Get that town warmed up for me (LIVE MUSIC SEASON!!!)

My friend!

 I hope you’re doing well and are ready for the Spring season, which means live music, beautiful weather and everything good about living in AZ!

The band has our first big show in a while coming up at Last Exit Live on April 2nd as we support Mike Mains & The Branches, an Indie Rock band from the midwest that I’m a big fan of. We will be playing a brand new song of our own that night, which will be released mid-April with another tasty music video. You can get >> TICKETS HERE <<

I’m also trying to get the band on the big stage at Pure Imagination Festival on May 18th in downtown Prescott, AZ. They are holding a contest for Arizona artists and whoever gets the most Likes, Comments and Shares on a live video post will be the winner. It would mean the world to me if you could check out my post HERE and show some love!

I’ve been focusing on writing and producing a lot of new songs that have been a culmination of daily discipline over the last year to just sit down and write without barriers. I wound up with a ton of great ideas saved in voice memos, but am now finally getting around the refining stage so that I can share it with you in their very best form - and one that I can be most proud of. With this new “season” of refinement, I started hosting a songwriters meetup once a month at The Chill Room in Tempe off Broadway and Rural. It isn’t an open mic, showcase or anything that involves putting on a show for an audience, but rather a circle of like-minded songwriters looking to improve their craft by sharing their works in progress. I got the idea reading about Parisian “salons” that were melting pots of artists who came together to share works, ideas and frustrations with one another in the hopes of inspiring a clearer path ahead. Hemingway, Picasso and many other notable artists of the Lost Generation were a part of these types of meetups and so I figured why not have one in Tempe in 2024! If you are interested in joining, please shoot me an email at the contact form on my site HERE.

Another thing I’ve realized with the intensive writing is that I am interested in a lot of different disciplines in the arts and need to have a separate outlet outside of music to express myself. I originally wanted to be an actor when I was a kid - until I picked up a guitar the first time - and it always was a place where I felt I could express things I didn’t even realize were welled up inside of me. Serendipity would have it that I was recently asked by musician Darryl Scotti, founder of the AZ based record label Big Yard Nation, to be the male lead actor in the music video for his newest song “Proof.” I invited my friend Kaylee Amante, who acted in my music video for “Where She At” to be the female lead and we had a blast together. She is a MUCH more seasoned actor than I am and I was taking notes from her the whole way, but I’m happy to have started somewhere on a project outside of my own as an actor. You can check out the music video HERE.

I know this is a long post and I haven’t made one here in a while, but I hope you know I haven’t forgotten about you and all the support you’ve shown me and my artistic endeavors. It’s a weird phenomenon to on social media less these days after I’ve been going SO HARD on it the past decade. In one respect, social media does provide me with a touchstone to my fans, friends and family that I normally wouldn’t have otherwise. Especially when I haven’t been playing as many shows, it’s easy to feel like all of my relationships with people are slipping away and that I’m fading into obscurity. But the fact is, I’ve had so much more clarity, productivity and all around joy about the things I spend my time doing by not feeling like I have to capture every moment for it to be viewed on a small sized little screen at a future date. I’m trying not to sound cynical here, but I just needed to express this because I talk with a lot of my musician and non-musician friends about this very topic and a good majority of them are starting to feel the same way. So if I can offer any reassurance to you if you’re struggling with social media addiction, but wondering what will happen if you put it down, it has been very beneficial for me in so many areas of my life and I feel like I'm much healthier (mind, body, spirit), I’m improving in my craft and developing a community around me in other sorts of ways that doesn’t rely entirely on social media.

Joey Gutos solo acoustic 2024

All in all, I hope you’re doing well and just want to remind you that you are beautiful and I appreciate you being around. I make music because it helps me tap onto the vibrating heart of the universe and then share that vibration to keep the gift moving. I think Rick Rubin puts it best “We are all antennae for creative thought. Some transmissions come on strong, others are more faint. If your antenna isn’t sensitively tuned, you’re likely to lose the data in the noise.” Keep your antennae tuned and keep sharing your beauty!

I Love You and hope you have a great day :)

Cheers,
Joey