Matt Brotka-Tattoo Artist Profile & The Fortune Healers

This is my friend Matt Brotka, he is an amazing tattoo artist from Rhode Island. Hes worked at countless shops and for/with countless of my other tattooer/shop owner friends. A few years ago he packed up and moved to Richmond, VA. He now works out of Salvation Tattoo and this is his artist profile video. Which he used my band(The Fortune Healers) tunes for the background music!

If you have a minute check out the video! Then check out The Fortune Healers! and if you really like tattoos please check out his webiste! Matt is an extremely good tattooer and I'm sure RI has been bummed since he left. If you live in Richmond look him up!

www.mattbrotka.com

Signed!

After recording 1 shitty demo in a hardcore band with some friends in 2004 and a handful of demos that were never released in various projects, I am finally in a functioning band that has a legitimate CD released! It would be my first not only written and recorded BUT mastered and packaged release on a record label! Its such a small thing that is going to go completely unnoticed but its still a pretty cool to me. You never know what can happen. Everyone starts small and this is just the beginning. Init Records is a great place for a start, TJ has known Steve for a while and I personally own releases from Init. When I was 16 buying Spirit of Versailles 7 inches I would have never thought that 10 years later I would be in a band that would have a release on that same label.

July marks a year that I have been doing The Fortune Healers. I've enjoying my time in this band writing rock n roll songs with my friends. Doing even the small things that we do. Pretty much anything that happens is an accomplishment. We've been lucky enough to be playing locally 1 to 2 times a month and its good to finally be able to play for/with friends considering a lot of friends have yet to even see me play drums or hear what I've been doing. Last week we made friends with a NYC band called Tidal Arms who are cool ass dudes and dug us real hard which is awesome as hell. We hope to get to NYC to play with them in the future. People seem to be digging it when they can catch a show so it makes me happy to know people are liking what I'm doing and to see how much I kill it behind a drum kit (beeep beeep).

The ball has started rolling and who knows what can happen. I'm excited to start writing more music for a full length, which will also be a first and we also plan to release a 7" sometime soon. I cannot wait to track for that. Its going to feature a song we play out but have yet to record thats one of my favorites thus far.

Until then you can grab our EP HERE in the INIT Records webstore for only $3!

My Drum Rig

Photo: Albert Longo

My drums set up after load in at The Fortune Healers show we played at The Met Cafe 2 weeks ago.

Matthew Richard...BACK on the internet!

After getting up on The Dark Horse roster list and the website being redone shortly after my presence was extremely short lived. However the time has come again! I now have my drums, a band and all the other appropriate information together and I am back up on the site amongst the other DHP artists!



Head on over to www.darkhorsepercussion.com and check the ARTIST section to see the whole deal!

My Year In Pictures

2010 was an amazing year for me. Probably one of the better years of my life. This blog is actually one quite contrary to all my other year ender blogs that I have posted in the past. I see this to be a very good thing. I set out to do things this year and I accomplished ALL of them. Everything went my way. I feel very fortunate and lucky to be able to say that. I've also met a ton of new people this year, I'm pleased to have met all of them, everyone is so awesome and respectful. Its great. I look forward to the lifetimes ahead with everyone. 2011 starts off amazing and I have only a vague idea of whats in store. Heres to having just about everything I could ever want.

April 2010: I moved out of my parents into the city of Providence.


July 2010: I was referred by a friend to talk to his boss/co-worker about a band he was working on. Thats when I met TJ, who is a dude thats totally on my level. TJ needed a better and more available drummer. Thats when I joined The Fortune Healers. Our Bass player wasn't working either, so I took the pleasure of getting my good friend Derek in the band as well. Not to mention I've known Jae for about 7 years. I'm excited to be in a band with good people.

August 2010: After over a years wait, I FINALLY received my custom drums from Dark Horse Percussion.

September 2010: I visited the country of Australia. This is me on the steps of the Opera House.

December 2010: After months of "dating", I have a new girlfriend. Its nice, different. Wish me luck! I'll need it!

Stude Dudes.

Healers in Trapdoor Studios getting work done! Our Ep is currently finished. Just needs mixing and mastering. Which will be taken care of during the months of December and January. We were hoping to have a complete finished product by January but the Holidays are a crazy time for everyone and we have some bigger plans in the works as to what to do with this EP once it is actually finished and in our hands.

We don't know what is in the future but we hope that its good. So as of right now there is no foreseen date to which these songs will see the light of day. Just know that it IS coming.

Giggin Vidz II

I almost forgot! Here are 3 videos taken from the Cake Shop show! They were taken on our friend Nates iphone. They aren't the best in the business but they work just fine!

Clementine

When The  Ship Comes In

Bad Days

New York, New York

The Fortune Healers played a show in Manhattan, NYC. The reason I post this is because this is a picture of the FIRST outside of New England performance of my life. I haven't played many live shows in my time but the ones I have played were only in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Now I'm out of the box and out there showing NYC what I have!

I could not be any happier to be in a band doing things. No matter how small. I've had the dreams but I feel more grounded than I ever have before. It doesn't matter if there are 5 or 500 people there, I'm playing music! Every face I play for is an accomplishment. So many things to come and to happen. All I can do is be patient and wait to soak up every moment that happens. 

Publicity.

There is a write up on the Song Of Zarathustra reunion show thats taking place November 6th 2010 at The Cake Shop in Brooklyn, NY on a website called Brooklyn Vegan. This is cool because this is a show that my band The Fortune Healers is opening!

CHECK IT OUT HERE!

LIVE!

Here is a  picture of my kit thats on the Dark Horse website!

AND here is what it looks like in action!


My band(blog coming soon) played our first show last Friday. It was the musical side to the Love Thy Neighbor Art show tossed together by Mcinnis Tattoo. A place where many local and New England tattooers can come and show off their art and sell it.

It was a fantastic event to introduce ourselves to Providence. Lots of friends and just an overall great vibe and scene to be apart of. I could not be any happier with how the night went and how we played. It was a blast!

photos by: Rich Gaccione