Riverside Rebellion

My father’s keyboard… to be honest I never thought I would see it again. It along with everything else my dad owned, I assumed I had seen the last of when we buried him. I didn’t miss his things, after all. I missed the man. That’s a story for another time.

Anyway…. Thanks to my uncle Ron Shipman and Barbara Shipman however, Dad’s keyboard which he had played with me countless times was found, bought and gifted back to me and Jennifer Shipman. I am humbled and honored that they would do this, and I thank them deeply.

I had posted on our band page not long ago that Riverside Rebellion was going to become primarily a recording project and Jen and I would focus on our duo as just “Riverside.” Uncle Ron remembered and realized this keyboard would not just be part of my Dad’s legacy but a valuable asset to our new project.

It definitely is, but more than that, it’s like being gifted my dad’s lightsaber. Shredding the keyboard was his superpower.

Musical instruments, I believe, when played over time with skill and passion become an extension of a musician. Music is as close a thing to magic as we can easily experience, and when you pick up a well loved instrument you can feel the DNA of its master in the keys and fretboards.

You can sense the connection between my dad and this instrument. It’s a blessing, but it’s meant to be played and that’s where Jen comes in. We unpacked it and played music together with it for the first time last night and it really sang.

Theres even a USB Zip drive plugged into it! I wonder what’s on it?

Hey Riverside Rebellion friends and followers! Gregg Shipman here. I Hope everyone had a great summer!

Just a quick update to announce a few things.

First is the release of our song Through the Night - It is currently being mastered and will be out sometime later this fall. Several more RR songs are close to being done and will be out later this year, so please look for those updates! We are very proud of these songs.

Secondly - the full band version of Riverside Rebellion for the foreseeable future will be primarily a studio recording project.

Many of our members (myself included) have other bands and performing opportunities that have really taken off this year. We are excited about that and support each other in all of these opportunities. Currently, it would be very challenging to coordinate various band schedules, and so rather than trying to make any changes to facilitate that, our plan is to simply support each other in these opportunities while focusing on releasing our existing and future recording projects.

In the meantime, Jen and I are launching an acoustic duo project which will be performing in and around Tulsa - featuring a variety of covers and all the Riverside Rebellion originals - as well as several new songs we are currently writing. I'll be promoting our duo and original music through this page and through our website. We consider this duo to be an integral part of the Riverside Rebellion band and the scaled down version will simply go as "Riverside" and incorporate existing branding and logos.

That's it! Just wanted to make a brief statement and explain why you will see a different direction in our show promotion so there aren't any concerns or questions. Everyone is on board with these changes. Thanks to you all for your support over the years! Looking forward to sharing our music with you for many more!

- Gregg

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