The Uneventful Finale of Life As We Know It - “The Latest One”

Released June 2026

Look at you, you made it to the present! Give yourself a Xanax from petty cash you deserve it!

So, When we last left your hero I had released my last album “black storms…” right around my birthday in 2024. Although The critically Ashamed Was in a bit of a spiral, I armed myself with some new material, new distribution and was hoping to get back to what I’ve been doing all along and see if I can get the ball rolling again with my music.

well, unfortunately for me it came, and went with basically little to no fanfare, which much like the “Sack of Sin experiment” kind of knocked the wind out of my sails even more.

Looking back; I honestly don’t know wether it was just my lack of promotion, confusion in the marketplace, this new way I was trying to distribute or what, but when looking at the streams I was getting, although the first single “something special” did very well, but the rest of the singles and the album overall just was a dud compared to these others.

I’ll admit, when it comes to my own stuff, I tend to get wrapped up looking at the analytics, so when I would look at them I was noticing each release was getting less and less plays. Albums like “hooper”, “cigarettes..” even the Critically Ashamed debut were increasing in streams, but after those? It just became less and less, to the point where I would look into DistroKid and think “this can’t be right can it?”

So for the first time in my life, since playing in original music projects literally since I was 16, releasing all of this music on my own as much as I love being creative, I thought to myself “well, I guess I’m done”

To be completely honest, at first I was not bummed out about it at all. The cover band was playing solid all year to a crowd who appreciated it, the podcast was picking up and I was having a blast doing it, I thought “why am I killing myself over this?” The last show The Critically Ashamed did kind of knocked the wind out of my sails when it came to performing original music around these parts, so I wasn’t as gung ho to go back to the machine of booking shows, promoting, spending money on something that had little return.

Then the Summer after the release of “Black Storms…” in 2024, a number of things started to happen here that threw my life into a bit of a tailspin.

The job that I was working at for over 11 years decided to lay me off. After a few months of severance, I was able to get a new job working from home for another company, but it was a LOT less than what I was getting, but I needed something.

Now, when your ex wife is literally taking HALF of your salary, she wasn’t thrilled when I told her she was getting a lot less from me, but at the same time not to get too personal, I was paying way more than I was supposed to be (long story), so she would have to deal with it. She was bitching and holding it over my head constantly, but although it was a far cry from what I was making, thank God I was living here.

then my youngest daughter moved in with myself, my mother and Manal after years of chaos with her mother back home at the end of the Summer. Here I was paying @ $40k annually in “child support” only to get calls from CPS that my girls, the two that meant the most to me were living in a house that was disgusting, bills weren’t getting paid and my youngest daughter literally stopped going to school due to her severe anxiety and depression. After having my arms literally tied behind my back since my divorce, I HAD to do something to fix this mess.

So I gladly took my baby girl here. My oldest was heading to college in Sept, so she was “safe” so we got youngest here, back on therapy/medication, enrolled her in the High School I attended myself as a child in an amazing program and I got to work. I will admit it was HELL at first basically “deprogramming” but cut to as I’m writing this, she is heading to college herself this Fall and basically graduated with honors. I’m so proud of her!

I also took the house they were living in, spent thousands basically having a company throw everything out that was festering in there and we were able to sell it. I didn’t want anything left in there since everything was pretty much destroyed by neglect and cat smell and although we were able to make some decent $$ from the sale, we basically sold it for what we paid for it so someone could flip it (which they were able to thank God).

As much as it broke my heart, that’s the home I basically raised my two daughters in and put a ton of work into it for 15+ years I was also glad I was able to sell it so fast and make a good chunk of money from it in the end. That paid for literally 2 years of college and a car for my eldest and when my ex said she would pay ME child support now (since technically now would have to) I was proud of myself for saying “no thanks. The fact that I don’t have to give you half my salary anymore is payment enough”. Good riddance.

So where am I getting at with all of this rambling? What does this have to do with my music?

With all of the focus on other things, especially a new job and getting my girl through school and graduating, the guitar stayed propped on the wall collecting dust for over a year and half and I didn’t even think about it. I would drop off Violet at school, come back here and work, pick her up after, work some more, then repeat. Like I said, the podcast was on Sundays and Splits practice was Thursdays with gigs with them pretty much 2-3 x a month on weekends so I was keeping pretty busy.

Cut to this year….yet more changes.

Although people always think working from home must be great, when you are in a small one bedroom and literally on the phone or webcam all day, trying to work with people running around behind you it got to be quite distracting. It’s not anyone’s fault and it’s not my excuse for my work performance, it was just the way it was. I was super lucky since I was literally 5 minutes from the school and could be there for her at the drop of a hat, which came in super handy especially in the beginning. Plus it seemed the company I was working for, IMHO were trying to pull blood from a stone when it came to expectations.

It just wasn’t a good fit in the end and once again I found myself out of work again in March. Violet was graduating in June so instead of rocking the boat, I just decided to wait to look for work until the dust cleared. I have worked a full time job for literally 30+ years and when unemployment was literally giving me MORE money than the prior job? I was in no rush to be honest, I needed a break for awhile.

Now I went from running back and forth like a fool, to literally being home alone while Mimi was in FL, Manal working and Violet in school. Yeah I was still “Dad Uber” but I found myself with a lot of free time now, which for me is a real odd feeling.

Even the podcast, after a solid and almost 200 episode run, things got difficult (NOT with us, we both still love each other dearly!) and we had to call it quits for reasons I won’t get into here. That’s for another story.

It was then I finally started to dust off the Gibson and see what I could come up with.

The IPad I had was getting on in years (much like myself) I had used that one from “Elephants…” on so I decided to upgrade, especially since now they were offering Logic now along with GarageBand! Figured I had the time now, why not learn Logic?

Also since I did lose some of the recording gear I had when I sold the house, I picked up some new mics and sound board to go along with the new IPad. I dug through what I had laying around in GarageBand, dumped them in Logic and see what I could do with them since I had all of these new sounds and drum patches to play with.

It took some time to figure out, but before I knew it in the span of only 2-3 months I had @ 8 or more songs done that I was really digging. Half of them were songs I had just came up with, and the other half were songs that were sitting dormant in the hard drive for years and years that I finished, including if you have been following along the song “Crumpled Paper” I had demoed back in 2019(!) that was never released or finished with The Critically Ashamed. As they say, you snooze, you lose.

It was nice to see when I released the first single “Come on Behind” not only was it getting some streams, I had friends personally message me telling me they were happy I was putting out new music again, which was great to hear, especially since this song was WAY different than what I usually put out and definitely different than the rest of the album itself.

Looking back on the album as a whole and where I am at right now with all of this moving forward?

Is it the best sounding and best release I’ve put out so far? No, not at all. I’m still learning Logic technically. Best sounding was always HEAL since Darrell produced it, I was going to have him do this one too, but at the same time, the man is busy and I’m impatient as you’ve been reading in these other releases. However, I am super proud that not only was I able to get back to writing after 2 years and the songs themselves I really like. They are simple, raw and catchy to me, which was the endgame.

Am I going to be getting back to pushing/promoting this release and put together a kick ass band again to play these songs out? - The verdict is still out. Next month I will officially be an “empty nester” with both kids in college and I’m still looking for work. a LOT can happen at this point I’m open to living wherever the job market and life will take me. I would love to play live again, but it has to make sense.

If I do perform live again doing these songs, I refuse to do it half assed anymore. I want anyone who is going to play this music with me to be 110% committed and into it. I want banners, merch, a REAL stage show and production and just destroy live. Would suck if I did that and then end up moving away in the next year or so to God knows where you know?

Fuck, I was seriously considering dropping the whole “Greg Gilroy”, naming it something else (think a NIN situation), re-releasing any of the prior songs under this new name and doing it that way, which I might still do. You have no idea when I would try to book gigs, when I just gave them my name as the name of the band or “Greg Gilroy and The Critically Ashamed Band” they would look at me like I farted in their mouth. They just didn’t get it and when we went as The Critically Ashamed for awhile half the songs weren’t even under that name so there was definite confusion out there.

So, time will tell in the next few months, but for now? I have this and that’s all I need for right now.

I hope you enjoyed going down memory lane with me, I hope you enjoy the music and I appreciate ALL of the support and love that you have given me so far, It means the world to me.

G2