new time talks in color

My new album "Youngster" is finished!
Some of you may be wondering how you can get a copy of my new work for yourself, and my answer is for the most of you is: "you have to wait." I haven't decided if I'm going to put this album up for free download on my website or not. My goal is to get it released by a record label, I think this album deserves that kind of presentation. Not that I don't wish that my others were released by a label, but I am a little more protective of this one, it took a lot of work and is I feel a big step for me. It's a farewell album, to my youth, saying "we had some good times, but I got to get on with things." Whatever, the point is I don't want to do this half-ass. So, I am going to be working on that, and will let you know how that goes.

However, I have been burning copies for my friends and will be selling some at my upcoming shows (Nov. 6th and 22nd). Because I need to let it out to some people, and this will make being in Jacksonville or being my friend just a little bit more special.

I had a birthday recently, now I've been alive for 29 years. Hooray!
I don't know about you but I am looking forward to my 30's, that sounds like a good time.

clone has been going well, a few weeks ago Ben and I begun work on the fourth act, it's the longest song on the album. In full the album will be five parts, each part will being one song. So we are approaching the end, but it's still a ways away. I can't believe we've been working on it for a year and a half already, it doesn't seem like that long.

A friend of mine Ezra came by the studio one day while Mark and I were practicing and took some pictures, you can look at them on his website here: Ezra Marcos
I think they look great.

I have some shows coming up in Jacksonville and St. Augustine, I made these flyers:




This post was a bit of an info dump for the most part so to round it out a bit at the end; I would like to encourage everyone that is of the ages 7 to 100 to go watch "Where the Wild Things Are". I am super excited about the weather cooling down. The other day I had an unreal vinyl find at our local CD store and I now own nearly perfect copies of : Lou Reed "transformer", David Bowie "Hunky Dory", Talking Heads "Remain In The Light", The Doors (self titled), Rolling Stones "Between the Buttons" (in mono), Led Zeppelin (first album), A hand full of early Bruce Springstein and Tom Petty records. And I got them all for under thirty dollars.

Somebody up there likes me.

until next time...

you have to sleep late when you can

I'm watching Tom and Jerry right now, for this episode Tom is a concert pianist and Jerry lives inside his piano. In the process of their usual cat and mouse chase they are play Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody". Its brilliant and funny.

Yesterday my friend Ezra came by the studio and took some pictures while Mark and I practiced. He posted some of the pictures on his blog: freewise fotography. We were working on arrangements for playing the songs from my new album youngster live. It's a slow process, but I feel like every week we get a little closer. This week I tried using the electric piano instead of guitar on a few songs and it worked wicked well. I don't know if we'll keep those arrangements, but its got us thinking in new directions. I want to get an accordion player to join the band, Mark knows a guy. I'm keepin my fingers crossed.


I have another show coming up on October 11th at the Sinclair in Jacksonville, FL. The show is a celebration for the release of the Flaming Lips new album Embryonic and all the artists playing will be covering songs from past Lips albums. I'm doing Clouds Taste Metallic. I've been a fan of the Lips for years now, ever since I heard Soft Bulletin one morning while working as an usher at the old theatre I used to work at, Pablo 9. That album changed the way I thought about music. From that point I got acquainted with their earlier work that I had heard before but it never really grabbed me until then. I fell in love with it all and now I regard the Flaming Lips as one of my favorite and most influential bands; not only their music, but their whole story and personality. I've seen them play twice and both times it felt like some psychedelic birthday party. I've never had a concert make me so happy... So in a nutshell, I'm looking forward to the show.

the flaming lips

Now I must be off, I have made a breakthrough in the mixing of youngster and I can't stop this train a' rollin.

until next time...

please stay off the hump

The fine tuning and mixing of my new album "youngster" is coming along. I've been working on it as much as I could over the past week. Its been crazy, life has been crazy, but when is it not crazy? I'll tell you: when your bored. Getting bored is necessary I think, because it pushes you to grow and find something to cure that boredom. That's what I've found at least...the album. Yes! The mixing is coming along, like I said, and it is nearly finished. I may sound repetitive at this point about mixing and finishing this album, but I just wanted to let you all know I've been working. I never stop working. I will never stop working.

My wife Sarah is a artist. She makes things of the visual persuasion and is very good at it. I'm not just saying this because she's my wife, she will tell you first hand how critical I am of her work; and that street goes both ways. If I write a song she thinks is dodgy she won't hesitate to tell me. But I've been continuously impressed with her works of late, her paintings, her prints, her photos, all of it. Recently I helped her make a website and I wanted to invite you all to have a look. www.sbcolado.com

Tonight I am playing a show, its the first time I've played out in a while, it seems like forever. For whatever reason I'm a bit anxious.

Until next time...

Life finds a way...

Oh my lord, it has been so long since I've posted here on my blog. I am truly sorry for the long pause, but I have been experiencing some profound things this past month. Things I don't really want to talk about...well, I can talk to you about some of them.

Late twenties is really a interesting age to be living in, it's when you really have to become an adult whether you like it or not. It seems like regardless of how open and free spirited you are your youth will die. Sorry if I've just destroyed your Peter Pan complex etc., but I think this is true. So the death of my youth has been going on. I think it has something to do with the balancing of the emotional and logical parts of your brain. The strangest thing though, that I've found, is where I'm at now feels like being a kid and adult at the same time. Like the two most extremes of the spectrum are playing together. Sarah says its because I'm thinking about the future, and I think that explains the kid part, but the adult part I think can be found in the way I'm thinking about the future. It's my dreams, the tone of them now is different, they are more sharp and refined, maybe not as bold as before, but I think that's natural. The colors are always fading, but the colors are always there, the important thing is that you see them.

The other thing I've realized over this past month has been that I have slowly been creating a giant void in my life. I was totally unaware of this until I started going crazy. The first step in creating this void was when I stopped playing with Julius Airwave ( the band I had been in for 8 years ). That had been a source for much drama in my life that I had grown accustomed to, and by drama I'm talking about interaction between people, being on a stage, etc. So it starts there and over the past couple years I have been dropping things like that and not replacing them with anything. So this black hole sun develops in my head and heart and I just sit around listening to Frank Sinatra records drinking whiskey asking myself "who am I?". Sounds kinda funny looking back on it, but it was not that fun. I do not regret anything though, I am a firm believer in the chaos of life, how one thing leads to another is always so mysterious it evades any universal morality. Or maybe I just haven't got burned bad enough yet. Haha. Let's hope that never happens. Anyway, so this revelation has gotten me back on my yellow brick road, it has forced me to look at myself and really think about where my foundations are and where my dreams are and what the hell they're all for. So there you have it.

While all this has been going on I've been working on my most honest album ( in my opinion) to date , Youngster.
I posted a while ago that I was nearly finished and that is true, I've gotten into the very fine tuning phase of the record; fixing things and mixing things. This phase can take a little while, but I'm working with more fervor then I have in ages. It feels great! It's one thing to be working, its a totally other thing to care about your work. So this album is coming along and I'm putting a band together so I can play shows when its finished. I've already started practicing with my buddy Mark Hubbard on drums, now just looking for the other parts. I'll let you know how that comes along. Until then I'm going to be playing some acoustic shows, the first of many is coming up Sunday, September 27th at Jack Rabbits in Jacksonville , FL. It would be lovely to see you there.


So lastly I'd like to give a few words about clone. After a bit of a break Ben and I have begun work on the project again. We were both pretty busy, me with losing my mind and Ben with finishing up the Electric President B sides record. Now all thats done and we're getting started on the 4th act of the clone album. It still has a ways to go, but good things take time.

Ok thats enough, until next time...

Vintage Me

So "Youngster" is going to take a bit longer then I expected. I have a final lap to take, some holes to fill and so forth and so on; I don't want the homage to my youth to be half-assed. It may be at least another month until I'm done with that. On the other hand, I've put together a collection of songs called "Peanut Butter Scrapbook". The songs are all from different projects I've been a part of over the past year or so. Some are songs I wrote for commercials spots that never got bought, some are songs I've written for friend's video projects, some are songs I wrote for my "Richard Love" pop project that never made it to the performance stage and one of them was recorded to test out my newest piece of recording gear. I'll be releasing this album on the interweb soon, so keep an ear out and your eyes peeled.

I was rummaging through some old recording s of mine after I got an email inquiring about song lyrics. So I wanted to post a few oldies, hence the title of this post. All of these are already posted on my website, but whatever, like I care, I'll post them here too.

Have a listen:

Book On WW2 (from singles 2008)

Rivers and Lakes pt. One ( from album "Rivers and Lakes" recorded in 2003)

Sir Real (from album "American Backyard" recorded in 2007. Featuring Alex Kane from Electric President on Bass and Anthony Anurca on Bassoon )


Until next time...

Part Of THe Family

Today my friend James, my wife and I went to Sears to have our picture taken. Originally our friend Amber was suppose to be there instead of me, but she was doing something way cooler. The photographer there was an older woman named Barbara. She took the reigns from the beginning, posing us and so forth. I think we made her day, there was a lot of laughing during the shoot from all of us. I have never had my portrait taken in a place like this, it was an experience. Here are some of the pictures:






Until next time...

Somewhere theres a someone

Youngster, my newest rickoLus album has been mixed. I'm giving copies of it to some musical friends to get some extra ear's opinions before I say it's complete, but its very close. As far as when and where it will be available, I'm not sure. I will make it known when I do.

The other day I was wicked tired but didn't want to go to sleep in the afternoon for fear of not getting a good night sleep that evening, so to stay awake I went to the studio and recorded some songs. One of them was for a children's album my friend in Orlando is putting together, it was about ADVENTURE! The other was a Dean Martin cover, Somehwere Theres A Someone FOr Everyone, one of my favorites.

Thats all for now

Until next time...