the blog).

So the question is whether to try another full-length album (Cheese was released in 2009) or do another EP in early 2014. I can collect 4-5 songs easily enough between songs I've been working on, songs I've posted here in demo form, and songs I'd like to record, but I could alternately compile the last two EPs with a bunch of newly-recorded songs and make a full album.

I recognize I don't get a lot of people reading this (which is fine), and I get very few comments. But if you do have an opinion, please chime in. Would you be more interested in a 4-5 song EP or a 15-20 song album (with half-ish of the songs having been on previous EPs)?