12 Pitch Music Award winners share their New Year’s resolutions

I haven’t changed my New Year’s resolutions much over the past eight years or so. Each January 1, I basically recycle the same feeble goals. It isn’t that I lack the instinct for follow-through or the very best intentions. But anymore, it’s the ritual itself that counts. Achieving my goals is not as important as recognizing that I have goals. (I think I read that in a fortune cookie once.)

In the spirit of renewal — and to find out if musicians are more, or less, goal-oriented than I am — I asked our 2014 Pitch Music Award winners to share their New Year’s resolutions. Most of them answered the call, taking me up on my note that their submissions could be earnest or mocking, good for taping to the refrigerator or burning in an intimate ceremony. Good luck in 2015, you guys.

Katy Guillen & the Girls

(Emerging Act)

• Get back into the studio.

• Collaborate more with other musicians.

• Finally launch our YouTube cooking show. We love food!

• More travels!

• Get our side project off the ground: Steph & the Dudes.

The Pedaljets
(Album of the Year for What’s in Between)

• Learn more about fencing, boat racing, nanorobotics and dolphins.

• Don’t write songs with mandolin, dobro, fiddle, banjo or anything that remotely sounds like Mumford & Sons. This is achievable. We’ve done something like this before.

• Eat food that makes us faster and drink beverages that make us more charming. People will call us “those charming Pedaljets.”

• Secretly project our holographic images onto other artists’ performances. “Look, the Pedaljets are now doing a duet with Justin Bieber, dancing with Iggy Azalea, jamming with the Kronos Quartet, twerking with Miley Cyrus, giving Bob Dylan a noogie!” Besides, can you really sue a hologram?

• Start our own talk-radio show and focus on the growing menace posed by the U.S. Merits System Protection Board, the National Geospatial–Intelligence Agency and, of course, the state of Nebraska.

• Compete to win the following awards: Norwegian Football Association Gold Watch, the Pilka Nozna Plebiscite, the Sporty Larocca Golden Shad, Grandmaster of Chess, Miss Universe, and the Nobel Peace Prize (for making long-lasting peace with Nebraska).

• Buy matching penny loafers and join the Whiffenpoofs.

• In the wake of the record industry’s crashing and burning, we resolve to look into exciting alternative ways to release our music. Matt likes the analog feel of 8-track. Rob is pretty excited about the minidisc.

• Base an album on fake Facebook friends and e-mail phishing scams. There will be songs about surefire weight-loss methods, 10 facts about knee arthritis, how to make $5,000 per month while working at home, and how to meet all the people out there searching for us. The first song on the album is “This Aphrodisiac Ingredient Will Shock You.” Sample lyrics: I saw this 30-minute video and shit myself!

• Spend all of next summer at Cool Crest, near the cashier’s booth.

Ha Ha Tonka
(Regional Act)

• Record a new album.

• Do a motorcycle tour. Can someone carry our instruments?

• Not eat fast food.

• Have Luke take his shirt off more.

• Finish script for Ferris Bueller’s Day Off sequel.

Radkey
(Live Act)

• Obtain at least one of those giant city keys that grants you full access.

• Solve a cold case.

• Have what she’s having.

• Lead a horse to water.

• Put out killer full-length album.

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Cowboy Indian Bear
(Rock/Pop Act, now dissolved)

My resolution this next year is to remember what the last seven years have brought me and be thankful every day. I strive to be the best husband, boss, friend, musician and person I can be. I also want to write and record a percussion record and give out some tracks to my many talented friends and see what happens! Also, yoga. — Beau Bruns

My resolution this year is to stay close friends with my bandmates, even though we won’t see each other quite as regularly. To try and continue getting better at identifying and pursuing the parts of life and music that are fulfilling and make me happy. Ideally, I’d like to put a Bonzo Madrid record out this spring and continue working on new music. I’m a jeweler by trade, and I want to be close to ready for my test to become certified as a master jeweler (real title, and I will ask all of my friends to refer to me as Master Jeweler Charles after that). Finally, I’d like to save money for a trip to Scotland. — C.J. Calhoun

Hearts of Darkness
(Hardest-Working Act)

• Unplug and shake dat ass.

• Resolve to listen to each other more and become larger than the sum of our parts!

• Increase our community activism.

• Eliminate the neocolonial, imperialist, white-supremacist, capitalist patriarchy in AmeriKKKa and worldwide. Shut down the system.

Samantha Fish
(Folk Solo Act)

• Headline and sell out Knuckleheads outdoors in the summertime. I love that place, and it’s always been a goal of mine.

• Release and tour on my new record in the springtime. Set a new sales record and beat our previous Billboard position.

• Find better heels to jump in.

• I want to get into some new collaborations. Basically get out of my comfort zone more often.

Troglodyte
(Metal Act)

• Finish new masks. Current masks smell like a dirty workboat floating in pickle juice.

• Finish new album, Troglodyte III: Return to Boggy Creek, for early 2015 release.

• Track down a copy of the John Schneider film Cocaine Wars.

• Stop drinking … before noon.

• Work on becoming a better Bigfoot death-metal band.

• Tour more, lose less money than
Pomplamoose.

Stik Figa
(Hip-Hop/Rap)

• Lose weight. I am sure I join many in that quest next year. At one time, the name Stik Figa was something very literal. I looked more like J.J. from Good Times than anyone would like to admit. As my mom would say, I have “filled out” quite a bit. I have gone from Stik Figa to Thick Figa.

• Be a better beautician. I have a 2-year-old daughter. Previous to this life event, I had never done hair. I am sure that is not a surprise to anyone. I currently struggle to put together ponytails, but I hope to improve in that regard.

• What happens in Vegas: Never been to Vegas, hoping to go for the first time and have a Hangover weekend with some close friends.

• Read more, learn more. I used to love to read. I have become distracted by so much in recent years that I haven’t been catching up on one of my first loves. More Garvey, less garbage reality TV.

• Release an album. Worked on a lot of music in 2014 that no one heard. Hopefully, people get to hear it in 2015.

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The Clementines
(Folk Ensemble)

• Record a new demo, “The Journey Begins,” with our new lineup. It’s a song about moving into a new chapter of life, which is very symbolic for us as a group.

• Begin the recording process for our second full-length album.

• Get out and play as many shows as we can. We have a new member [bassist Brad Scott], rejuvenated energy and a more evolved sound that we’re ready to share with Kansas City and beyond.

• Most important, we just want to continue to enjoy making music together, for the fun and the love of it.

The Sluts

(Punk Act)

• Stop being such a fat piece of fat shit. Why can’t seaweed snacks and seltzer water be as tempting as gas-station cheese-filled wieners and beer?

• Write a song that doesn’t suck. Hopefully, we’ll write a whole album of songs that don’t suck, but just one will be way over the national average.

• Don’t fall into the “artistic integrity” trap. After getting a bit of local acclaim, a lot of bands decide to get lost way up their own asses and forget that their mission is to entertain drunk people, not to get into a “legitimacy” cockfight with other musicians.

• Magic-up enough money to finish recording our current album and press it on 500 vinyl records, so we can each have one record for posterity.

• Figure out what to do with the other 498 vinyl copies of our album.

Project H
(Jazz Ensemble)

• Continue our collaboration series. (Lauren Krum, Julia Haile, Jorge Arana and Katy Guillen are all planning on working with us.)

• Travel a little more.

• Defend our jazz championship (aka our Pitch Music Award).

• Rearrange some old tunes and write some new ones for a Project H big band.

• Find people who want to hear a Project H big band.

• Convince those people to come watch us play.

• Start writing another album, we suppose.