Covid-19 and the Social Distancing Humans

Well this is weird. Since my last blog post we have found ourselves in the midst of a pandemic. Many of us are self-quarantining to help slow the pace of the virus so our hospitals can handle the incoming patients appropriately. What have I been doing with my time? Practicing, mixing, writing, going on hikes with my wife, exercising, cooking, reading books, and keeping a low profile. While this pandemic is horrible and extremely alarming, I gotta say it is nice to slow down a bit and reflect on the important things in life. Here are things I am excited about…

The 45 sounds so damn good on vinyl and you should absolutely scoop one. I am very happy with how this turned out! If you can’t afford one, holler at me directly and we’ll see what we can work out, otherwise listen to it on any streaming platform.

We are working on the Kenya Hall EP while everyone is quarantined. Since we are all essentially on lock-down, and have the wonderful tool ‘The Internet’, we can send each other things to work on and get the recordings sounding good. We are starting with a three song EP.

Jacob McCurdy of the Dapper Gents has finished the tracking for his EP and we are moving into the mixing/editing stage of that. I believe we are looking at four songs, barring he doesn’t throw an acoustic number on there. While none of us are playing live right now, we can hunker down and get all this new music out to be heard!

Finally, I’m working on my own stuff. When my ideas are solid, I send them around to friends to get their take and track ideas over the top to create something collaboratively. It’s weird not being in the same room as other people and the process takes a little longer, but its ok. It’s still super fun working with folks on new stuff!

I can’t stress the importance of keeping calm and healthy. Drink lots of fluids. Call your friends. Read books. Don’t spend all your money. Reading the news too much is detrimental to your mental health too, so watch out for that. Please email me any time if you have questions, comments, or just want to say hi. Let’s combat this pandemic together and celebrate full-on when this thing dies down! See you all very soon!!!

Happy Holidays!

Hey there! I hope you had an excellent holiday. I did. I spent a lot of time with family, caught up on a little rest, and generally enjoyed the merriment of the season. Here’s what’s up music-wise.

The digital versions of ‘City Of My Mind’ have been released on youtube. You can find them in my videos section here on the website, find me on youtube, or type in the name of the song with ‘North Blood’ (the project name) and it will come up. The songs will be released on all streaming platforms in the next few days, so I’m just waiting for the ok before I publicize that.

The 45s should be done at the end of January/early February. There was a SNAFU in the art department, so the pressings got held back a little bit. No worries though, they sound FANTASTIC! I am really excited to have them in your hands and ears.

The Kenya Hall album is underway. We have about 30 demos circulating with more to come. We will be going through all of the demos to lock down the best 10-12 and record the basics down. Super stoked!

The Sam Whitman Trio album is underway! Sam and drummer Ryan Benoit have been coming up to the studio for writing sessions regularly and we have a nice amount of material building up for his album, which we are hoping to release in the fall. Stay tuned for updates there.

More of my own stuff! I have also been writing/recording more of my own material. Once I got ‘City Of My Mind’ out and running, I got stoked to release more of my own music. I’m not sure if I’ll continue down the singles/ep route or do a full length. Maybe both. Regardless, more Stu music is coming at ya soon.

Thanks so much for reading this and keeping up. You’ll see more shows being posted, so please come to one and say hello. It’s always nice to meet new people or familiar faces at shows. Lots of love to y’all!

Projects and thoughts

Hey there universe, been a moment, but I’m glad you’re still out there. I’ve had quite a run these last couple months and parts of it I’m excited to reveal while others are depressing at best. I guess the depressing part first.

My good friend, collaborator, colleague, and confidante, Dave Noyes, passed away on March 7th from what I presume to be a heart attack. He was 45 years young and is survived by his loving wife and two sons, one of which has yet to be born. It is a tremendous loss for our little music community up here, but things are slowly getting normal again. Dave was maybe the kindest person I have ever met. His willingness to ‘go get it’ and make a situation better was contagious. I am very happy to have known and worked with him and even happier to have his friendship as long as I did. He is missed, but would want us to move forward with a smile.

I have been writing a lot lately and practicing a ton in lieu of the winter doldrums and ‘lighter’ schedule. It is spring time now and everything is waking up, including my schedule. Check out my shows page for some great events coming up that you should definitely check out!

I am happy to report I have a reggae 45 completely mixed and ready for mastering and duplication. Be on the lookout for that. I am proud of it and happy to have it done so I can move forward on some new stuff.

I have finished mixing The Gainers’ EP which has been mastered and is off for duplication as I write this. I am super excited for these fellas. Their songs are fun and they perform them well. I wish them all the best and hope you have an opportunity to hear their stuff.

The Tristones album is now fully tracked and we will be stepping into the editing phase sometime in the next few weeks. This is the full-length album I had the pleasure of producing in the fall time with my friend Tristan Clark. The guitar tones we achieved on this are mind bending.

My friend Andrew Bailie’s new album is about to be released. Andrew lived up here in Maine, but now lives in Omaha. We enjoyed playing up here for the year that we overlapped. His album is spectacular and I am humbled he asked me to tour with him in support of it. Congrats Andrew!

I enjoyed playing a show with my friend Nikhil Yerawadekar at City Winery earlier this month. His band is killing and I always love heading to New York to play with that crew. I hope he asks me to play more shows!

That’s pretty much it as of right now. I have some other things I can’t really release any info on right now, but if they lock in, are very exciting. Thank you for reading this and keeping up. I’ve said it before, but I’ll do a better job of regular blogging and keeping my shows updated.