Still Frame Available On Noisetrade Now!

I uploaded my first album to noisetrade as well, and I threw in a couple of bonus tracks, a couple of those being fun ones we made along the way. Thanks to my buddy Jon Hodge for the "clean" version of Bittersweet End... Check it out... It's free!

Facebook Fan Page

Hey there... everyone go subscribe to my Facebook Fan Page. It's a way better way to stay on top of whats going on with me. Here is a link to it... and I'll change the link on the side of my current page to point to this fan page.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rick-Hopkins/54915689053

By the way, if you go there now there is a couple of brand new songs to listen to and comment on. The recordings are really bad because I did them myself and I am no studio technician, but hopefully soon we'll get some better recordings up there for you all to hear.

Get out to one of my upcoming shows. I miss you all.

I Won!!! Woohoo!

Quick update... I won the Big Ticket Festival indie stage battle of the bands on Saturday! We were up first that day at 11am and we benefited from some rainy weather outside because we were inside a building... We rocked the house, had a GREAT crowd that seemed to be loving every minute of it. To them I say a big thank you for your support and votes. The prize for winning the indie stage is that next year at the Big Ticket Festival I get to play the main stage! So next year I'll be sharing a stage with some of the biggest bands in Christian music. I can not wait. I am hoping for a big year ahead of me! I can't wait to see where God is taking me on this journey. He is an awesome God who's love and blessings I don't deserve.
I hope to see as many of you as possible out at BTF next year! I can't wait!

New Music Player

Hey guys, one real quick thing for you. I have updated the Listen page. It now opens up a music player that contains all of my own music from both my albums. It also has an album I did with my former rock band RedHandRevolt for those of you looking for something a little heavier and louder. Finally it has an album called Kingdom Coming Down that was put together by the church I attend, Ada Bible Church. I was lucky enough to get to play on a few of the songs, but you'll also get to hear a whole bunch of my friends from church rocking out to some original praise tunes we wrote.
Hope you guys enjoy all the music, and hopefully this player works better than the last one which was pretty buggy. Let me know if you have any problems. Later...

Some Quick Updates

Hey everybody.... remember me? Rick Hopkins... that guy who use to play music and write stuff. No? Don't remember? How about this... "Lift Up Your Eyes O Israel"... remember? No. Got nothing? Ok, well anyway, I have a few quick updates for you.

First off, I played in the Big Ticket Tour battle of the bands in Grand Rapids, MI on Feb 28. The band and I rocked it out and got into the top 3 bands which basically earned us a spot to play at the Big Ticket Festival in Gaylord, MI on June 18, 19, & 20. I am not sure which day we'll play just yet, but I'll keep you posted. If you want to get tickets to the festival check out their website at http://www.bigticketfestival.com/.

Secondly, on May 16, 2009 I am opening for Warren Barfield at Arcadia Creek Festival Place in Kalamazoo. This should be a pretty good show and I am very excited for it. Check out the shows link for more information. If you have never heard of Warren Barfield, he sings the song "Love Is Not A Fight" which was on the soundtrack of the movie "Fireproof" which came out recently.

Thirdly, I am now working with the company Dreamlight Entertainment. Dreamlight was started by George Moss, a WayFM dj and local artist himself. They will be handling booking shows and all sorts of other functions for me, which is awesome because I honestly don't know what I am doing myself. Their help is very welcome. To contact them for booking or whatever else get ahold of Greg Rios at greg@dreamlightent.com .

Finally, I really hope to get to work on writing some new stuff soon, but the inspiration isn't coming as fast as I would like. I have been super busy with family, work, and P90X lately. For questions about what P90X is... just imagine the most intense workout you have ever done, then multiply it by impossibility to the power of infinity. Its that difficult of a workout. I am in the 4th week. Only about 66 more days to go. Ugh. Hopefully it will be worth it when I am done. I'll post the before and after pictures if they are worth looking at, and they don't make you feel weird. Also I hope to get back into blogging some real soon. It's been a long time and I need the therapy of getting some stuff off my chest. Look for that soon.

Ok, talk to you all later. Contact me with anything you have for me. Later.

Lyrics To Where We Are And Where We Long To Be

I have finally pieced together all the lyrics to the new album in one pdf. You can get them by clicking here. I've had quite a few requests for the lyrics so I hope you guys enjoy. It doesn't involve guitar chords or song explanations or anything like that. I am hoping to at some point find an artist who feels like doing a project, give them the lyrics and some imagery ideas, and let them piece together a graphic novel. That would be sweet so if you are that person please contact me :) In the meantime here are the lyrics. Hope you enjoy!

WWAAWWLTB On iTunes!

Just a quick one here... Where We Are And Where We Long To Be is now available through everyone's favorite music store, iTunes. Just do a search for "Rick Hopkins" in the iTunes store, or click this link here... http://www.itunes.com/rickhopkins. Keep in mind you can also get it for free from NoiseTrade at http://www.noisetrade.com/rickhopkins. Hope you're all enjoying it.

I am hoping to start lining up some shows again so if you want me to come play where you are contact me through my contact page... http://rickhopkins.com/contact/. Alright. Later.

A Sweet Deal...

Hey there guys, quick note. You can now get my entire new album for free by telling some friends, or you can pay me whatever you want. Pretty sweet deal. This is provided by a website that I have loved for quite a while called NoiseTrade. NoiseTrade was created by Derek Webb (who is one of my favorite musicians ever) and some of his buddies. You can click here and get to my noisetrade widget. I have am also going to be adding it to my site here pretty quick. Probably in the right pane area somewhere. Enjoy!

WWAAWWLTB Is Here!!!

(WWAAWWLTB = Where We Are And Where We Long To Be.)

Alright, so finally I can say that the cd is in my hands all packaged and pretty and ready the holiday season! It came in on Thursday so if you pre-ordered it my wife and I have been working to get those all sent out and you should be receiving them shortly. If you would like to purchase it you can do so by coming to my site, rolling over the image of the new cd on the right side and clicking purchase. The price is $10 now and will take you through a paypal checkout process. It's very simple and in no time flat you'll have your very own copy of my latest work.

I gotta say thank you to everyone who gave me money to get it done. The final product weighed in at about $1900 and conveniently enough I brought in about $1900 in gifts and pre-orders to pay for it. The wife and I didn't have to put up much of our own money to pay for the cd which is great because we have very little extra money floating around these days.

I also gotta say thanks to Andy Ferris for the many hours he put into mixing and perfecting the sound, and to JJ Clark, Mark Lago, Mitch Mallard, and Kristen Lambert for adding some instrumentation to it. You guys are awesome!

So right now the cd is available through my site, and through Baker Book House in Grand Rapids, MI. However I am trying to find some way to get it distributed so that it will be available in more places. Also within a few weeks it should be available on iTunes. You can actually already get to my songs from Still Frame on iTunes by clicking the iTunes link on the right side of my site.

So if you know anyone, or are someone who can help me with distribution, I would greatly appreciate anything you have to offer. I am pretty small time right now and not a whole lot of people have heard of me or my music. My goal really is just that the music would be heard by lots of people and that it would hopefully minister to them in some way. Whether I am making lots of money or not, while it would be nice, is not that important in the big scheme of things. God had provided for all my needs and given me some amazing opportunities to be used by Him to accomplish what He wants, and thats all I really care about right now. I just want to be used by Him to do what He wants me to.

So there we go. New cd. Out now. Hope you like it.

It's Almost Here...

The new cd is in duplication and will be available very soon. I went through a company called Oasis CD for the duplication. Their website is telling me I should have it in hand around December 12! I am super pumped to get it out to all of you that want it and have pre-ordered it (thank for that by the way, you helped pay for its completion :). In the meantime, I have uploaded all the songs to my site so that you can listen to them. If you rollover top of the new album image you should see a link to listen and it will load all the new songs. Take a listen and let me know what you think. The album is also still available for pre-order which allows you to get it for $5. Pretty cheap right? Once the album is out the price goes up to $10 so get it cheap while you can.

...And for all you blog readers, the few, the proud... or maybe not so proud, I promise to blog again soon. I am one of those types where I can only write about stuff when I feel I have something to say... so... yeah, nothing to say right now :) Hope you all enjoy the new songs.

Rick Hopkins + iTunes = It's About Time

I finally have managed to get my first cd "Still Frame" on the iTunes store. It only took me 2 years. So get there and check it out just click the iTunes link on the right side, or click here. All this just in time for the holiday shopping season. Now hopefully the new cd is done shortly and you can purchase that as well...

Quick Update

I feel like I am leaving you all in the dark. The new cd is getting very near completion. We are working on final mixing right now, and will hopefully be sending it off for mastering very shortly. After that is off to duplication, which is looking like about a 16 day turn around. So I am guessing the cd will be available early on in December. Not quite as soon as I would like, but hopefully you will all think its worth the wait once you hear it.

There are about 5 tracks that I haven't uploaded to the site yet. Two of those are new songs entitled "Sleeper" and "Gate Called Beautiful". I think musically and lyrically these 2 songs have come together to be my favorites. I can't wait for you guys to hear them.

Also, I need to thank about 50 - 60 of Ada Bible Church's finest Studio attenders. They came up last Sunday and chipped in on finishing our recording of Lord Most High. Now I have an actual congregation singing along with me in the song. It sounds awesome, and they sang their throats out. It was a great time and I hope to get that new version posted up here pretty soon. Virb, my music host, is having some problems lately so we'll see how that goes.

God has been very good to me with this album. He has provided me with the financial means to get it done, he has called the best musicians I have ever played with to play along side me, and he has given me all of you. You continually send me emails of encouragement, prayer and support. I can't thank you all enough. I don't know if this cd will go anywhere past you, but I hope there is at least something in it that will speak to you. I'll keep you all posted on the process being made...

New Website...

Hey there, I have a new website finally! I have been working on it for a while now and I am very excited to have it done. Being a web designer / programmer and all I figured I should have a site that I actually made.

You can now pre-order my new cd entitled Where We Are And Where We Long To Be. I just finished recording all my parts and it is in the mixing process now. I am very excited to get it done, and I am hoping to have it available within the month or so. $5 gets you a copy of the cd if you pre-order it. You can do that by rolling over the album image in the right pane and clicking the purchase link. If you feel like sending me some cash towards getting it duplicated I would really appreciate any help. Shoot me an email in the contact page to ask me where to send it to.

Also take note, this blog is going to be functioning as my news and my blog entries. I am importing them into my new site from here. So you'll be able to read them there and there will be links for making comments and all that.

So anyway, check it out every so often to see if its up yet. Should be soon.