NEWS
11/12/2026
A BOK song you should listen to right now if you’ve never heard it before: “Who Dares Defy The Hand Of God To War” from I Cannot Do Otherwise, So I Will Lose My Mind. It features some really inspired playing from Casey Firkin on drums and Bill Bird on bass. I manned the guitars and sang vocals.
What’s interesting about this track is that although the band had learned the song in early 2003, we’d ultimately only performed it live once and then kinda discarded it. When we finally got around to recording it some time (I think) late that summer, I doubt we’d played it in months, but we ran through it three times (I was recording everything myself) and the third try was the charm. This is a modest 2026 remix.
11/10/2026
Unfortunately, a tractor trailer crashed on Afton Mountain on interstate West 64, blocking both lanes. Who knows when cars would be able to pass so we decided it would be best to simply wait til another time to jam.
11/09/2026
Speaking of not having mixed the first BIlly/Billy/Jim jam (still haven't) back in July, we're going to jam again tomorrow in Harrisonburg.
Haven't really started the new album, though I have sketched out a new song's arrangement and a few lines. It's called “The Wrong Parade”.
I keep getting asked if I'm going to put a band together or join one or whatever. Again, I intend to perform live in some capacity in the future. That's all I can say really right now.
I don't know what it is, but since getting sick back in late July I have had a difficult time getting focused on anything music-oriented. My doctors at UVA Medical warned me that it would take months to recover both physically and mentally and they were right.
10/31/2026
Happy Halloween!
Still haven't mixed the Billy/Billy/Jim jam. I did, however, finally make it out to the garage and went through every tape in the big tape box where I long ago threw hundreds of my old multi-track cassettes. I don't know why, but I just can't seem to take care of old recordings. Many of my multi-tracks, either analog or digital, simply no longer exist.
I did learn a couple days ago that Apple is making significant improvements to Logic Pro's stem splitter, so although I don't have many of the original multi-tracks from the late ‘80s through most of the ’90s, I will be able to at least “split” the original master recording into separate guitar, bass, vocal, keyboard, and drum tracks. Of course, I can do that on a somewhat limited basis now but according to Apple, the improved stem splitter will be much better at separating every voice and instrument and even provide the option to raadically improve the sound of individual tracks.
Anyway, I was able to find almost all of the tapes for THE HAUNTED LIFE and DON'T STOP THE SCREAM and when I'm done with this update, I'm gonna go upstairs and take a listen to a couple of them.
On this day in 2009, Book of Kills (Mike Hicks, George Nipe III, Jim Shelley and David Tekip) played a short set at the Bridge Theatre in Luray, Virginia. Though we only played eight songs, it was one of that line-up's best shows. The set list: So Tired, Salvation, The Nothing, Never Be Like You, Fade, Breed, Lost, River Of Blood.
10/28/2026
A Book of Kills song you should listen to right now if you’ve never heard it: “Your World Will Shape My Bones”.Then, after that one runs its course, take a listen to “Don’t Give Yourself Away (To Just Anyone)”. You’ll notice similarities between the two. Sometimes I sketch out the entire arrangement of a new song on paper before I even come up with the lyrics. In the case of these two songs, I recorded one (I forget which), later put it on some album or other and kind of forgot about it. A while later I re-discovered the paper with the arrangement on it and wrote another, all-new, song, forgetting that I’d recorded the previous track.
10/27/2026
Had a really nice update all typed out and inadvertently just deleted it. So, this one's gonna be much shorter.
I think I'll have the Billy/Billy/Jim noise jam mixed and mastered and uploaded to Bandcamp within a week.
Most significantly, today marks the thirteenth anniversary of the great Lou Reed's passing.
I cut about ⅔'s of the News updates on this page earlier today.
"I'm too old to do things by half."
"There's only X amount of time. You can do whatever you want with that time. It's your time."
“For a while, I felt a little self-impelled to write Lou Reed Kind of songs. I should have understood that a Lou Reed song was anything I wanted to write about.”
"I'm not joking around when I've said occasionally, trying to learn how to play a D chord properly has been a very big thing for me."
“These are really terribly rough times, and we really should try to be as nice to each other as possible.”
– Lou Reed
10/24/2026
Don’t worry, I’ll be back up on the horse in a day or two and making music again.
I got out some old 8 track cassettes from the ‘90s recorded on the TOA 8 track deck that Billy Brett was able to get fixed for me. I imagine the sound will be really good…that is if the tapes haven’t disintegrated beyond usability. If they’re still in good shape, I’m going to see if I can preserve as many master tapes as possible.
“…it’s not always about, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m going to put this feel here, I’m going to fill every four bars.’ It’s like, just play the groove and play that same groove until it’s like in you. Until it’s in the floors. Until everyone’s just foot-stomping.” ~ Prince
10/22/2026
I'm about finished with uploading SONGS FOR A GONE WORLD to Bandcamp.com. I decided not to remix the album. It's good as it is. I like the mix. It's the same one that you can already listen to on AppleMusic, Tidal and other services.
I've sort of hit a musical lull. I was trying to work on so many projects all at once and finding myself creatively depleted temporarily that I realized I needed to take a break and recharge a little.
Saw my doctor in Charlottesville yesterday. I guess I'm going to be on antibiotics for another couple months. Again, this is why I've been so focused on trying to get all of my albums up on Bandcamp and on all commercial streaming services as fast as I can: I simply don't know what the future holds in terms of my health. I don't want all these years of music-making to quickly fade into oblivion once I'm not around anymore. Yeah, I know…even the music of the Beatles will one day be forgotten (though you could argue their music will last hundreds, if not thousands, of years--see the works of Plato, for example), but we can at least try to make the good things last as long as they can.
“Everything that now exists, no matter how great and good it is, lasts for a time, fulfills a purpose, and then passes on. And so it will be with all the works of art that now exist; an eternal veil of forgetfulness will lie over them, just as there is now over those things that came before.” – Adalbert Stifter
10/16/2026
It's just amazing to me how effective Logic Pro's “stem splitter” function is at improving the sound of old tapes. I'm working on the songs from REJECT, among other things musical, and being able to split an old cassette recording into separate tracks of drums, guitars, bass and vocals has sent me down a rabbit hole I might never climb back out of because, let's face it…I have hundreds of live and studio recordings that are begging for sonic improvement and who am I to deny them their due?
I haven't started a new album. The creative urge is building though. I hope Randy will be a part it as he was with SUNSET GUN. I think this will be a poppier record.
The urge to play live at least one last go round is building too. I miss the family feeling of being in a band. It's a unique thing, really. To take ideas out of the thin air and turn them into rock and roll music and to have people come see you play that rock and roll music is an awesome thing, as well.
I'm still fighting an infection that could've killed me or left me paralyzed. I've made a hell of a lot of progress and I want to get back out in the world while there's still time.
10/15/2026
I've been asked if I am going to remix all of the albums that I haven't done so with already in the near future. Well, I would like to. To actually go back to the original master 8 track cassettes and do a truly proper remix, I'd have to spend most likely $400-500 for a decent 8 channel mixer, something I didn't even think about at the time when BIlly Brett so graciously offered to help fix my old TOA 8 track recorder which I used to record albums such as FOR THE GOOD OF THE CAUSE, DON'T STOP THE SCREAM, THE HAUNTED LIFE and WEE JIM'S BLACKEYE among many others. So I'll have to say for the moment that remixes are possible down the road. Likely? That's another matter.
I am in the early stages of mixing and mastering the jam that Billy Brett, Billy Hunt and I laid down this past July right before I became sick. I am almost finished with a collage cover. More on that in the coming weeks.
I'm mulling beginning an album of new songs myself. More on that…
10/09/2026
BBM, VOLUME SEVEN is now on Bandcamp.
Next, I think I'm going to work on REJECT. It was originally released, I think, as a limited edition fan-only CD (or maybe a cassette?) and it's not exactly number one with a bullet in the BOK ouvre, but it is interesting and it does contain a lot of stuff you can't find anywhere else anymore and I can do some pretty drastic remixing of the majority of tracks so that it'll sound much better than the original release did. And I might even add a few previously unreleased live tracks from the 2022-2026 BOK line-up era.
10/08/2026
I'll be cutting old news entries (at least through August) shortly, so if for some reason you need to go back and check out some previous news, please do so soon!
I'm working on getting BIG BUSINESS MONKEY, VOLUME SEVEN ready for uploading onto Bandcamp. I'll make a new cover for it, but I do need to warn you that most of the tracks on this album have already shown up on other BOK records, though there are a few that have not. But, as I've said before, I just want to get as many BOK/F+W/Karl Rove albums online as possible. As you know, the next moment isn't promised to anyone, so I'm trying to be as diligent as possible in getting all this material uploaded as quickly as I can.
Not a BOK Bandcamp follower yet? For shame! Click on the link above!
09/28/2026
I'm about done with remixing the sixteen tracks that make up WEE JIM'S BLACKEYE. I'll be uploading the album to Bandcamp in a day or two. Not sure which album I'll focus on afterwards. Probably another BIG BUSINESS MONKEY album.
I was asked yesterday if I was going to put a new version of Book of Kills together. No, I'm not. BOK is done. Of course, I'm always going to want to play BOK material (duh) since it makes up about 90% of all the songs I've ever written. But I won't be playing the same old same old stuff. There are so many songs I've never performed live. I can't wait to try some out!
09/23/2026
I've decided to remix all sixteen songs comprising WEE JIM'S BLACKEYE. No timeline. I guess that should go without saying. I have already remixed several songs and they're much clearer and more dynamic.
09/21/2026
Next in line for uploading to Bandcamp is WEE JIM'S BLACKEYE from 1993. It's funny…I guess most people who've listened to BOK over the years think of WJB as one of the more “important” albums in the band's long history, but at the time I looked at it as sort of a tossed off thing at best. More or less a placeholder until I could come up with the inspiration for a truly good album. Yet it turned out to be an enduring record featuring songs that Book of Kills still performed thirty+ years after its release. Anyway, I listened to bits and pieces of the album yesterday and it quickly became apparent that several of the songs are simply poorly mixed. So I'm breaking down the ones that need remixing and making them feel shiny and new! For instance, the drums on “Face Up to Your Life” are almost inaudible but remixing the song has brought out a lot of almost hidden details and given the drums a much more powerful seat in the mix. Every track will be at least remastered. Probably 5-6 will also be remixed.
09/19/2026
I'm on a roll! I've uploaded the popular BIG BUSINESS MONKEY, VOLUME 6 to Bandcamp.
I am well-aware that tweaking these uploads is an on-going process and I appreciate those of you who've alerted me to one mistake or another that I've made in compiling these albums all over again for Bandcamp. I'm in a hurry, folks. Errors will be made.
09/18/2026
DETRITUS/LIVE OCTOBER 20, 1994 has been significantly updated. It features all twelve of the live performances from the Little Grill show in '94 remixed and remastered. It also features a never before released remixed and remastered live performance of “Because Because” from 2004 in place of the original demo version. Most of the studio songs are already available on BIG BUSINESS MONKEY, VOLUME 2, but this continues my effort to put almost all BOK/Fear + Whiskey, and The Karl Rove albums on Bandcamp, even though there is some obvious repetition here and there.
WRITING ON THE WALL (BIG BUSINESS MONKEY, VOLUME 3) is also now available on Bandcamp in its fourteen track 1999 edition.
09/17/2026
I'll probably upload the revised version of DETRITUS/LIVE OCTOBER 20, 1994 album later tonight…certainly no later than tomorrow morning. I've said it before and I'll say it again: This was the hardest recording (and it's not even close) that I've ever had to remix/remaster. The tape itself is, of course, 32 years old and has begun to deterioate. I probably spent 20+ hours working on it. One thing I noticed is that when you separate a particular track into voices, bass, guitars and drums the truly limited sound of the original cassette recording becomes even more noticeable. That said, the album is certainly a huge improvement over the original tape.
I'll also soon be uploading WRITING ON THE WALL (BIG BUSINESS MONKEY, VOLUME 3) in its original 14 track configuration.
09/15/2026
BLOOM OR DIE? is available now on Bandcamp.
I only have three songs left to finish a “final” mix for the LIVE 1994 album. The other nine have been uploaded to BandCamp, so I might have this thing (finally) done soon! As I've written several times before, the sound is not great but I do think you'll be surprised at how much more dynamic these new mixes are.
09/14/2026
I'm in a bit of a rush to upload every album and e.p. by Book of Kills, The Karl Rove and Fear + Whiskey onto Bandcamp that isn't already available there. I know Bandcamp won't last forever…some billionaire will eventually buy it and then let it slowly rot…but right now it's just about the only place I can upload all of my bands' music exactly the way I want it available to folks. And it's a dynamic site, so if I end up, for example, remixing or remastering an album, I can easily and quickly replace the old tracks with the new, something that I cannot do on streaming services like Apple Music or Tidal. I just about have the very first BOK album, BLOOM OR DIE?, ready to upload. It should be up by tomorrow.
09/13/2026
Did I say I was done with the initial mixing of the ‘94 show? Well, yeah, I guess I’m done with the initial mix. But after listening to all twelve songs, I just couldn't bring myself to release them as is. I know you're probably tired of me rattling on about this, but trying to “fix” this recording is almost an impossible task. Because the original recording was made by a cheap cassette recorder, Logic Pro's stem splitter program struggles to separate each instrument. Largely, it's able to isolate the drums and the vocals but it simply can't adequately separate the guitars and bass, which results in some pretty perplexing editing challenges. And once I do separate instruments and voices, it becomes very apparent how limited in quality everything actually is. I'll keep trying.
There's a free single on BandCamp right now which consists of the three short sound collages and two sort of acoustic songs (see the 9/10 update below) that I've written about previously. It's definitely one of the weirder things I've ever released, but, musically at least, I do what I want these days and then I make most of it available for you to decide whether or not you like it. Actually I've come to quite like “Lucky”. Check it out. Oh…and make sure, if you haven't already, to become a BOK “follower” (on Bandcamp).
09/10/2026
I am done with the initial mixing of the ‘94 show. Now it’s a matter of equalizing track volumes and doing some final mastering on each song. Then I will move onto the new track that I'm going to post on Bandcamp along with some of the (very brief) mixes of material from the jam with Billy Brett and Billy Hunt a couple months ago. The other song that's about halfway done might or might not get posted. These songs are almost diametrically opposed to the sort of thing I normally write and record so I guess I'm a little ambivalent about making them available, but what the heck. I guess they're an interesting footnote in JS/BOK music.
09/07/2026
I came to the realization that the new material I was working on just wasn't cutting it. So rather than continue on with something that I couldn't get 100% behind, I'm going to just (probably) post one or two of the things I recorded on BandCamp. That doesn't mean I'm not going to work on anything new…I will…but right now I'm just cooling my jets and trying to get as healthy as I can.
I'm almost done with the 1994 concert. Let me tell you, friends, this was a lot more complex a task than I initially thought it would be. The original recording after all was made by a crappy cassette recorder so there was only so much I could do to improve the sound. George's leads were in particular very difficult to pull out of the mix since he had his amp down very low. But I will put the whole show on BandCamp as part of WRITING ON THE WALL soon.
09/03/2026
I guess, at least in one sense, digital recording has made me a lazy musician. Back when I was doing everything on a 4 or 8 track cassette multitrack recorder (like the TOA I just had returned to me in working order! Thanks, Billy!), with minimal effects at my disposal, I was forced to know a guitar part through and through and be able to play that part all the way through onto one precious track of eight. Well, over the last couple days or three, I've played three new songs all the way through. It was a good feeling, though it means nothing in the grand scheme of things, as you know. But just to play a song all the way through…human fingers, eyes, and all.
“Limitations foster creativity. Tell an artist to paint anything, and he may struggle, but tell him to create something specific, in a set amount of time, for a certain audience, and these constraints might well push him to produce something he might never have come up with on his own. We grow and evolve by testing ourselves. That’s my personal philosophy.” – wildbow
“There is no such thing as a new idea. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope.” ― Mark Twain
“Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” ― Andy Warhol
08/30/2026
I have I guess five tracks from the 1994 concert remixed. And I'm about halfway through adding a few overdubs onto the second song of the forthcoming (well, maybe “forthcoming” is too optimistic of a word) E.P.
Working with Logic Pro's stem splitter has really given me ideas. There are so many older recordings from the late ‘80s and early to mid-’90s that could be improved with a remix and remaster. And I'll be getting the TOA 8 track back soon as well which will allow me to revisit dozens and dozens of early BOK tracks, at least up through 1996. I'm trying to work as fast as circumstances allow and there've been a lot of circumstances lately. Anyway, I really would like to have as many BOK, F+W and The Karl Rove songs up on Bandcamp as possible. The future is murky, friends. No one knows how much time we have. I'm trying not to procrastinate.
08/27/2026
It turns out that at some point in time the entire 1994 Little Grill show was released via an extremely rare compact disc version. I don't even have any memory of working on this album, which shows you just exactly how rare it is. I also don't have any of the artwork. I suspect the sound is not great and I also suspect that a couple of the performances on this CD were actually from a practice around the same time, though I'm not sure about that since I have no way to check. Anyhow, I'll continue to work on remixing the songs. I am, of course, working with the original tape.
08/23/2026
Incredibly, I have found the original cassette tape that super fan Gary Bugg made of the show way back in October of 1994 at the infamous Little Grill in Harrisonburg, Virginia. It was in the box of tapes that I alluded to previously. All it had on the label was “Live BOK”. Now I just have to figure out how to hook the analog cassette deck to the digital interface I use to record. I think I might have the necessary equipment already on hand, but we'll see.
08/22/2026
I found about a hundred cassette tapes of live gigs and practices stretching from 1994 (only one tape unfortunately) to 2010. The Karl Rove makes up the biggest group of tapes with several concerts and a lot of practices from 2006-2007. There are also a good number of BOK concerts from the early 2000s as well as from 2009-10. I even have 4-5 Plague Dogs tapes from 2008.
Right now, I'm focused on finding the entire 1994 BOK show from the Little Grill. I wouldn't have thought it would be this hard but as is I only have a little better than half the show. When the feeling hits, I work on the songs from the E.P. which I hope to release before the end of the year if not much sooner.
08/20/2026
I have finished the introductory track (a very short mix of parts of the jam Billy Brett, Billy Hunt and I laid down a few weeks ago) and a second one (an actual full song) which is partially based on my experiences from the past three weeks. The second track still needs guitar work from Randy Simpson but I'm going to wait until I can send him the four tracks I want him to take a listen to and see what he can add to.
BIG BUSINESS MONKEY, VOLUME THREE is going to take a long time to complete. While the studio part of the album is done and already uploaded to BandCamp, the live show from 1994 which I am going to completely remix will take a long time to finish. The real stumbling block is that I cannot locate, so far, at least a half dozen of the songs we played that night. I'd like BBM #3 to feature the whole show, which I don't think has ever been issued in its entirety.
08/18/2026
I went ahead and uploaded BBM, VOLUME TWO to Bandcamp. I've learned the hard way that it's best not to procrastinate when it comes to making BOK, F+W and Karl Rove music available at least digitally. I've already started working on WRITING ON THE WALL (BBM, VOLUME #), but I have no idea when it'll be ready for uploading. One interesting aspect of WRITING ON THE WALL is that it originally included a 50 minute show by Book of Kills back in 1994 at the infamous Little Grill. That band included Brian Temples, Dustin Bugg, George Finch and, of course, Jim. It's a good show but it was recorded on a boom box. Since I am now able to split songs into their separate instruments, I might be able to improve the sound substantially. We'll see.
As I've said before, there are just so many little things you have to attend to when you upload an album onto BandCamp and it just takes forever. But…time's a-wastin'! I will, of course, also eventually put all these albums on AppleMusic, Tidal, and so forth.
08/15/2026
BIG BUSINESS MONKEY, VOLUME TWO is ready for upload to BandCamp, but I'll probably wait a little while before I post it. I'll soon begin work on BBM #3. As far as BBM #2 goes, I think it's largely a completist only affair. All of the songs have since shown up on one album or another that's already available as bonus tracks, but I guess it's nice to have the album the way it was supposed to be instead of a bunch of random songs scattered all about my various other records.
Still writing new lyrics. Like I always say…the musical part (chords, melody, etc.) is easy. Coming up with decent lyrics is not.
“You don't really go to songwriting school; you learn by listening to tunes.” – Tom Waits
“Songwriting is a very mysterious process. It feels like making something out of nothing.” – Tracy Chapman
“Songwriting is my way of channeling my feelings and my thoughts. My head would explode if I couldn't get some of that stuff out.” – Dolly Parton
08/13/2026
Thank you everyone who has called or written to me concerning the illness I just went through (and am still fighting). I appreciate more than you might realize the various kindnesses that so many of you have shown me in a variety of ways.
BIG BUSINESS MONKEY, VOLUME ONE is now awailable on BandCamp.com. This is the version that was first available in July 1993, when it first dropped as a cassette-only album. I don't remember why, but it wasn't very long after this tape debuted that I began to make changes in the songs included (and not included). By my count, there have been at least five different versions of BBM 1, but this is the final “correct” version. As I wrote before, all other versions have been deleted.
A good friend asked me a couple days ago if I would create any music about my illness. I told him I'd already written the lyrics for the first song and that, yes, it was about being deathly ill. Of course, there'll be more to the songs than simply my recounting feeling bad. Though these songs are going to be very simple in style and arrangement, I will let Randy Simpson take a listen to them to see if he can add any of his imaginative guitar work to them.
08/12/2026
“Do not trust people who call themselves musicians or record collectors if they say they don’t like Bob Dylan or the Beatles. They do not love music if those words come out of their mouths.” - Jack White
08/11/2026
The various bastardized iterations of BIG BUSINESS MONKEY, VOLUME ONE are now no longer available online. The original sixteen song album will soon be restored to its former glory. By the way, I just uploaded an all new (if only slightly tweaked) mix of “Our Share” from the new album SUNSET GUN onto the BandCamp site. That's one of the cool things about BandCamp…that is, how you can improve an album with new mixes, inserts, etc for as long as you want. Until I can get around to uploading it to CDBaby, BBM #1 will only be available on BandCamp.com.
08/10/2026 (Addendum)
Yes, I am aware that there is already a version of BBM #1 on BandCamp as well as streaming services. As I noted previously, I am going to try to solidify the original versions of the 50+ albums I've released over the years with the best possible sound. That means I will be deleting some albums from BandCamp as I replace them with a more “authoritative” version.
08/10/2026
I have miraculously found all sixteen of the tracks that appeared on the very first version of BIG BUSINESS MONKEY, VOLUME ONE. I’m in the process of adding some additional information about the record to the original insert and I have to make a few minor sonic tweaks and then the package is complete. No doubt I’ll be uploading it this week. BBM, VOLUME TWO has gone through a number of versions like Volume One so I’ll attempt to sort that one out as well soon.
08/09/2026
One of those nights where I spend half an hour writing a new entry for the News page and inadvertently erase it. Second time around will be shorter.
It'll be a few days before I really feel up to recording again, but at least I'm working on the lyrics for a couple of the new songs. That's always been the hardest part for me.
In the meantime I'm trying to put together everything for BIG BUSINESS MONKEY, VOLUME ONE, which dropped about thirty-three years ago in the summer of ‘93. I’m struggling to find everything that went on the original sixteen track album, the first of course in the series that now stretches to the most recent collection, I CANNOT DO OTHERWISE, SO I WILL LOSE MY MIND (BIG BUSINESS MONKEY, VOLUME NINE). It'll show up on BandCamp not too far down the road. Remember…BandCamp.com always features the best sounding, most authoritative versions of any and all Book of Kills album.
08/07/2026
Well, this time I have an actual legitimate excuse for going 17 days without an update: I came down with an inoperable MRSA infection of the spine and a case of sepsis (a blood infection). It was touch and go for a few days (honestly) and nearly a week of the worst pain I’ve ever experienced. While I’m significantly better, I’m still fighting the spine infection. After fourteen days in hospital, I came home Thursday evening.
I guess this is an indication of how much I love making music because I spent a lot of time thinking about the e.p. I’m still planning to do even during the worst throes of the infection, though at times I was pretty out of it. I’m still too weak and exhausted too even pick up my guitar, so it’ll be a few days until I get round to writing and recording again.
Shortly before the infection a friend asked me if I was going to start up Book of Kills again and I told her no…BOK is done. As I intended, SUNSET GUN is the final album under that name. I have no intention of nor any interest in creating yet another version of BOK.
Will I put another non-BOK band of some sort together? Who can predict the future? Certainly not me. Obviously I intend to keep making new music. If I did become part of a new group, I’d avoid most of the stuff I have performed in the past 30+ years in favor of the hundreds of songs I’ve written in that period that I’ve never done live.
I will continue posting albums to Bandcamp when I’m able. Always keep in mind the ones already featured there are the best versions, sometimes far better sounding than the ones on streaming services like Apple Music and Tidal.
Did you see where Snoop Dog was suing that piece of crap streaming service called Spotify for paying him only 40-some thousand dollars for a song that had been streamed over a BILLION times? Spotify is a corrupt, artist unfriendly service. I urge…even BEG you to switch to another company for your music. Hell…it’s well known that they completely ignore smaller bands but kowtow to mega-stars like Taylor Swift. And they have the worst-sound among all streamers. But their basic ad-filled service is free and unfortunately that’s all that matters to the majority of music lovers.
Okay, it’s late and I’m trying to get back into a normal sleep routine again, though it’s a struggle right now. Thanks for being a fan of my tunes! I sure hope I have the time to produce many more new ones.
07/21/2026
I've uploaded RIDING THE ECHO DOWN (2014) and ARMY OF LOUD (2021) to Bandcamp.com which I know some of you prefer over the traditional streaming services. I'll continue to do so erratically.
I had a question about the jam session with Billy Brett and Billy Hunt a couple weeks ago. Currently, I don't have any plans to release that material, though as I noted previously, I did construct a very brief track out of the stems from the session that Billy Brett sent me. It's cool stuff. Very fun. Who knows. Maybe I'll put some of it up on the Music page.
07/19/2026
I've spent several hours over the last week or so putting together every album I can into separate digital files. I have always been simply terrible about preserving the master tapes of uthe songs I write and record. Many multi-tracks are gone forever.
I have been able to find just about everything, though some inserts and labels are likely gone forever. I'm still working, though. I'm also in the process of uploading ARMY OF LOUD onto Bandcamp.com. I can't believe I've never put it on there. So much BOK/Karl Rove/Fear + Whiskey material has yet to be made available on Bandcamp.com. I've been very lazy for way too long.
That said, I am having my old non-functioning TOA multi-track cassette recorder with which I recorded everything from 1991 through 1997 looked at to see if it can be repaired. I'm not optimistic, but here's hoping… It would be wonderful if I could go back to those old 8 track tapes and load them into Logic and remaster and remix albums such as DON'T STOP THE SCREAM, WEE JIM'S BLACKEYE and THE HAUNTED LIFE, among many others.
07/16/2026
Lots going on in BOK-Land!
Of course, new and older Book of Kills albums are being regularly uploaded lately on Bandcamp and streaming companies like Apple Music and Tidal. Slowly but surely Ain’t Records compact discs are becoming available again for the first time in years.
I’ve even begun work on a new e.p. I’m thinking six or seven tracks. A couple weekends ago I drove down to Charlottesville to do a one-off jam with Billy Brett (of Buck Gooter) and Billy Hunt (also currently in BG, and once a member, along with me, of the semi-legendary The Karl Rove) of what I guess you’d call musical noise collages. It was all pretty fun. Billy recorded it and sent the sound stems to me so that I could combine them in a new way and I ended up recording the first track for the e.p.
“I had simply done something there was to do. I learned that there was a possibility of making something which didn’t have to filter through judgments—that one could set out to do something and do it.” — Jasper Johns
07/12/2026
You wanna know why so many musicians are so angry about the current economic of state of the artists who create the music you listen to? Why so many of them are simply giving up music altogether? Here's a case in point:
A few years ago, Billy Brett of Buck Gooter fame asked me to create a track for a compilation album he was putting together. I created a 3 minute sound collage for him. Recently after hearing from some artists that they believed they were being short-changed for streaming and download revenue by the companies they were using to distribute their music, I asked CDBaby for a lifetime report of my streaming history. “CNV 43” (the track I made for Billy) has been streamed 316,329 times since it was first uploaded to streaming companies. How much did I make for having a song stream 316,329 times?
79 cents.
07/10/2026
SUNSET GUN is now available as a compact disc. Several other recent BOK albums are also now available as compact discs as well! The remastered BIG BUSINESS MONKEY, VOLUME 9 will be ready soon, so please be patient.