This Isn’t Working

We love to pivot. You need to learn to pivot in life if you don’t wanna go crazy. I might argue that flexibility and pivoting are two of life’s greatest skills. I’m pretty gosh dang stubborn. But knowing when to be flexible has been a life skill I’m still learning. I actually feel pretty adept at. 

Oh! sorry. If you opened this thinking that this was a bad news email, well, it’s not! 

(Editors note… this might be a shorter newsletter cause I got stuck playing Spider-Man: The Animated Series on the Super Nintendo. Linking a playthrough cause this game is definitely harder than I remember and less intuitive). 

(Second editor’s note: I got long winded after quiting the game. Not a short newsletter)

(Third note - I changed the topic on this week’s newsletter 3 times but decided to be honest and transparent).

We played arguably our worst show this weekend. Musically, we did really well. Played two new songs and didn’t screw them up too bad. It was just… not a good show. 10-15 people. BUT in context, it was fine. We made a little money. The context comes into play when you weigh that against one of our most fun shows ever… Buffalo, NY w/ Godseyes. Bunch of kids in a tiny room. We made less than $60 that night. Sold one shirt. And walked away stoked to rip a rad gig all the way across the country. So context for this past Saturday… we made some money. Hung with some friends. Played some rock n roll. It’s all good? I guess. It’s just maybe time to pivot. We’ll see how next week’s City Heights show goes and maybe next weeks email will bring bad news. Haha. Or next week will be the best show ever. I’m feeling a tiny bit salty cause we got kinda far in conversations to play with Haste The Day at Glasshouse but that didn’t end up happening. So close.

One of the best convos that came outta this weekend was one of our friends asking how we create. And it’s all really about being flexible. The Undertaking! Is five really opinionated and stubborn dudes. And somehow we’ve been real savvy at pivoting in the writing process. Ideas not working. Songs not working. It’s okay to change it. Nothing is precious. I’d be curious to look back on this newsletter alone and see how many times we’ve had to pivot. How many times we’ve had to be flexible. Maybe it drives you (the reader) crazzzzzzzy. But it’s the reality of our band. Shoot, I’d go so far as to advise anyone starting a band to be prepared to pivot all the time. Don’t be stubborn. Learn to roll with the flow.

Personally, parenting has taught me to be flexible more than anything in my life. Sickness, emotions, consequences. All those things add up to a TON of flexibility. I’d love to be a stubborn dad, but that doesn’t work. In my house, at least. 

Going back to that Spider-Man game… we quit the game. It wasn’t working. It wasn’t fun. So why waste our time? 

State of the Undertaking!

• Tower Bar on Saturday, May 30. Should be a fun night. We’re playing with Doc Hammer. They were instrumental to getting our start in 2019 when we starting playing shows. Their guitarist, Mike, helped open a lot of doors for us. Stoked to play with them again for the first time in quite a while. 

• We head to Nashville in less than 3 weeks. That’s a good pivot example. That run changed about 10 times and it’s only 4 shows. Please consider buying tickets to those shows if you are coming!

• Past June ‘26, I’m not really sure what we have lined up. We were trying to go east but we’ll see. Wasn’t lining up. My goal would be to write and record between June and September and get a batch of songs ready to go. Ideally, we’d have 7-8 songs done but the end of September. We have two for sure done. Internal goals would have us finishing 10-13 songs by the end of the year. I’m sure you’ll hear a lot about it in our newsies. 

• Social Media: I’m on an anti socials kick again and am gonna push our newsletter online a bit more. Research is showing that 90% of what we see on X, Insta, Reddit, TikTok and Facebook has been influenced by bots somehow. It’s all manufactured. I was posting about our June run for about 2 weeks before some of our friends caught wind of the outta town shows. People who in theory the target of our posts aren’t seeing it. That’s not working, guys. I’m not sure what to do, but I like solving problems. Maybe the answer is bots. I don’t think the answer is post less so I’m gonna try to keep rolling. I’ll link to the article that came across a podcast I listen to. Interesting stuff about the viral stuff we’re fed every day. A term I learned: Clipping.

• Bottom line, it’s all good in TU! world. One bad show doesn’t really ruin the mood too much.

Knocked Loose: really cool series just started. I love a tour doc. Maybe we can make one for next month. I’m excited to watch this over the next few months as they tour with Metallica. 

Widows Bay is the best show on TV right now. “You had your qualms???”

Any Survivor folks in here? I will not spoil it but we loved Season 50. 

Song of the Week - speaking of Metallica.

Ummm shameless plug - would love to push some merch before we leave for Nashville.