2021: Year in Preview

It seems almost offensive to do a Year in Review post. Absolutely no one needs to be reminded of the personal and financial toll, the political bullshit, racial strife, human loss and pestilence of 2020 that wracked us from the end of quarter one on. An old Christian church parable speaks of reaching salvation but reeking of the fires of Hell. We can but hope that this is the correct caption for 2021.

2020 has imprinted on all of us. We know the history of 2020 because we, the living, ARE 2020. We are the result, the by-product, the exhaust of that year. We don't need to look back at the new Jungle Brothers album "Keep it Jungle", their first new album in fifteen years. Nor the at-times preachy but all killer Busta Rhymes album "Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God" that came out on October 31, the same day we lost MF DOOM to the Choir Invisible. Perseverence has been our key value because there has been no alternative.

We know that "we can only go up from here" is a lame platitude as the only thing that has changed is the date, but it serves as a handy carriage return to allow ourselves to treat the next year as a new line in our document. With that, here is the news from a Goon Squad perspective:

2021 will see new marketing campaigns to spread the Goon Squad message of celebrating weird media, surrealist poetry, and music. Some projects in the works:

The Book of Rubinetics : A collection of written meditations of varying lengths.

The Moonshine Parade Album: A mix of Rubin Drew instrumental compositions, new spoken word pieces, remixes of old works from the 90s - early 2000's era -- and Hip Hop? Yes.

You only had one job - The Story of Howland Island: A free-form samplescape of news reports, interviews, sound collage and spoken word telling a brief history of Howland Island focusing on Amelia Earheart's ill-fated journey to the island. It will expound upon the Amelia Earheart portion of Negativland's "Time Zones Exchange Project".

I created Goon Squad Music as a vehicle for self-promotion. To that end, I have plenty of marketing ideas such as stickers, bracelets, a new series of prayer candles and much more. Many of these will be free to people who follow the Rubin Drew artist page, have or will purchase the Do Not Stop album (if you don't have your copy yet, be sure to click here and purchase. The price will be going up very soon), or have otherwise contributed to this hustle.

If you've made it this far, thank you. You can reach out to The Goon Squad and ASK ME ANYTHING by emailing info@goonsquadmusic.com. If you include your shipping address, you'll receive some free promo gifts, MOSTLY related to Goon Squad projects.

2021 - We'll just see how we're doing on time. ~r.