It’s been quite the year! I’m still producing at 825 Studios (825studios.com) in the Weatport district of KCMO, I started a new day job doing live sound for Harvest Productions, and I’ve begun acting for film on the side! Sucker Free Productions will definitely be a lot more active in 2017 as its own entity. I’ve been using this site as an outlet for all of my creative projects instead of exclusively being for Sucker Free Productions.

Sucker Free Productions is meant to be solely for music production and audio engineering. In 2017, I want to open this up to promotion and production for live events. I’ve been doing a lot of promotion in 2016 for my solo music project. I want to open this up to promoting shows that I’m not performing in.

I see big things coming in 2017. Thank you so much for being apart of this journey for me. I’m super excited!

-Grant

So now I have a degree! Too bad this may not mean much in audio unless I’m going into academia, but it’s still quite the feat and I can already tell that it’s opening a lot of doors to future employment. Speaking of which, I’m contracting out of 825 Studios in the Westport district of Kansas City, MO. This is really lucky for me to land a gig like this fresh out of college so I’m really excited about what the future has in store for 825 Studios and myself. 

I’m still running Sucker Free Productions as a way to keep up my freelance work, provide super cheap services to my homies, and to produce my own music out of. Things are starting to pick up since I’m out of school. I picked up Ozone 7 so now my masters are top notch. Also, I’m working on a little surprise for Christmas, so stay tuned!

-Grant

So I’ve announced the release of my new album, Origins, on other social media but have yet to say anything here. Origins is going to be a couple of songs from my childhood, remixed into this new electronica style that I adopted, as well as several other songs produced exclusively for this album. I’m extatic about this new project because the new instrumentation. Most of my older material is simply for voice and acoustic guitar, but now I’ve added mixed media so that instrumentation is virtually limitless. I’m very excited about the future of this electronica project and what it has in store for my music career. Origins will be dropped on iTunes on August 30th.

Hello all!

I’ve been soul searching quite a bit this past year and I’ve decided to really give an effort to this production company and also to myself as an artist. I only told a select few people this, but my original plan was to not only run Sucker Free Productions, but also run seven different music projects that are each of a different genre. Some genres were more suited to me than others. I could tell simply because I wrote more music for them. However, I fear that having my music fit into a specific mold would stifle creativity. Also, running seven different music projects at once is an insane amount of work and I should’ve realized that I was over extending myself.

Recently, I went to an Audio Engineering Society convention and attended a panel called “How to Make It as a Freelancer” that was hosted by some engineers with some serious credits to their names. One of the key pieces of advice that I picked up was that I needed to constantly reinvent myself. I should not have hubris because I was unable to go above and beyond a conventional idea of success anyway. So I need to come up with a new plan and stick with it.

My new idea is to run this production company as I have been doing but with much more diligence and professionalism. Also, have one sole music project that will be the sum of my creativity. My stage name will be Grant Conrad and I’ll perform whatever kind of style that I want. One song might be a totally brutal metal song, while the next is an Italian aria. I’m really looking forward to putting in more work into this blog and into this business and really forming a movement with all of you!

Grant Conrad

So while I was in Panama City over spring break, someone decided it would be a good idea to burn my house down. My studio was in that house. Therefore, Sucker Free Productions was in that house. Because of this, I’ve been set back from releasing anything or working on the company. I know barely anyone, if even that, reads these, but I still thought it would be appropriate to make a post about it since it effects this company so much. A lot of friends and family have been very supportive, and for that I am eternally grateful. Once I get caught up with everything else that I need to get caught up with, expect regular posts and music.

-Grant