RECORD STORE TALES #1243: Checking Things Off the List: Creative Works in Early 2026

I have been relatively silent in Spring 2026. Like many of us in these uncertain times, I have been paralyzed when trying to think of the future. This is rare for me. In the past, when I have found myself unable or unwilling to create, I tended to throw the towel in and cry “I quit”! Then more sober minds gently remind me that talking about music is something I’m pretty good at. They tell me it’s OK to take a break without nuking everything. So, this time I haven’t freaked out. I’ve just created at my own pace, and focused what juice I do have on videos. Videos are a different creative process and it feels more immediate to me at the moment.

Every year, twice a year, I try to do something “new” creatively. This could be writing, cooking, or video making.  I can rarely plan ahead or field creative suggestions.  Something new always comes along.  It just happens organically every summer.  Some future summer, I swear, I will take up meat smoking at the cottage, but not this year. This year, a new investment has been made and new equipment acquired in another direction.

Drones came into my life in 2024 when I accumulated enough Amazon points through my work to buy one. I chose the Potensic Atom SE, a great drone for beginners but not with the 4k 3-axis camera that a better drone carries. It was not until I tried both that I appreciated what the better camera can do. In 2025, I had a misadventure with the Ruko company and not one but two of their drones.  While I loved their 4k camera with brushless 3-axis gimble, I didn’t enjoy that their drones are prone to crashing.  My more primitive Potensic didn’t seem to have that weakness.  If only it took better pictures, I mused.

Welcome to 2026, my new Potensic 4k drone with brushless 3-axis gimble.  I upgraded.  My parents enjoy my photos and want to see what I can do with a better camera.  They made it happen.  You can really see the difference.  You’ll see how the horizon is always perfectly level.  That’s the 3-axis gimble.  Thank you mom and dad!

New thing #1 in 2026:  New improved drone.  Check ✔

Music: “SMC” by Def Leppard

Music: “Mighty Morris Ten” by Episode Six, featuring Ian Gillan and Roger Glover of Deep Purple

My summer creative goals are usually cottage goals.  The drones are a perfect example.  You could not ask for a better camera in the most perfect setting.  I’m all about “set” and “setting”, as they say in psychology.  Mindset, and physical setting.  The cottage is the setting that gives me the best conduit to my creative side.  I used to do a lot of animation videos from the lake, and I’d like to return to that.  Since those days, live streaming from the lake is a creative highpoint.   I started in 2020 using a primitive phone and Facebook Live, and they got better year after year, with 2026 being hopefully one of the best.

Because I love the night up at the cottage, and also because strange things have been seen and heard there, I have always wanted to live stream from the spooky dark.  The ideal topic would be UFOs and the paranormal, I reasoned.  I put the idea on the shelf as one that I hadn’t fully formed.  Something to do someday, sometime, if the right circumstances came to be.

In 2025, while in a hospital emergency ward waiting to be seen for a rib injury, I spent my idle time reading the dystopian science fiction of Australian author Violeta M. Bagia.  I remember complimenting the book and comparing it positively to Firefly in tone.  Since that time I’ve learned that Bagia is not only a Blaze Bayley & Wolfsbane fan, but a UFO and paranormal enthusiast.  Due to her location in Australia, her best time happened to fall at 6 AM EST, while the cottage in the woods is just waking up from the pitch black dark.  It became obvious that I had my special guest and my setting for the UFOs and Paranormal episode.  Please welcome to Grab A Stack of Rock on Friday May 22 at 6:00 AM EST:  Violeta M. Bagia!

New thing #2 in 2026:  Finally doing the UFO and Paranormal episode from the cottage.  Check ✔

Coming May 22: Sci-fi, UFOs and the Paranormal with author Violeta M Bagia

But that’s not all.  Harrison and I still have 50 Years of Iron Maiden to wrap up, and we’re so close!  We are ready to cover The Book of Souls: Live Chapter, and as usual we do live albums as live episodes.  Not wanting to delay 50 Years of Iron Maiden another week, I decided to do two shows in one day, at two extremes of the day:  sunrise and sunset!   This isn’t a goal I knew I had, but I’m excited to do it.

New thing #3 in 2026:  Sunrise and Sunset Hour Shows in One Day.  Check ✔

Two Live Show Announcement for May 22 2026

I have a long long weekend coming.  Feeling the strain, we’ll be taking some extra time at the lake that weekend which will give me plenty of time to prepare and do two really good shows.  That always makes me happy.

It’s already late May.  That is rather late in the year for my creative side to start percolating, but start it has.