2017. I woke up January 3rd and realized that I did my first gig ever on January 17, 1987. My whole career has been broken up into decades. 1987 to 1997: playing bass and working part time day jobs. Rain Deputies ended in 1996 and that's when I began shifting to being a singer/ songwriter. 1997 to 2007: playing solo gigs and later Hope Machine and Gillen & Turk, and working part time day jobs. 2007 to 2017: playing solo Fred Gillen Jr gigs and playing as a sideman (mostly electric guitar but some bass and percussion too,) playing with various people in little combos, co-writing, and engineering and producing. I'm now working on a new record. This year I'll be on the road more than I've been in a long while. My new record release will fall around the 20th anniversary of my first solo record release. It has been a long, strange trip! I seem to be shifting towards more activism going into this 4th decade as an adult. Looking at my life in decades has helped me to organize my thoughts and really get myself psyched up to work extremely hard the next 10 years. Maybe the ten years after that I'll be able to slow down (or maybe I will have to.) Maybe the crap will have hit the fane with climate change. I don't know, but I do feel excited for the first time in a while! I feel like my work is valuable right now... Nice feeling to have. Carry on enthusiastically. Happy new year.

Tuesday, January 3rd 2017