Gratitudes, platitudes, and CDs in stores!

On the afternoon of May 17th, 2024, I went for a walk in the rain. I may have skipped an important lesson in my Data Structures class about some kind of Binary Search Tree. But there were like real trees outside in the rain when I was walking.

No actually there were cars and streets and stoplights but it was still fun and worth it. I walked a few feet down the road to Eroding Winds, where I met Seth and handed him a couple Compact Discs I'd received in the mail. I then walked a few thousand more feet down a few more roads to Odd Note, where I met Amos and gave him a couple more Compact Discs.

I got these little selfies with them on my digital camera. Pretty fun!

On the evening of May 17th, 2024, my album, Everything You Didn't Want to Hear, was officially set loose upon the internet. This has been my most core life project for the past few years, and I've taken on a big push to show it to people this spring. It brings me such joy to share these songs with people and to know that sharing these songs with people brings them joy. And that's some funny grammar basically.

On the evening of May 18th, 2024, my band, The Everything, and I played an hour-long set of these tunes in a basement of our house for a great turnout of friends and peers and people I'd never met before (wow!), opened by Danny Ricc with his band Crash Box, an indie pop act about which I am "stoked".

On the afternoon of May 26th, 2024, my band The Everything, and I played a 30-minute set of these tunes in the rain on stage at LUaroo, Lawrence University's student music festival. I also played with a few other bands, notably Lyle's Tree, a rock band led by my bandmate Hana Ramos. And we both agreed that weekend we felt very present during our shows—how fulfilling! For sure a top-5 musical performance ever for me.

And that's actually pretty much it for now. I still have one more song unreleased, waiting for you guys: a special treat this summer once I've gotten through all the music videos and other content about this album that I want to share. And then it's on to the next. I'm in MN this summer. I'll record a song or two and go to open mics and the gym and get better at coding. I go to Amsterdam this fall. I'll practice my instruments a lot and learn about the world and society from new perspectives. And I'll come back in the winter. The Everything have some very special plans in store in the coming year. But that's a story for another day. Thanks for sticking around. We'll be in touch sooner than you might expect.

- Eli