The months since my last blog post in August after have been crazy. Work on the new Afflicted By Design record continues while I am starting up a clothing store with my girlfriend.
Bloody Rose Boutique
For the last couple years my girlfriend and I have been wanting to open a clothing store in Austin, TX that carries awesome clothes catering to goths, rockers and punks. Since moving to Austin from New York we really miss the many great clothing stores where people like us can shop. Austin is overloaded with hippie chick, bohemian and hipster shops that we really wanted to open a place that we and our friends would want to shop at.
We spent a year or so looking for the perfect location and figuring out how we can do this while both of work day jobs and I have my music career at night. We figured out how to work around our schedules, but when it came to location we got priced right out. So, we decided that to operate Bloody Rose Boutique as a mobile boutique.
The process of starting a mobile fashion boutique is not easy. There's a lot of rules and regulations for "retail trucks" that make doing business somewhat more difficult than running a food truck. Besides that, finding the right truck wasn't all that easy. The trucks we found were either too big or way too small. After 5 months of searching we finally found the right truck.
The truck is a Grumman Olsen step van with a 13 foot cargo space which will be the store. We start working with our builder to repair the truck, put in a new engine and transmission, install the electric and lighting, and do some metal work to set us up to finish the rest of the buildout ourselves.
We should be open for business at the end of spring or during the summer. We are currently approved to carry Punk Rave, Akumu Ink, Necessary Evil, Lucky-13, Too Fast, Sourpuss, Queen of Darkness, Restyle and Social Decay and are waiting on approvals from many more. Follow Bloody Rose Boutique on Pinterest to see what fashions we are loving and to get an idea of what we'll be carrying and follow us on Facebook to check out our progress, see what brands and fashions we'll be carrying, and where to find us.
Warm and Pretty Lies
Work on the next Afflicted By Design release is coming along really good. After getting my ass kicked by those 5 songs from hell I met someone to co-produce and help me finish the 3 songs for the next Ep. I've been working with Kfir Gov from the rock/electronica group Seek Irony and Evil Snail Studios who has helped fix the 3 songs and coach my vocal performances. Once I started working with Kfir things came together pretty fast only to be interrupted by work on Bloody Rose Boutique and some serious Texas allergies messing up my voice. But, we've been back at it for the last week and are expecting to finish the record in 2-3 weeks. Just like the last 3 releases this one will have a few a special guest guitarist, drummer and vocalist.
Here's some shots Evil Snail Studios.
I can't wait to finish these recordings and get them out there because I already started work on the next record. You can check out Afflicted By Design at the official website or follow on Facebook.