February 5th, 2010:

Quick note: I mixed up some information in my write up on The Violent Blue preorders. The package deal does not come with both shirts. We'd actually lose money if we included both shirts at that price, so it comes with the monster (because that design is exclusive to the preorder and won't be reprinted) and not the polar bear. I apologize for the misinformation. I suck. If you'd like to yell at me, my e-mail is on the contact page.

That being said …

Shows: First thing I should mention … The February shows I'd planned? They fell through. This was predominantly due to poor planning on my part, and not giving myself time to properly organize things. Also, I live in Florida. I forget that for some parts of the world, Winter means snow and harsh conditions, not just wearing extra clothes and not swimming. But I was only going to do maybe 5 days worth of shows anyway, more as a test run than a proper outing. So I'm not too bummed. I am now organizing everything for the Spring and Summer runs, which will happen. I'm determined now.

But for the two shows I've added to the shows section of this website:

Alex and I will be playing the SXSW. It'll be the first time we've played together live in about 3 years, so I suspect it will be a mess. But our shows are always a mess. We're not very professional even on our best behavior. So I guess it'll be like it always is. But it will be a proper Electric President show for the first time in a long while, so that's something. We might even have a drummer, too. And I've never been to SXSW before. It sounds like a nightmare, to be honest. Hahaha. I don't know the exact date yet, but I'll post it once I know.

The second date I posted is the one show salvaged from my attempts to tour in February. It will be in Washington D.C., on March 26th, in Phil Cohen's basement apartment. I don't know how many people can be stuffed into an apartment, but it's pretty large judging from the pictures. If you'd like to come, Phil has been kind enough to post his contacts for any questions you may have concerning the show, and I'll answer whatever I can.

But as I said, I'm booking plenty more dates after this. So if this is nowhere near you, or it's at a bad time, don't worry. I plan on driving around the country and playing a bunch of songs on an acoustic guitar this year. I also plan on jumping out of an airplane for my birthday. 2010 should be pretty fun. And I hear the world is gonna explode in two years, so I might as well pack everything in.

I had more to write, but I can't remember what it is right now and I need to get back to recording. If I think of it before bed, I'll type it up.

I hope everyone is well.

February 1st, 2010:

I'm glad Janurary is done with. Pretty crappy month. Spent most of it sick. Soon after my last post, I was spitting up far more blood than mucus, at which point I figured a doctor visit was in order. I was told by a doctor with really shaky hands that I had some infections, both in my sinuses and potentially in my chest. I'm well now, after a couple weeks of antibiotics, lots of rest, and more yogurt than you can shake a spoon at.

But one thing I'd like to mention before I continue: I'm even more backed up on e-mails than normal, if that's possible. As always, if I haven't gotten back to you about something and it's been more than a week or two, feel free to send the message again. And thanks for bearing with me. I'm forever slow about writing people back, and I always feel somewhat guilty about it.

On to the projects:

The Violent Blue (the 3rd Electric President album) goes up for preorder today, February 1st. If you'd like to pick up this record, in the physical sense, then this is likely the best way to do it. We've made everything as cheap as possible. Because the way I see it, preorders are for people that actually bother to follow the project. So rather than a big money-making scheme where, in the end, we roll around in all the cash on a hotel bed with our shirts off, this is more a way to try and hook everyone up as best we can. So here is what's available:

The Cd / The Vinyl T-Shirt 1 T-Shirt 2 The Poster Sticker One Sticker Two

The second shirt, the poster and the second sticker are specific to this preorder, in that they will never be printed again after this. They are preorder only. You can buy items individually if you choose, but we also have a package that includes everything above for $20 USD, which is definitely the best deal. This is all being handled by myself and the label, so there's no middle man. Makes everything tons cheaper, if notably harder to package and mail.

The preorders are limited to 300, though. I have no idea how fast everything will go, as we've never done a preorder for anything before (and we've never really had merch), nor have we ever put out anything in the US. But it will be first come, first serve. So I guess keep that in mind.

Orders can be placed at circleintosquare.com, which is the web store that Fake Four Inc. uses.

Also, the video that I mentioned in the last post is up now. It's for the title track from the record. Here are the links, if you'd like to see it:

youtube       vimeo

And for some still from the shoot, see below. The costumes for the creatures look terrible (I laugh whenever I see that picture of all of us), but the whole plan was to only light them from the back. And while shooting at night can be a real pain, it helps hide a lot of stuff. Like that we have no money or time to make things actually look good. Hahaha.

The Suits      Lighting by Boese       Me and Debra

Viewing Footage       Mark Shaking His Face Really Fast

Side Note: We got our Electric President myspace page back. We never actually ran this one. I don't know who originally started it, but it wasn't us and it wasn't anyone at Morr. But anyway, we have control of it again, so it's been updated. And the folks over at Fake Four made it look all fancy. I'd still prefer to be contacted via e-mail through this site, but I'll do my best to keep up with it.

Patients: I want to thank everyone who has sent in their stories thus far. I actually have 3 songs going already because of it. So keep them coming. And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, details are in my last post, and I will also be updating the Patients page this week with another clarification of how this volume will play out. And I will have the first track up sometime this month. Perhaps soon, depending on how much free time shows up. I'm also going to start a mailing list, for those who want to be e-mailed once each song is done. Just gotta figure the easiest way to do that.

I have more information on shows and the first of the new Radical Face records (which will be wrapped up this month … I'm very close now), but my food is ready. I don't know why I always write these posts after sticking something in the oven, but it happens more often than not. Weird habit. Anywho, I'll post again in a couple days with information on those two bits.

I hope everyone is well.

January 10th, 2010:

Well, it's taken me longer to get back than I expected. Which means this will be a pretty long post. Sorry in advance.

That being said …

I've been sick for exactly 3 weeks now. This is the longest I've ever been out of commission from illness. I think I brought it on myself. I remember mentioning, a couple months ago, that I hadn't been the slightest bit sick for over a year, ever since I started strength straining, and that maybe the heavy exercising had made me immune. Ha. Take that, confidence. I've had everything from crazy congestion, fevers, random aches and pains, gas bubbles getting caught in my chest, and now, a good old fashioned sinus infection. I've been trying to work through it, with mixed success. If this goes on much longer, I'm gonna bite the financial bullet and go see a doctor. I think my last official check-up was 15 years ago. That's the last time I had insurance.

Concerning my laptop, my suspicions were correct. My graphics card died. But the harddrive was fine, and I got all the data off. But then I rant into some new problems. No current, commercially available laptops support XP (as in, they don't even release chipset drivers for them). Or none that I could find with the specs I need for recording. So I upgraded. The label loaned me some money (thanks again) and I picked up a new laptop. Only problem is, my interface (which is what converts audio signals to digital, by night known as a/d converters) was discontinued 3 years ago and has no driver support for Windows 7. So now I also need a new interface. And likely a new recording program. So it looks like I'm changing everything. Technology, usually pretty awesome in terms of the tools it provides, occasionally has to remind everyone that it can be a bastard, too.

But in some ways I think this was good. I needed a change. I always change my approach to writing music, because I equate “comfort” and “familiar process” as the antithesis of creativity. Or at least I'm very suspicious of comfort when it comes to art. I feel it makes me lazy. But I rarely change my tools. I don't buy a lot of gear, and tend to use the same things until they die. It'll be good to move to new tools and see what new processes shake out.

As for updates on projects …

Electric President: The Violent Blue is now pressed, and the preorder stuff has all gone to manufacturers. Should have everything totally wrapped up in a couple weeks. I also shot a video with my long-time friend Mark Hubbard. We came up with the concept over coffee one night, and then figured out a budget – the budget always being whatever money I can personally spare at the time. In this case, I had $150. For location, I really wanted to shoot everything on the beach at night. I love the beach at night, and since that was a launching point for a lot of this record, it seemed appropriate. But it's not real easy conditions to shoot a video. There was no natural light to speak of, and it was cold and windy and somewhat miserable. So most of our budget went to renting a generator to power lights, and to feeding everyone who volunteered to help. The costumes for the “creatures” ( we went a vague sort of sci-fi theme for this) were made out of wet suits, battery powered lights, duct tape and cut up sheets. I think it came out pretty good, considering all the things we had to work around. I'll post some production stills once the video is posted. It's funny to see how awful we all look when it's not totally dark.

But I gotta say, going in the ocean in Winter really sucks. I guess it's no surprise I've been sick. But the video should be posted on youtube and vimeo pretty soon. I'll post a link once it's up. And thanks again to the volunteers (Curtis, Micah, Chris, Micheal and Boese, to be specific about it).

Radical Face: There have been some delays, both of which I mentioned. My laptop exploding and this never ending illness have made it so I haven't recorded anything in about a month. Which might be the longest break I've had from recording in 5 years. It's pretty weird, actually. I normally work on music every day, in some form. I've only been writing words since getting sick. Though I had a lot of lyrics to comb over and clean up, so it's good to be caught up in that area at least, but it's still been odd.

But I'd planned on having The Roots totally tracked before the year was out, which obviously did not happen. I still have the last two songs to finish (I want to retrack one of them entirely, as I don't think the recording is just right). But I also came to realize that the way I wanted to release the records was impractical. So I will only be releasing The Roots this year, with the next two coming in 2011. But we plan to release Clone this year as well, so an EP album, a RF album and Clone is not a bad haul for one year. I probably couldn't have kept up with any other releases anyway, considering how poorly I'm handling my workload just now. Hahaha.

But I'm really excited about how this Family Tree set is coming out. It's the longest running, most involved project I've ever tackled. But it's paying off for me. I'm really happy with it. Which makes me anxious to get it out, but patience is a virtue, and all that.

Patients: I have an idea for how volume 2 of Patients is going to play out. I don't know when I will be able to start it, but I think I'll go ahead and mention what it will be.

I would like to build an album one song at a time. What I mean by this is, I would like to do a song a month (though, it may take longer sometimes … depends on free time), just with whatever style or sound I'm interested at that time, then put it up for download. Kinda like how they used to do serial novels in magazines. But here's the catch …

For subject matter, I would like to hear stories from people. Anyone out there who is reading this and has a story they think would be an interesting subject for a song. It could be autobiographical, or something that happened to someone you know, or something you read in a newspaper, or complete fiction (though, I'd prefer these were based on true events). I just like stories, all kinds, and while I have plenty of my own, I think it would be really fun to have them provided by people I don't personally know. To just be surprised by them.

After the track is done, I can post the story chosen, so you can see where I got the ideas from, and how the ideas were interpreted. I would also like to just explain the process of these songs, as I always have interest in process and how things come about, and think it'd be a fun thing to share.

I'm not exactly sure when I will begin this. But probably within a month or so. If you have a story that you would like to tell, go ahead and type it up. I have set up an e-mail for story submissions, which is storiesforpatients@radicalface.com. The only thing I ask is to keep brevity in mind. A twenty thousand word submission will take me a while to get to, for example.

Side Note: please do not be offended if you send in a story and it isn't used. This isn't a talent contest, and I'm not here to judge the quality of people's writing. I will be using things based on whether they give me ideas for lyrics, or if they fit the idea I've already come up with musically. And I'm happy to read stories in general, so every submission will be read and appreciated. Just not all will be used for the project.

Touring: I have set up a shows section on the website. I am getting the dates finalized for the winter tour this coming week. That tour should take place in the middle of February (between the 2nd and 3rd week). I'll have the dates posted this week. And I still haven't written the majority of you back yet. This is not because I don't like your ideas, or don't want you to host. I'm just dealing with the Winter stuff first, and once that is in place, I will start talking to everyone else. So if you haven't heard from me yet, it's probably because I'm planning on contacting you about the Spring, Summer or Fall outings. So please be patient with me. I have a habit of taking on way more than I can personally handle. It's probably the only thing I'm perfectly consistent with.

And I think that's everything. Even if it isn't, I'm starving. I'll make any amendments tomorrow.

I hope everyone is well. And stay healthy.

December 14th, 2009:

Well, tonight has been a downer.

Sat down to work on some mixes, and my laptop now boots solely with vertical lines on the screen, in various colors, then fades to white and does it again. Can't even get into BIOS. I looked it up, and it sounds like either my graphics card died, or my LCD needs to be replaced. Hard to say with hardware failures. And it's not like a tower where I can easily just swap stuff in and out to find the culprit. But I very much hope my hard drive hasn't been wiped, as I haven't backed up my work in about 3 weeks and it'd be quite a set back. I'm holding my breath that this isn't the case. I'd lose the last two Clone sessions, a song I just finished yesterday for a French compilation, and have to re-track a lot of stuff for the Roots. Gah. Shouldn't have gone so long without backing things up.

But in other news, Alex and I recently got together to shoot some photos (they always ask for new pictures when putting out an album). For this round, we decided to go to a portrait studio and have our glamor shots done. We didn't have any input on these. We just let the photographer control everything, in hopes that it would look like awkward school photos from 1994. I think we got what we were aiming for. I can't look at them without laughing. Examples:

One Two Three

And I'd intended to talk some on the Radical Face records and Clone, but I can't really do that until I find out what's up with my laptop. And while I usually only post on things directly related to the projects I'm involved in, there's something I was talking to Rickolus (other half of Clone) about last week that's been on my mind a bit. So I'm gonna break form and just jot this down. It may terribly uninteresting. Feel free to skip to the end.

Rick and I have been meeting one evening a week for the past, I dunno, 12 years now. Maybe longer. And we talk about everything under the sun, or show each other works-in-progress for critiques -- everything from music, to painting, to writing, or whatever else we've been into. Nothing is off limits, both in what we share and what we discuss. But music is a frequent topic. And last week we started talking about a different aspect of it. We starting discussing not what we were listening to, but how.

It started because Rick mentioned wanting to get a tape deck again, and I talked about how I no longer listen to music on my computer. On my end, I'm not a big fan of the more modern ways of listening. I don't really like playlists. I don't own an mp3 player. I have a phone that can play music, and I've never used that feature. This has nothing to do with principle. I've bought two mp3 players to date. I just didn't like them. The first was eventually stolen at a show (I left it on stage during sound check ... go me). I didn't miss it. I was given one as a gift a year later, and I wound up giving it away. And even though I have a healthy library of music on my computer, I've stopped using it. I've gone back to just CDs, vinyls and tapes. But while talking with Rick, I think we pinpointed the "why?" of this. At least for ourselves.

While mp3 players and phones and all these portable libraries of audio are more convenient, I don't have a whole lot of use for convenience when it comes to the things I care about. Convenience is something I mostly want for things that I have to get done but don't enjoy. Like, I dunno ... laundry. I want my laundry to be convenient. I just want my clothes to stop being filthy. I'll take whatever the fastest route for this is. But when it comes to music, something that I genuinely care about on a lot of levels, I enjoy investing in it. I like that there's a process. I like hunting down physical records. I like the act of turning vinyls over. I like when going on a road trip I have to choose what CDs I will bring, that I don't have every record I have ever purchased available all the time. I like how making a mix-tape takes hours, and planning, and that it isn't something easily replaceable. None of these things are convenient, but I'm not really looking for convenience in the things I love. I've found that when I used the convenient methods (in my case, mp3 players) I became a far less patient listener, that I developed some kind of music ADD with my listening habits. I actually found I enjoyed it less.

And this isn't just music. For another example, I like food, and I like to make it. I enjoy cooking when I have the time. I could get everything pre-packaged, and it'd be more convenient, but I'd enjoy it less. There are times when I eat simpler because I'm busy, but I don't remember those times. Convenient things are often forgettable, especially once you get used to the convenience of it. I don't want the things I genuinely enjoy to become forgettable.

I'm not trying to get on a soapbox here. I'm not out to tell anyone how to listen to music, or anything of the sort. And I'm well aware that I could just be getting older, or that I'm in the claws of that giant we call nostalgia. But I would like to propose a question here. A tidbit to think about, perhaps.

Do you ever think about the way you listen to music? Do you care about the process of it? And for those who've grown up with the aforementioned conveniences, have you ever just sat down and listened to a record? As in, that was the event. That the music wasn't background music for whatever else you were doing at the time. Maybe sometime just get together with a friend, pour some drinks, and sit and listen to a record you both like. Treat it like watching a movie. Or perhaps drive around and listen to a CD, not because you have somewhere to go, but as a way to just listen.

A couple nights ago, Rick and I sat in his living room and listened to a mix-tape that neither of us had heard in nearly ten years. It was really nice. I recommend it.

But that's enough rambling from me. I don't really even know why I'm typing this. Perhaps as a way to avoid thinking about my damn laptop potentially being a paperweight. I realize that someone might read this and think "Maybe this asshole should stick to writing about his projects." And don't worry, I likely will. Hahaha. But I hope everyone is well. And we'll be shooting this new video (Mark and I, and all the people willing to help out) over the next two days. Gonna be a bit of work, but should be fun. Wish us luck.

December 13th, 2009:

I should have learned to expect it by now, but I misjudged my time again. Still catching up.

I may be getting some help in organizing these shows, as it's been tough to get it all together. Between preparing The Violent Blue for release and designing everything for the preorders, wrapping up The Roots, working on Clone, and my other odd jobs that actually earn money (gotta pay the bills, and all that), I've only had a couple hours a day for e-mails, business and otherwise. So I'm steadily falling behind. But as I said, I think I'm gonna be employing some help to get the shows together, and I'm working on the code for a “shows” section on the website, so I can more easily post updates and let everyone know of the confirmed dates. I'm gonna try to get it up tomorrow if I can manage it. And also fix the Electric President part of the site that I broke when trying to update it. Hahaha.

But I finished the designs for all the preorder stuff this week. There's the CD and the Vinyl of course (both of which will have all the lyrics this go around), but also two T-shirts (one of which will be entirely exclusive to the preorders), two posters (again, one exclusive), 3 stickers, and perhaps one more thing I'm on the fence about right now. Just not sure if I'll have the time to get it together. But all of this will be real cheap, as the whole point of these preorders is to basically give back to the folks that actually bother to keep up with the project. Profit isn't the big concern here. So if you're interested, keep an eye on this page. The preorders will be a set amount, and not terribly many. I'll be sure to post once the ordering becomes available.

And here are two of the designs: shirt and poster

Also, I'm teaming up with Mark Hubbard again to do a video for The Violent Blue (title track from the record). We've already come up with the general storyboard, and should be shooting next week. I just hope that we don't get the cops called on us, and I don't get pneumonia. Fingers crossed.

I will be posting the dates for the Winter shows this coming week. It won't be many (4 or 5), and will be staying on the East Coast. But I'll give the specifics once I've talked to everyone and have it all confirmed.

Clone and the next Radical Face record are both close to finished now. I'll type more on those soon. But I'm falling asleep at the wheel. Please pardon any grammar farts. This probably reads like hell.

I hope everyone is well.

November 11th, 2009:

Touring:

Okay. Organizing this has been taking longer than expected. And it always does, but I never learn to expect it. I don't know what that says about me, but I am regularly reminded that I am shitty manager of my time. If I ever offer to organize something for you, tell me to get the hell away. And don't be nervous if I haven't written you back yet. I've barely written anyone, because I keep running into new things I hadn't considered. And to be honest, I started posting about this entire idea on a whim. An excited whim, but a whim nonetheless. But I think I have it relatively together now. Which probably means I don't. Ha.

Details on where and how the shows will take place are detailed in previous posts, but for a generalization, it's a no-clubs-no-major-cities tour. Just trying to play shows in interesting settings that feel more appropriate and interesting, instead of trying to rework the music to work in the standard spots.

I'm planning on going out 3 times next year, possibly 4 (I'm gonna try to do this in Europe, which would be the 4th outing, but I have no idea if that would work yet). Each mini-tour will be no longer than two weeks (both due to finances and the fact that I usually start to hate touring after the 2nd week), and will have about 5 to 7 shows each. The first run will happen in Winter (last week of January and first week of February, I think). The second should happen around the end of Spring, and the third around the end of Summer. The first run will have to be indoors only, because of the weather. The other two will work both outdoors and in. I really want to do some outdoor shows, but still have them at night.

If you have interest in hosting one of these shows, or assisting in putting one together, I would need you to consider the following things first:

1) I will be posting these dates on my website. Which means there might be more than just locals there. Please consider what that entails. I have no idea who will be showing up, or how many. There might be 5 people there, there might be 50. If your space is limited, an RSVP system could be set up, but I would just like everyone to consider what this might mean. If you want to host one in your backyard, make sure you are okay with strangers being there. I would like to think that people would be respectful of these spaces, but I can't guarantee that.

2) I will need help promoting. If you plan on hosting, I will likely need you and folks you know to help spread the word around where you live. I'm perfectly fine playing small shows, but as touring is something I usually lose money on, it'd be nice if some people at least showed up. But none of these shows will have a cover charge, so I think you'll mostly just be combating general laziness. Hahaha.

3) If the area we plan to hold the show is unorthodox, I will need you to find out if it's legal. I don't want to drive all the way there only to get shut down by the cops ten minutes into it. And I'd like to avoid getting arrested if I can. I realize that things could certainly go wrong playing shows in places not designed for them, but if we could minimize the chances of things falling apart it'd be appreciated.

So, those things said, if you write in and want to host a show, please let me know what season you're available for, along with the other necessary details. If you can do all of them, that's great, but simply letting me know if you could do a “Winter or Spring”, or “only Fall” would go a long way towards organizing a route. Also, please specify if it's outdoors or indoors, whether there'd be electricity available, and whether you'd have a place for me and whoever comes along to sleep.

And if you've already written in, feel free to send your offer again with the times you'd be available. Actually, I'd prefer if you did this. I would be a lot easier for me all around. Just be clear that you are sending it again. It could get confusing otherwise.

And regardless of how this turns out, I want to thank everyone for the support and for all the offers that have come in. Some of this is stemming from how nice the Patients trade turned out, and I'm glad that people are willing to do something a little different from time to time. Gives life more color. And I really don't know how this will go -- I could very well be setting myself up for disaster, and go out only to have everything blow up in my face -- but I'm excited to try, and for the first time in about 6 years, I'm excited to play shows in the US again. Oh, and I'm building a “tours” section into the website (as long as I don't botch anymore code), so once I have solid dates and locations, I will post all the information there.

I know I am forgetting something here, but I can't pull it up at the moment. I'll do another post when it comes back to me.

I hope everyone is well.

November 7th, 2009:

Okay. I have a lot to cover here. I'll use numbers to make some attempt at organization.

1) Electric President: I finally have all the details together concerning the release of The Violent Blue.

The record is set to be released in February, and it'll be coming out on a different label this time around. They're called Fake Four Inc. and they're based out of the US. It'll be our first time putting something out stateside, so that should be interesting. The record will be mastered soon, the artwork is all done, and I'm gonna be working with my friend Mark Hubbard on a video over the next month or so. It'll be similar to the Sleep Well videos we did. in that the budget will be whatever I have in my pocket at the time and we'll just figure out how to do everything as we go. Should be fun.

But we're going to be doing some pretty cool stuff for preorder deals, so once that's all together I'll be sure to post info on it. If that's something you're interested in, check back for updates.

Side note: In attempting to update the Electric President page, I messed up all my code. I'm aware that it's all a mess though. I'll try to fix it when I get up tomorrow.

2) Radical Face: The first of the Family Tree records (Roots) is nearly finished. I'm tracking the last group of songs now, then I just gotta mix everything.

This first album is a bit of a somber record. Not so much musically (it's more upbeat than Ghost, overall), but lyrically it deals a lot with death. Not every song, mind you, but a good number of them. Might be a bit odd for a beginning record in a set, but it all fits to me. And I don't think it's terribly morbid. I'd say it's a pretty hopeful take, considering the subject matter.

But as always for me, the lyrics have been the slowest part of the process. I've been working a lot on the "tone" of the words, and it's made me really picky. I doubt anyone will even notice the difference, but I got pretty hung up on lots of details. All three of these records are heavily steeped in storytelling and the concept of family, and I really wanted the words, and the style of writing, to reflect that. Not that I haven't worked with those subjects before, but I've gone further down the rabbit hole on this one, to borrow a cliche. And the subject of family is one I've wanted to tackle for a long time now. It always felt too large before. That's a very loaded word for me, so it always seemed like an enormous undertaking, one I'd have to be prepared for. But I'm getting what I hoped for out of this. I feel really good about it.

I'd like to see this album released in Spring, with the follow-up (Branches) coming out in Fall. But scheduling records has a way of getting complicated. I'll post any news concerning when and how the records will be released once I have it. But I should be putting the finishing touches on this first chapter soon.

3) Touring: I've figured out a lot more concerning this. But my eyelids are closing of their own accord while typing this, so I think I'm gonna cut this short and do a separate post tomorrow. I doubt anything I'd type would be terribly coherent at this point anyways.

I hope everyone is well.

October 16th, 2009:

Minor update.

Pretty much right after I posted last time, I had a power surge. When the electricity returned and all the appliances came back to life, my modem and router didn't join in. Both were dead. It took a while for the replacement modem to show up, so I still haven't gotten back to anyone about the shows. But I will be writing everyone over the weekend.

But I gotta say, the internet vacation was really nice. It broke my routine and changed how I spend my free time. I gotta do it more often.

And I'm gonna have a bunch of new record related news soon, such as potential release dates, progress on all the projects, and how they'll be released. But I'll save that for next update. For now, I need to sleep. My eyelids are closing on their own.

I hope everyone is well.

October 6th, 2009:

Just a quick post here concerning shows.

I think this touring idea I had is gonna work. I posted about it last update just to see if there was enough interest. No real point in doing it otherwise. But a surprising amount of people have written me in the past two weeks with ideas for shows, offers of couches and food, and just general support of the idea. Which is really encouraging. You folks are awesome. It means a lot to me that you'd go out of your way to help make this happen. I'm excited to play shows for the first time in about 7 years.

And I've been organizing everything more. First, I put up an e-mail address for this, so my inbox doesn't get any more confusing than it already is. If you have any ideas for shows (see former post for what I mean about that), write me about it here: shows@radicalface.com. If you've already written me about it, I will respond to you from the new address. I haven't written anyone back yet, due to me still figuring out exactly what I'm doing, but I'm going to start tonight.

And for more specifics concerning this ...

The general idea is to play places other than clubs. I would love to play shows outdoors, or in barns, or in the woods, in attics, in abandoned buildings, playgrounds, graveyards. Anywhere with an interesting setting, and preferably one that won't get anyone arrested. Access to electricity is also a plus, though I'm gonna look into getting a generator. But I plan on bringing a few hundred feet of extensions chords with my, just in case. Small towns are not only fine, but in some ways preferable. The big cities always have everything come to them. It'd be nice to flip that around some.

I will likely be touring solo. It would be nice to have some folks to play with for more elaborate arrangements, but that never seems to work out. So I will probably do this with just an acoustic guitar, an electric guitar, a bell kit, a laptop, and a sampler. I own a PA (the speaker/mixer system commonly used for shows), so amplification can be provided. I'm gonna try to have a set that's all acoustic, too, in case there's no electricity or it'd need to remain quiet. But overall these will be simple shows, likely pretty stripped down, or using audience participation instead of a band. I'd like that be known up front. I don't want folks feeling disappointed when it isn't a rock show. Or when they find out I'm not much of a performer. Hahaha.

I don't plan on doing cover charges for any of this, though. I think donations would be the best bet, and I will have merch with me. Between the two, I think I should be able to get from one city to the next. Financially, my main goal is to not lose any money, and to be able to pay the guy who's gonna be doing most of the driving. If it happens to be in a setting where tickets would work better, then that's fine, but I'm not planning on it.

I will be doing these in smaller runs. I can't afford to go out for too long, both financially and due to responsibilities, and I don't own a car (and will likely have to rent one). But a friend of mine is a tour manager, and he's down to do this with me when he's not on one of his regular gigs. His first opening is in January, so I'm planning on that for the first run. But as that would be the dead of Winter, outdoor shows wouldn't really work. If it's too cold to play guitar, it won't be much of a show. So for this first run, it'll have to be places that are inside, or not too freezing. I'd also like to keep it under two weeks. So it might only be 5 or 6 shows total, depending on how spread out the locations are. But don't worry if I don't come near on the first run. I plan to do little spurts all throughout next year.

Oh, and for those of you writing me from Europe, I would love to do this over there as well. It will likely be more complicated, seeing as plane tickets cost a lot and I don't really know how I'd get around, but I'm sure it could be worked out. If you have suggestions or offer, feel free to send them in.

So that's where I'm at with this. And I'll be writing everyone back soon. Please bear with me on that.

I hope everyone is well.

September 20th, 2009:

I never write as often as I intend to. I guess I could break updates into manageable bits and post more regularly, but I never do. For whatever reason.

The Electric President record is finished. It took me about a month and a half longer than I intended it to (considering it was mostly finished when I last posted). But that's because it underwent some changes. It's no longer a b-sides collection. Not really. It started that way, but we wound up reworking a lot of the material to fit together better. I'm not real good at just putting songs on a disc and leaving them at that. Something about it bothers me. Anyway, once that started, all the material began to mutate into something different. The guts of the song remained the same (the chords, and some of the sounds and instruments), but the result landed somewhere left of the original intention. And since things were already shifting, we wrote a few new songs to fit with how the others had shifted.

Over the course of all this, a theme began to develop. Normally, I begin with an overall goal, or a larger theme to keep in mind while writing and arranging everything. It helps keep me focused, and gives me some drive to push what I understand about music, to explore things that are new or uncomfortable to me, and how to use music to convey whatever new ideas I have. It's hard for me to be interested in music that feels like something I've already done. Simply writing coherent and pleasant songs does nothing for me unless it's in direct contrast to pushing myself, as a kind of relief. I have more fear of repeating myself too much (musically speaking) than I do of failing for attempting something new. I'd rather things blow up in my face than get too comfortable. But I began this record just wanting to finish all the things we'd started. No larger goal. But this theme showed up halfway through, just kinda crept up and jumped on my back. More and more I found myself referencing the ocean, both lyrically and musically. I've always loved something about the ocean, especially at night. It's equally beautiful and overwhelming. I spent a lot of time at the beach this Summer -- got the tan to prove it -- and I'd often bring notebooks and write lyrics in between swimming. That no doubt played a part as well. But those two elements became big ones for me, things that are pretty, or even sentimental, coupled with things that are overwhelming. And in terms of sound, it shares a little with Sleep Well as that's where a lot of this grew from, but doesn't sound much like either of the former records to me.

So this is an odd record for me personally. Somewhere between a collection and a new record. Or I guess it's a new record built from a collection. Album 2.5 for us, instead of number 3. Though I'm not sure there will be a number 3. And I don't know when this will be released, or how, or where. I'm working that out now. But when I know, I'll post about it. But I think it's going to be called “The Violent Blue”, which I guess is my nickname for the ocean.

On to Radical Face. I took a break from both this and Clone to concentrate on finishing the EP record with Alex, but it was good for me. The space made it easy to evaluate everything again. I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but I demoed all of the material for these records beforehand. Not complete demos, mind you. Just 1 to 2 minutes on guitar or piano, or whatever was the “core” of that particular song. Just enough to get the feel and the mood across. I've then taken all of these demos (over 30 of them … I've been writing for this record for over two years) and arranged them into scrap book versions of albums. I had to do this to be able to match them up with all the stories I'd come up with for this fictional family tree I've become somewhat obsessed with. When I sat down to reevaluate all the material last week, I could move everything around with a very sure hand. I feel confident in how they're all built now. Things will naturally change once I start tracking final versions, but that's always the case.

The Roots, which will be the first of the 3 records, should be done within a month or so. Over half the record is totally finished, and I've tracked most of the instruments on the rest. I'm still writing the arrangements on two of the tracks, but I had a real light bulb moment last night on one of them (the only thing missing was some dissonant harmonies during the build up … and it took me two weeks to realize that for some reason). So it's not far off. But I still have to fine tune all the words. And I spend more time on that than anything. I really wish I could write lyrics quickly, but I get real picky about various words I don't like the sound of and then take forever to find a better way to say it. I never seem to get any faster at it. Anyway, Roots will be done in Fall, Branches will be tracked over Winter, and Relatives I want done in the Spring. It is going to be a shit ton of work, but if I stay on it I think I can do this. Having everything all demoed out will save me a lot of time, as I can already see how things will fit and don't have to spend so much time on rewrites.

Also, Clone is back underway. There was a hiatus due to hectic schedules, and Rick and I each needing to finish our individual records we were wrapped up in. But we've begun writing the music for act 4. It's good to be moving on it again. It's an interesting project to me, because we never work on it unless we're in the same room together. Normally, I carry records around in my head for the duration of making them, to the point where I sometimes have trouble sleeping. But this one I let go of once we're done for the day, and return to it when we meet again next week. As such, it almost feels like it's coming out of nowhere. It's a cool way of doing things.

I think we'll have it all wrapped up this Fall. I'm excited to show people.

Then the last topic I want to cover is touring.

I've been thinking over this a bunch this past year. I've never been wild about touring. Which is kind of odd, considering I like to travel, I enjoy meeting people, and I like to play music. So I started really thinking about what bugs me about it, and the first bit is this: clubs. I don't mind seeing shows at clubs sometimes, but I've never loved playing them. Especially solo (which is what this concerns). Everything about that environment seems like it's stacked against you unless you're very loud or very charismatic. I am neither. This is not to say I've never had good shows in clubs. I have. It worked out a few times when touring with Electric President. But not as much as I would like. Part of this is my fault as well. I'm not trying to blame this on others. Mostly just trying to find a way to really enjoy the live side of music.

The other issue I have with touring is the pace. Since you're just going from one club to the next, playing every night, you don't often get to stop and really talk with people, or see anything that isn't within a couple miles of where you're playing. This is fine for a couple weeks, but it's gets monotonous fast. Or it does for me.

So these were the two things I wanted to change: the setting, and the pace. And to do that I think I'm just gonna start booking mini-tours myself, through my website. I really want to play shows in the woods, or in people's attics and living rooms, in abandoned buildings, around campfires, near the water somewhere. Places where the setting will add to what's going on. It'd also be great to show up the night before and have plenty of time to set everything up and make it all more unique, to not always be so rushed. And I'd like to play places other than major cities, too. Places I may never have visited otherwise.

I will need help to do this. Since I'll be booking everything through my website and mostly playing places I've never been, I'll need people to help spread the word and promote the shows. Maybe give me a place to stay while I'm in town. I certainly wouldn't be upset if you fed me. Hahaha. But really, this would take involvement from lots of people, and I'll need to see if there's even enough interest in this to make it happen. So I guess just start thinking about this, whether you have access to an interesting place to play (I really want to do shows in the woods) and if it'd be something you'd want to do. It might be a lot of work. I don't really know. I'll be kind of figuring this out as I go.

And I guess one issue to consider is money. But in truth, I've never made money on tour. A lot of folks seem to think that touring is where people really get paid, and that's probably true if you're popular enough, but I've only broke even once. Every other time I've come home negative. Which I really can't do anymore. I can barely keep up with bills as it is. But cover charges can require permits and such, so I'm thinking I'll just see how this will survive based solely on donations and merch.

As you can see, I'm still piecing all this together. But I'm putting it out there to see what happens, as otherwise it'll forever remain some idea I once had and never followed through on. And I think this could be really fun. It has the potential, at least.

Lastly, I'm just now catching up on e-mails. I haven't had much time to sit down and write anyone, so I'm pretty backed up. I'm getting to them now, but if you wrote and never got a response, don't hesitate to send it again. You aren't bothering me. It's great that people bother to write at all, and I don't take that for granted. I'm just slow getting back sometimes. Right now I'm about two months slow. Booo.

Sheesh. Long post. Sorry for the rambling.

I hope everyone is well.

August 3rd, 2009:

August 2nd, 2009

It's been a while since I've written. I try to not let a month pass without some kind of update, but I don't always keep to that. Obviously. But I've been working a lot, And here's the run-down on where everything is at.

Electric President: The B-sides should be all wrapped up by this time next week. Perhaps a few extra days for mixing, but that should be it. The disc will be twelve tracks long – ten new ones, and the audio from the two kinda-live videos we shot last year (“Monsters” and “It's an Ugly Life”). There were more songs than this, but we went with the tracks that were the furthest along and left it at that. Otherwise, this could drag on way too long, and time is getting short. Alex starts school again soon.

I hope to include the videos I shot with Mr. Hubbard as well, since this disc will likely be released officially through Morr, but I'm not sure how realistic that is. We'll see.

Radical Face: Well, this one keeps growing. It's back to 3 records, all of them full-length. I went through all the material I'd written, and even cutting some areas and songs I wasn't as happy with I still couldn't fit it all on two discs. So I've put it together like this: the set will be called “The Family Tree”, with the first disc being subtitled as “Roots”, the second disc as “Branches” and the third as “Relatives.”

It took me a while to decide how to organize the material, but I settled on using time as the key factor. Since it's all based on story-telling, and various generations of one family and the people they're surrounded with, I wanted the music to kinda reflect the time period in some fashion, but without aping the actual music of the time. I don't want it to sound like a song from 1852. I just want the music to fit a story with that time period as the setting. Whether or not this comes across to anyone else is up in the air, but that's how I'm approaching it.

I've also been writing more directly than I ever have before, lyrically speaking. I can be a bit vague sometimes, and I often describe things surrounding my point rather than the point itself, but this time around I'm being more blunt on certain tracks. It's made my writing a lot slower, to be honest, but I'm getting better at it.

Anyway, as far as progress goes, I think I'll be done with the first of the set by Summer's end. I have everything for the album together minus some lyrics, and I have 6 tracks completely finished, 4 tracks mostly finished, and only 3 that I haven't laid anything down for yet. So it's far along, and I know what I'm doing with everything now. Once I'm 100% on the direction I want to take with everything I move pretty quick.

And for the overall plan, I hope to have all these records come out within 6 months of each other. So I'd like to have “Roots” done by Summer, “Branches” completed in Fall/Winter, and “Relatives” wrapped up in Spring. I think I can do it. I just have to stay on schedule, and make sure I work regularly. And it doesn't feel so bad now that I have them all organized, and I'm doing them one at a time. When I was first starting this, I was trying to work on all the material as one enormous record, and it was overwhelming. Felt like I'd bitten off more than I could chew.

Clone: We've been at a bit of a halt with this. Not due to lack of material. We've just had trouble matching out schedules and getting work done. But we should be back on board this coming week. I think we're nearly done with Act 3 now, so only two more to go. I still don't exactly know what's going to happen with this record, but I'm pretty determined to get it released.

Shows: I've been practicing once a week for Electric President with my new touring partner, Jack Ringca of Sephiroth Chorus. We should be getting out to do some shows later this year, if all goes as planned.

And I may be doing some solo touring as well, though I have some ideas for that, and they don't involve clubs or typical venues. I'll post more on this once I have a more solid plan and I've worked out the logistics of what I'm thinking. But it's about time I got out and played some live music again. And if my ideas work out, I think it'll be a lot more fun than it normally is.

I hope everyone is well, and that you're enjoying Summer. I've been going swimming a bunch this year, and it's been great. Me and the beach have become buddies again. Reading and eating apples on the shore is fast becoming one of my favorite things.

Alright. Enough rambling from me.

May 22nd, 2009:

Hi there.

It's been a while since I've updated anything. I try to do this at least once a month, but I got kinda bogged down. At the moment, I'm still recovering from some pretty nutty dental surgery I had to have done. It's amazing how much a goddamn tooth can hurt. But I've been getting a lot of work done (well, excluding this past week and a half). The start of Summer is always a time when I tend to rearrange everything, make plans for the coming months, and gather up where I'm headed. Mental spring cleaning, perhaps. But over the past couple years, I've come to really hate Summer. Since I'm generally always working on a project of some kind, and I most often work on projects in my tool shed, it gets really uncomfortable during the Summer months. I sweat pretty easy, and I get to where playing guitar is tough simply because my hands are so slippery, among other issues. Usually my productivity drops to half, my tolerance for experimentation goes to shit and I throw away half of what I make. I turn into a grumpy bastard. But this year I cut it off. I decided to rebuild my recording space.

I removed everything from the building, patched all the cracks in the walls and replaced the rotten boards, rebuilt the south wall (semi-sound proofed it against cars, too), redid the floors, put in new shelving and storage, installed new lighting, and put in a window-unit air conditioner. It was a lot of work. I'm not the handiest of people, but thankfully my brother is, and together we got it all done in about 10 days. It has almost twice the functional space now, and it's reasonably cool even during the day. And since everything was either used or on clearance, it didn't cost much at all. It's still the shed, and it still functions as a laundry room, but the difference is pretty drastic. Here's a pic of the new space:

new shed

Also, I don't know if I mentioned this, but Morr Music recently released a compilation. It's a tribute to the independent music scene of New Zealand during the 80s and 90s, for bands like Tall Dwarfs, The Cleans, and so on, and it's called "Not Given Lightly". The first disc is made up of covers from various Morr artists, and the second is a disc of unreleased songs. I contributed a Radical Face song, and Alex and I did one up for Electric President, as well as contributing a cover. If you'd like to hear them, they're in the players below. I don't know how many were printed or where these are available, but if you can get a copy, it's worth picking up. The packaging is really great.

Electric President -- Cover of David Kilgour's "You Forget":

Radical Face -- "Wandering":

Electric President -- "White Noise":

As far as progress goes, I'm still knee deep in all these current records. I'm really happy with how these Radical Face records are shaping up. The system I came up with for these new records is paying off, and I'm really happy with how all the production is working out. I still have a lot of work to do, but I've got more than half of the first record finished, and another 10 tracks under way for both the first and the second. Beyond that, Rick and I have made a lot more progress on Clone. Act 3 is all tracked now, musically speaking, and we've got most of act 4 planned. I think we'll be done this Summer, as long as we can work consistently. And I think we may have a way to get this released as well. It isn't a very traditional record, but we're both really excited with how it's turning out and are gonna do our best to make sure it becomes available somehow once we're done. And the B-sides for Sleep Well are still coming along, albeit slower than the others. That'll likely change over the next couple weeks, though.

I've also begun practicing with a friend of mine in an attempt to get a live show together. If all goes as planned, I should be playing some shows again this year. I never hold my breath on this, as something always seems to go wrong with live stuff, but it's underway, for whatever that's worth.

And I off and on have people ask me how to play certain songs on guitar. But since I write everything down in this little shorthand that helps no one but me (I've never learned to write music properly), it's always tough for me to explain just how to play everything. I've never used tabs either. So I filmed a couple quick videos on how to play the ones I get the most questions for, and once I figure out how to edit them down properly, I'll upload them here. Hopefully within the next couple of days. Stay tuned for that, if you're interested.

I had more to post, but it's escaping me right now and I gotta make dinner. More soon.

I hope everyone is well.

March 16th, 2009:

Okay. Patients E-mail Trade is now closed. If you got it in before I checked my mail today, you're good. I will send out the last of them this afternoon. But from here on out, if you want a copy, you'll have to find a torrent, get someone to share a copy with you, or something of the sort. It's out of my hands.

I'd like to say another "thank you" to everyone who participated. It's heartening to know that people are still willing to put a little effort into an exchange like this. We're often led to believe that people are apathetic, somewhat mindless and will run from anything that requires an inkling of effort or thought on their part. Hell, even if that's largely true, it's good to know that there are exceptions. And in the past month I've read more good articles than I can count, ranging from info about pubic wigs (which are called "Merkins"), the secrets of bellybutton lint, social experiments involving musical geniuses, and so on. Lots of great stuff. I also saw tons of great photos and new artists/photographers (some of the them done by the participants themselves), and nearly doubled my "to-read" list, which was already about 60 books deep.

And for some interesting (to me) tidbits concerning this ...

Articles: Science was the most common subject.

Images: The most frequently submitted artist was Banksy, though no two people chose the same image from him.

Books: "The Perks of Being A Wallflower" was the most regularly mentioned book by a landslide. I'm curious as to whether it was on any reading lists recently.

Quotes: Nearly everyone who chose a common quote, or one that everyone has heard, seemed somewhat shy/embarrassed by their choice.

Thanks again. And I will now get back to recording as much as possible. Hoorah.

I hope everyone is well.

March 11th, 2009:

I'm gonna update this while my food is cooking.

This week is going to be the last chance for the Patients E-mail Trade (see the post below this one for instructions on that). I've been doing my best to keep up with it, and to read what everyone sends before I respond, but I'm about five days behind now. Also, this is normally the time I spend writing and recording, and losing a couple hours a day where I'd otherwise be working on music is adding up. So Sunday the 14th will be the last day for the trade.

And I'd like to apologize in advance if I have to send you a form-letter-type response. I don't want to appear callous or dismissive. I will be sure to read/view everything you send, I'll just have to wait until I have a bit more spare time. And I really do appreciate people participating in this. Having a website can be odd (it sometimes feels like an elaborate way of talking to myself ... which I think I've said before), so it's cool to know that some people read all this and keep up.

In other news, I was recently sent an animated music video for "Along The Road" that I'd like to post. It was made by Philipp Seefeldt of his own volition. He's an illustrator and animator based out of Berlin, and he got the idea for it while visiting the zoo onn a dreary day. I recommend you watch his other videos as well, and then take a look at his illustration, as they're all really cool.

Here's the link to the video: click

And for a progress report, Rick and I have completely wrapped up the first half of Clone and will be on to the second half next week. It's really turning out to be an odd record. It's not an album everyone's going to like, but I'm personally very happy with it. We're definitely not being shy with the concept. I'm interested to see how it goes over. And if all goes as planned, we might have the album entirely wrapped up by Summer. Fingers crossed on that.

And for this next Radical Face record, I now have it organized into two full-lengths that will fit together. But it won't be a double CD. More like companion albums. I was originally planning on dividing the songs into 3 slightly shorter records (each one about 35 minutes), but I realized that I could just as easily divide them into two and be less wasteful. So that's the plan. I'm about halfway into the first one at this point, though I don't know if I'd call any of the five songs I've done "finished" just yet. It's hard to call any of them done until I see how the entire record is fitting together. It always takes me a lot of tweaking to get to where I'm happy with how all the songs sit with each other. Or it has in the past. Maybe it'll be quicker this time, since I demoed so many songs beforehand. I'm not holding my breath, though.

There was something else I wanted to write about, but I can't think of it at the moment. And my food timer just went off. I'll save whatever it was for next time.

I hope everyone is well.

February 22nd, 2009:

Okay. First off, I'm still catching up on e-mails. Sorry I've been so slow about getting back to everyone. I always make sure to read them, but responses kind of happen in spurts. When I have the time, I mostly put it towards writing and recording. I usually do e-mails when it's too cold out, or something of the sort. But if I haven't gotten back to you and it's been a while, feel free to send the message again. You aren't pestering me. Think of it as reminding me. And hey, it's nice to get feedback at all, so I in no way want to discourage people from writing. It keeps this website from feeling like an elaborate form of talking to myself.

And now, for the Patients e-mail trade. I'm going to post the rules here instead of on the actual Patients page, since it's more of an add-on for those who didn't get a chance to participate in the initial run. So the short of this is, I'm gonna have you send an e-mail with four specific things inside as a trade for the mp3s and art from the Patients disc, in .zip format. If you're interested, keep reading.

Rules for the e-mail trade:

No longer active.

That being said, I'm now about 5 songs into the next Radical Face album(s). I scrapped some of the former recordings for it, and I'm glad I did. The new versions trump the earlier ones in every way. I'm feeling much more confident in my production these days. Some of this subject matter is weighty and somewhat exhausting, but no one listens to lyrics anyway, right? Also, the first two movement of Clone are finally finished, and we'll be moving on to the second half of the record once Rick gets back in town. I'm genuinely excited about how it's turning out, and I'm pretty curious to hear what folks will think of it (I'm secretly hoping we'll be called pretentious once people do, hahaha). Oh, and I have not forgotten about the Sleep Well B-Sides. I'm working on those as well, when time permits. Busy, busy.

That's good for now. I hope everyone is well.

February 12th, 2009:

I just finished updating the Patients Page with all the trades. If you'd like to check them out, they're all up. Another thanks to everyone who participated. I really do appreciate it. I'll be working on the confirmation e-mails as soon as I get some food in me and let my eyes uncross. But I got the last of the packages out today, so all of them are in the mail and should arrive fairly soon.

For those of you who mailed something in but were beyond the 100, I'll write you this weekend with a link to the digital version. And I will list your trades as well, likely around the same time. Just bear with me a little longer.

More soon. I hope everyone is well.

February 11th, 2009:

Okay. A lot to say here.

First things first, Patients. The project is now closed, as all the discs are spoken for. Before I get into any specifics/apologies/further explanations, I want to thank everyone who participated in this. Really and truly. When I initially put the project together, I thought it'd be interesting. That was the sole motivator behind it. I'm pretty curious by nature, and I like to experiment. So that's what this was to me: a fun experiment. First to see if people would do this at all, and then, if they would, what they'd decide to trade when money was not an option. Perhaps a study on what people will place value on. But you folks surprised me. I wasn't really expecting to be so affected by this project. I feel odd using this phrase, but multiple times I found myself moved by the things someone traded or said -- moved to sentiment, or laughter, or surprise. Some even left me scratching my head, or made me blush.

I love that many of you included letters with your packages, explaining your trades, and sometimes even sharing a little slice of your life with me. In many ways, that was my favorite part -- getting little glimpses into what motivated you to do this, why you chose what you did, what it meant to you. I love stories, and genuinely appreciate that I got so many of them. And more than once I was pretty shocked that someone traded me something of such obvious sentiment to them. As strange as it may sound, this project was kind of reaffirming. It changed my outlook on people as a whole to something more optimistic. And the best thing is I didn't see it coming. To be blindsided in a positive way is a wonderful thing.

So again, thank you. Should I ever run into any of you in person, let me know that you were a part of this and I'll give you a hug. Though I understand if you'd rather dodge that offer.

Now for some specifics. I way underestimated my ability to handle all of this. The workload for this project was over double my estimations. So I now have a motto about it: A hundred of damn near anything is a lot of work. Not to mention that I hurt myself again (I'm a lifer in the bad back club, it seems) and also left town for a few days to help a friend move. So in short, I have not sent out all the confirmation e-mails -- the last of those go out tonight and tomorrow -- and tomorrow will be mailing out the final run of discs. All will be cleared up this week. I appreciate you all being so patient with me (ignore the pun). For those of you that were over the one-hundred mark, I will be sending you an e-mail with a link to the digital version next week. I would like to make sure that people gets their discs before I start passing the link around. Also, I will be updating the Patients page tonight or tomorrow to list everything that was traded. This will also help for those of you who haven't gotten a confirmation e-mail yet. If you see your trade on the list, then your disc is in the mail.

And then to those of you who didn't realize this project existed until it was too late, I'm going to come up with something for you. Give me a week or two to figure out just what, but it will likely be some form of e-mail trade. If you are interested, keep an eye on the news section of this page.

Which brings me to my next point. I now have RSS feed for the site. Better late than whatever, right? So for those of you who'd like to read my ramblings and get updates on how all the projects are coming, it is now a lot easier to do so. Special thanks to Alex Sexton for setting this up for me. Left to my own devices, it probably never would've happened. I've been meaning to get that added for a long time, but good intentions don't amount to much.

I have more to write, but I'm starving and I don't think well when I'm hungry. I'll add more to this shortly. I hope everyone is well.

January 29th, 2009:

This evening I sent out all of the e-mails to those I've received packages from for patients. But there are a few people who did not include an e-mail in their trade. I will still mail you the CD, but I have no way to let you know I received your trade. But I will be mailing the bulk of all the discs tomorrow and Friday, and will take care of the final run next week.

Side note: my brother shot some pictures of the CD making process, so I figured I'd post them. The only free night I had to make these was pretty damn cold for Florida (it got down into the 20s), so we had to build a fire to stay warm while spray painting all the covers and discs. Made for better photos, though.

spray1

spray2

spray3

More soon. I hope everyone is well.

January 28th, 2009:

Just a quick update.

I threw my back out last weekend. Not as bad as I did in December (this is a recurring thing with me), but enough to leave me pretty useless for a while. Last time I threw it out while doing squats at the gym, so it was pretty obvious what went wrong. I'm not really sure what I did this time. Anywho, the Patients stuff got backed up and I have not sent out a lot of the confirmation e-mails. But if you sent your stuff before this week, then it likely arrived fine. I will be sending out the confirmations today and tomorrow, and mailing out a lot of CDs on Thursday. You should hear from me soon, if you haven't already.

I apologize for the delays. Everything should be on track again soon. But a preemptive "thank you" for everyone who has participated in this. I'll save the details for the final write up, but it's been really great. Better than I'd hoped for, really.

Related note: there aren't many CDs left, so I will be taking the address down this weekend.

More soon.

January 13th, 2009:

Patients page is now fully updated, and the address is up. I'll keep everyone posted on the progress of the project. Thanks for the e-mails showing support and interest. I wasn't sure if anyone would want to do this, so it's nice to know that I didn't make all these for nothing.

Beyond that, I've been wrapping up songs for these two upcoming Morr Music compilations. One is a record of unreleased tracks from all the bands on the label. Since both Radical Face and Electric President are released through Morr, that was two songs to finish for that. And also me and Alex contributed to their upcoming "New Zealand Covers" comp, where lots of the Morr bands are covering folks from that territory, like The Cleans, The Tall Dwarves, and so on. We chose a David Kilgour song. If you have any desire to hear these things, Morr will likely post any news about it on theirwebpage. And I will make a note of it here once those are released as well.

And I mentioned in an earlier post that I did a remix for Sole and the Skyrider Band last year. Well, that release will appear soon, so I figured I'd throw that into a little flash player for those that would like to here it. The original can be heard on their myspace, by the way, and news concerning the release can be found on their webpage.

And now I'm off to work on Clone with Rick. We're making great progress with that. It's going to be a strange record, but I think both of us are pretty excited about it.

January 9th, 2009:

Well, I hope everyone had a nice holiday and new year.

I'm still catching up. I always forget how tough it is to get any work done once everyone comes into town, and festivities are boiling every night. A lot of the plans I had got knocked back a week at least. But I'm not complaining. It was a good time. And I probably gained 10 pounds.

That being said, Patients is now complete. I have all the materials for the covers, the stencils cut, the spray paint ready, the inserts together. The songs are all mixed and ghetto-mastered (I just made sure the loudest points were even, but that was about it ... not much of a mastering job), and in track order. I have the PO box has been set up, and I built a page for the project. All of the rules for exactly how this will work are there (I'll be putting up the address for you to mail to on tuesday, once I'm sure it's all cleared), as well as info on the songs themselves, lyrics, and one of the tracks is avilable for download (it's the 5th song down, titled "Mind Ur Manners"). For any info or questions pertaining to the project, please head over there.

I have more to post, but I'm hungry and need a shower. I smell like a trashbag.

More soon.

December 12th, 2008:

Okie doke. Another revision to this Patients project. It's never as simple as it seems in my head, once I get it all down on paper. But I think I've worked out all the last kinks. Fingers crossed.

The project will launch in the middle of January. I'll be opening a P.O. Box though Fedex for people to mail their trades to. I've ordered all the materials to make the discs, and they should arrive fairly soon (waiting until the holidays to do this probably wasn't the best move, eh?). Once they get here, it shouldn't take me longer than a week to assemble them all. I really have no idea how many people are going to participate in this, but I only have the money to make and mail a hundred total (it adds up fast). That might be way too many, but if I don't get that many people who're willing to do this, I'll use the leftovers as merch. If I get more than that, it'll be first come first serve, and I'll have to send out any past a hundred digitally, via e-mail. Should that occur, I'll try to do something cool with the digital package that I can't do with the physical. Maybe make a video or something. Also, international mailing is not only fine, but encouraged, for those who were concerned about it.

But the upside to this taking a lot longer than I thought it would is that the disc has grown. It's now going to have 10 tracks instead of 6, and will almost be a full-length of random stuff (though, two of the tracks have been posted here in this news section previously).

That being said, I've been wrapping up new songs for some upcoming Morr Music compilations, Clone is still moving along (the first twenty minutes of the record are fully-structured and mostly tracked now), and the new Radical Face material is coming out better than I'd even hoped. Also, Alex and I should be wrapping up all the instrument work on the Sleep Well B-sides over the next two weeks. A bit of vocals after that, and they'll be done. So a lot is forthcoming. It's just a lot to juggle. I tend to bite off more than I can chew. Bad habit. But there will be a whole lot of new material next year, which will be fun. Perhaps four records, if all goes as planned.

Side note: I recently realized that I had a spam filter on my music-at-radicalface address. I don't know why it deems certain messages spam. It seems to have a mind of it's own, and not a very sound one. The folder had a good number of messages that didn't once offer me an extra mortgage, or pills that will make my crotch more impressive. So I'm writing those people back now with an apology attached. I really suck at e-mails for some reason. They aren't complicated, but I have a knack for making them so.

Anywho, I hope everyone is having a nice holiday. More soon.

November 3rd, 2008:

Hello there.

Real quick: I have not forgotten about Patients. It will still be barter only as far as how you get a copy, but it's taking longer than expected to get things sorted. I have all the songs finished now (though I wanna redo the vocals on one track, once my bronchitis clears up), but I don't have the money to press copies the way I'd planned. So I'll just make them all by hand. I don't mind doing so, but it's gonna take me a while to burn all the discs and make the covers. I'm hoping to get the project officially up and running in the next couple weeks, but it all depends on how much time I can find for making the discs. Once they're made, I'll put up an address for the exchange.

On a similar note, the Sleep Well B-Sides will not be traded this way. They will be released officially, through Morr Music. Or that's the plan. I never can say until it happens. But they're aren't all finished yet. Most of them still need vocals and some instruments, and all of them need mixing. They're getting there, though. It's much easier to work on them when I'm not worried about the theme of the record anymore, so progress is fairly quick.

I'd also like to post a remix I did recently for a guy named "Cars and Trains" from his record Rusty String. The track is titled 'The Wires From Mr Broken Record Player.' To hear the original, check out his webpage, or head on over to his myspace. And then the remix I did is in the player below. Info on when the remixes will be officially released can be found on his website, if you're interested.

And I think I fixed the players throughout the site. I still don't really know what I did to make them disappear, but you know. Internet.

More news soon. Still gotta finish updating the rest of this site as well. But there's always something.

Edit: Due to the help of a certain Alex Sexton, the players are back and operating. Thanks again, Alex. I owe you one.

October 23rd, 2008:

First off, I don't know what I did to break the little flash players on my news page. I'm still tinkering with it. But I'm aware that all the players disappeared, and will fix them as soon as I know what I did wrong.

That being said ...

Japan was a ton of fun. I'm really glad I went. The food was awesome, the people were extremely nice and accomodating, I played tons of Street Fighter 3 and 4 (I stopped in nearly every arcade I passed), the bands I opened for (I Am Robot and Proud, and Group Inou) were sweethearts, and outside of being allergic to something over there and turning into a human rash, I have nothing to complain about. Someone at the Tokyo show even crafted me a gift. Sadly, I didn't get to meet them in person, but whoever you are, thank you. Oh, and the shows weren't terrible. I wouldn't call them great either, but I didn't end each night feeling like I'd butchered all my songs and made and ass of myself, which is a step in the right direction. I'd definitely like to return to the country sometime, if they'd have me. It was probably the most fun I've had on tour. Thanks again to everyone who came out, and to everyone who gave us a place to sleep, and to Minoru and Koji, and way too many other people to name.

Here are a few photos from the trip (shot by Jim and Koji):

singing

asigiri

sleeping

osaka

In other news, I'm officially working on a million projects. Or five. Whatever. But currently in progress are the Sleep Well B-Sides, my next Radical Face record, Clone, the first Patients disc, and it appears I have enough side material for a Radical Face EP. So I'm going to be recording my arse off from here until the end of the year, looks like. Probably longer. But the weather is finally nice again, so I'm happy to be working this much again. I've also done a few remixes recently. If it's cool with the artists I remixed, I'll post them up somewhere. I've never done a great deal of remixing, so it's been fun. But I'll wait to hear back from them first.

Oh, and I attempted to start another myspace page for Electric President. I'm not really sure why. But I guess it'll be cool to have another page where I respond to people two months late because I suck about keeping up with my messages. But I've tried this a few times before, and my pages always get shut down for some unkown reason. We'll see how attempt number three goes. Here's the link, if you wanna add us: poop.

Oh, and I'm (yet again) pretty behind on e-mails. If I haven't responded to you yet, I'm not trying to be a shit head. I'm just playing catch up again. Sorry for being such a turd burgler.

And now I'm going to eat my twice-baked potato. More news soon. And I'm finally going to update the music section of this site, and get all my ducks in a row. I am a bucket of motivation.

September 18th, 2008:

Well, for the first time in a long while, it looks like I'm gonna do some live shows. I wasn't really planning on it, to be honest. I've been trying to put a band/rehearsal space together for many months now, but I can't seem to manage it. It's either too expensive, or too hard to get a good schedule together, or I'm just an idiot. So I returned to my usual mentality when I hit the live show roadblock:Fuck this, I'm just gonna make another record.

But I got an offer to play some solo shows in Japan. I have always wanted to see Japan. It's way up there on my "I hope to visit that place one day" list. Perhaps at the top. So I agreed to do it. Which was probably stupid of me. It means I have about 2 weeks to put a show together. And it'll be solo. The problem with playing solo is that a lot of what I write does not boil down to just me and a guitar very well. I have a tendency to get carried away with arrangements in recording, so when I try to pull it all back to just a one man operation, it's missing something. Or a lot of somethings. With three or four people to play with, I can just rearrange everything and get something different but solid. Not so much alone.

So for these shows, I'm only going to play what works with just me, or me and a laptop, from any of the records. That means about two songs from Ghost (maybe three), a few songs from Sleep Well, a few from S/T, a few news ones, maybe some covers. It won't be a coherent show. It'll just be what I can play without any help. Now the real question with that is: will it be a show anyone will sit through? I don't really know. But I guess I will find out. The dates for these shows are as follows:

October 4th: Asagiri Festival

October 5th: Osaka Tower Records

October 6th: Osaka Sunsui

October 7th: Nagoya Huck Finn

October 8th: Tokyo Unit

And I'd like to apologize in advance, in case these shows are total shit. But hey. Japan! And if for some reason these shows go well, I'm gonna consider doing some more of them, perhaps around the states, or wherever I can find people who will book me. But that's putting the cart before the mule. I'm not holding my breath on these going terribly well.

But I also realize I never posted the links to the last of the videos I shot with Mark Hubbard. Here are the quicktime links:

Scrapbook 1

It's An Ugly Life

Scrapbook 2

And for youtube links, all of them are up on the Morr Music youtube channel.

Lastly, I did a remix for the Sole and the Skyrider band recently. They're releasing a remix album of their self-titled LP, and I handled the track "Nothing Is Free". I haven't done a great deal of remixing in my time, but it was fun. I don't know when or how it will be released, but I'm sure they'll post about it on their myspace page.

That's it for now. I hope everyone is well.

September 7th, 2008:

Well, it's been a little while. I kinda dropped off the face of the earth. I had all these plans in order, and they all went to shit. But not so much in a bad way.

I'd planned on spending my Summer wrapping up the b-sides from Sleep Well, finishing up all the incomplete songs I have lying around, maybe penning a short story or two, going to the beach, playing too many video games ... you know, Summer things. The one thing that was not on the agenda was beginning another record. But that's what happened.

I've been attempting to teach myself a bit of music theory in my spare time. I've always had a shorthand for writing music that's of no use to anyone but me, but I've been learning to read and write the proper way (albeit very slowly). The purpose is not so much for transcribing music, but so I can better understand the things I read on composition. I enjoy reading about composition in general, always have, but I've been doing a lot more of it lately. It's given me a ton of ideas – new ways to approach music, ideas for pairing chords and instruments together, other ways to tackle arrangements, etc.

Largely in response to that, I've started my next solo record (the follow up to Ghost) in full. I'd already recorded 4 songs for it before it, but I'm only keeping one of those. The others need to be reworked, or left aside. They don't fit the approach I'm taking now. But I'm really excited about how everything is going. I've been demoing all the ideas I've had for about a month and a half now to see which ones translate well and which ones don't, and I've been revising all the material I already had together for the record. I've been more successful with these demos than I'd even hoped, which is heartening. And it's forcing me to improve at piano, which I'm always meaning to do, so that's been a plus. I'm not a total hack anymore (just a partial one).

I don't have an official title for the record yet, but I've been calling it We all hang from our family trees. Seems to sum up the theme of the record. But I can never really say what it will be until I'm done.

Beyond that, Rick and I have been working on Clone. We took three weeks off due to a lack of time, but picked up recording again this week. We're approaching a halfway point. It looks like the record going to be five tracks long, each one ranging from 7 to 10 minutes in length. The songs are “movement” based, in that they don't repeat themselves. The hope is to be done within the next couple months, but it all depends on how often we can get together to work on it. Two of the songs are very solid at this point, and the third is on its way. We now have the overall arc/story for the record as well. It's about a clone that wakes up on a table in a deserted laboratory. He's a fully formed being, in that all of him is functioning, but he has no context or knowledge. The story follows Clone as he wanders out into the world with no guidance, and what happens to him because of it.

We still don't know what we'll do with the record when we're done, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

I guess I'll go ahead and mention my other upcoming project (experiment), though I don't know when I'll be able to put it in motion. I've had this project in mind for a while now, but have not had time to officially start it. But I'll go ahead and get the explanation out of the way ...

The project is called Patients. The idea for it, musically speaking, is the exact opposite of how I make records. I'm very specific about albums. I don't just take the ten catchiest, most upbeat songs I've written and put them on a disc. Not to imply that there's anything wrong with that, but it isn't what I'm into. I view albums as a larger piece, where all the components work together to form a mood, or a story – something larger than just a collection of songs. I think some of this stems from the way I personally listen to music. I don't often skip around when I listen to records. I mostly put them on and listen from one end to the other. I realize that I'm in the minority with this (lots of people I know only grab the two songs they like right off and never really listen to the rest), but it's how I like to do it. So when making records, I'm really particular about how things flow from one end to the other. I intentionally want slow sections, and quiet areas, even parts bordering on boring. If it's all flash, it can kinda ruins things for me. Like a movie that's only action, it might be fun at first, but it rarely keeps me interested for the entire film. And even in the rare cases that it does, it's probably not something I'll revisit very often.

But the reason I mention this is because I often cut songs from a record because they don't quite fit the pace, or arc, or whatever thing I've decided is the overall goal for the album. But that doesn't mean I don't like the songs. If anything, they usually stand on their own without context. So in the place of a record, they're just oddballs that don't play along well with the other tracks, but they do just fine as a random track. Usually these wind up as b-sides, but sometimes they're too far removed for me to feel like it's even a b-side.

Patients is going to be a dumping grounds for those kind of songs. Or maybe an orphanage, if I want to be all Dickens about it. But the project is basically this: random songs without context. It doesn't matter what they're about, how they're tracked, what “genre” they land in, and whether they play nice together. Some will be one-off collaborations with friends (I would like to write for other people's voices, for example), some will be instrumental, some will be things tracked with a hand recorder outdoors, and so on. It will likely come off more like a mix-tape than a record, and that's the point. Songs for songs' sake, nothing more and nothing less. As much as I like building records the way I do, it's fucking exhausting and takes me a long time to work out. It's nice to just write something and be done with it from time to time.

So that's the idea musically. But I have some ideas for the “business end” as well. I really want to play with ways to release this stuff. I would like getting music to people to be a bit more fun, and since this isn't going to be an “official” project (in that it will be released by a label and needs support), I want to deliver each collection of songs more like an experiment. For example ...

This first collection of songs, once I'm done with it, will not be sold. I'd like to do it as “barter only”. In that, if you'd like a copy, you have to trade me something. What you decide to trade is entirely up to you. It doesn't have to cost anything. It could be a book, something you make, something you find, a mixtape, an odd photo, cool looking leaf that you pressed into a plastic baggie ... whatever you like. Part of the fun would be seeing what people would deem a worthy trade, or what they saw value in. But basically you'd just mail me something, and I'd use the envelope to send you back a CD (which I will either order a very small run of, or just make myself by hand). After the run is over, I'd use the Patients page to list what everyone sent.

The collections will likely be about EP length (5 to 8 songs), and each one would be sent out in a different way. But as I said, I'm not even done with the first collection. I got side-tracked with this new Radical Face record. But I will likely have it together soon. If you are interested in this, check back. I should have the Patients page active soon (as well as finally updating the Electric President page).

Beyond that, we will likely be starting up Mother's Basement again within a month or two. And this time, as some people have suggested we do, we will post the assignment rules before we begin in case anyone else wants to give it a try. We won't be able to host anyone else's attempts, but we welcome people to start up their own pages, which we would happily link to. More info on all that as we get it together. Oh, and I will try to add an RSS feed to both my site and the Mother's Basement page soon. I've had a number of requests for that, and I looked up how to do it. It's really easy, so I will add that when I get the time. Hopefully this week.

Sorry for the lengthy post here. I have a lot of catching up to do. I got kinda lost in everything this summer (not to mention playing the Warhammer Beta more than I should have ... computer games have a way of screwing my time up). Oh, and if you sent me an e-mail sometime over the past few months and I never got back to you, please send it again. I reformatted my computer without backing up my Thunderbird files, and I lost a lot of messages. I thought I was nice an thorough with this last reformatting, but I missed even more than usual. I suck.

And I guess that's it. I hope everyone's well.

June 15th, 2008:

Rickolus and I had our first recording session for the"Clone" project this week. It went really well. Both of us were really pleased with the outcome and feel pretty confident that our ideas for project are going to work well, so it looks like it should be pretty fun. I'm not sure what we'll do with the music once we're done, but we'll figure something out. I'll post updates whenever I have them.

I still haven't had a chance to get my other new project in a presentable form, but hopefully next week. Still some coding, recording and mixing to get together first. Step at a time.

And the second video in this series of Sleep Well clips is done and uploaded. It's the first of the "live" videos, and it's for the track "Monsters". I got the idea for this while watching videos of David Bowie on youtube. I particularly liked the BBC clips from him, where he played slightly different versions of the songs. I figured we could do something similar, but track them in more visually interesting locations.

This first one was shot in my shed, along with 17 desk lamps from the thrift store. The video and audio were recorded simultanously. So when it cuts to us playing other instruments, we're recording it with mics as well as cameras. Kinda like live multi-tracking, I guess. My brother, Emeral, was kind enough to play the piano with us, and Mark, who did all the fimling, joined in on the handclaps. Links below.

quicktime

youtube

More videos soon. And hopefully I will get this new project posted. I don't mean to keep pushing it back like this, but I haven't had much time lately.

June 4th, 2008:

Still haven't finished coding and updating all the necessary pages, but it's underway. I have the first of the videos uploaded, though.

As I mentioned in the last post, I have been filming and editing a series of Sleep Well related videos for the past month with Mark Hubbard, a film maker/childhood friend of mine. There's no real budget for these. I set aside $200 for props and such, and we've been working predominantly with things I've picked up from thrift stores using that budget. It's been a ton of work, but we're both really happy with how they're all coming out.

This first one explains the basic ideas behind the record, and how/where it was made. First is the quicktime link (higher-res, looks much better), and after is the embeddable version:

quicktime imeem player

I'll throw up a youtube link once I have one. And I'll be posting more of these as we get them uploaded. And once I stop playing Age of Conan instead of sleeping. Computer games have a way of ruining me.

More soon. I hope everyone is well.

May 27th, 2008:

Been awhile since I've updated. Everything always takes me longer than I think it will. I am a terrible judge of time. I have a bunch of new stuff to put up, random bits of news, and a number of downloads, but I'm gonna have to break it into multiple updates. Some of these require me to make changes to the site, and I'm slow with code. Or lazy about it. Probably the latter.

But I am nearly finished with this little project that has taken up all of my waking hours for the past three weeks. I've been working with a local film maker on some videos for Sleep Well. His name is Mark Hubbard, and I've known him since I was 7 years old.

We've put together five short films: one that explains the record and how it was made, two that are live performances of songs from the record (with different arrangements), and two that are solely visual. I've been building sets in my backyard, setting lots of things on fire and other fun stuff like that, but video is insanely time consuming. It's kinda like recording, only the set up and break down takes a lot longer. We've been pulling a lot of sleepless nights from it.

I also wrecked my ankle getting one of the shots, which really slowed me down (literally, I guess). We were shooting some shots at this nearby playground, and I thought it'd be a good idea to get some slow motion shots of us jumping out of swings. I also thought it would look cool if we were wearing masks. Long story short, I jumped out of a swing wearing a polar bear mask at 2:00 in the morning (all the footage is being shot after dark). As you can probably guess, I had limited visibility. I landed on my ankle at a bad angle, and the pop! was audible. My brother just laughed at me, saying, "Holy shit! I totally heard that!" I can't blame him. I'd have probably done the same were our roles reversed.

But yeah. It was one of those things that didn't strike me as stupid until it was too late. But I didn't break it. Or I don't think I did. I was on crutches for a few days, then had to use a cane for about a week. I've now upgraded to a mere limp (mandatory pimp walk). Hopefully another week will have me back to normal.

Anyway, once I am done with these videos, I can get back to working on these new music projects. I'll go ahead and let the word out on one of them ...

Rickolus and I have been talking about working together for a while now. As long as we've known each other, we've never really worked on music together. Or not seriously. We did the Headache and Pearl Harbor thing as teenagers, but all that material was half a joke. And then there was this song, back from 2003 or so:

I made the music, and then we got together and put words on it. But we've never really collaborated. Not with any thoroughness, or where we both apart of the entire process (guest vocalists aren't quite the kind of involvement I'm talking about here). So we've decided to do something together this Summer.

The project is called "Clone." I can't say what the music will be like, or what we'll do with it when we're done. We'll cross that bridge when we get there. But we're going to start working on it next week and just see where things lead.

I also have another new project together, but I'll hold off on that a little longer. I want to wait until I have the first two or three songs mixed and available before I say much more about it.

More soon. I hope everyone is well.

April 15th, 2008:

I never posted the second part of that last update. It was intentional. I was jumping the gun. I'm going to be announcing my new projects soon, but I'd like to finish some of the recordings first. More on that soon.

But I'd like to take a moment to mention a record that a friend of mine just finished. His name is Richard Colado, his project is called Rickolus, and his record is called "Winter's Daughter". I've known him since I was about four years old and we currently live three houses away from each other. But that isn't why I'm writing this. I'm not doing this as a favor to Rick. I just think his new record is really cool, and as a general fan of music I think people should hear it. That's it.

He's not releasing the album traditionally as of now. He's decided to put it up for free on his website, and just let people donate if they like it enough and wish to support. I'm going to be handling my next project in the same fashion. This is something we've been talking about for years now, and we're finally implementing it.

Here's the first track from the album:

and listen to/download the rest of the record (it's on the front page). If you find you enjoy it, write him and tell him so, or donate, or tell a friend about it, or whatever. It's up to you.

Beyond that, Alex and I have been taking press photos for this new record these past few weeks. Instead of doing something serious (a.k.a. boring), we just had fun with the shots. They don't relate to the record in any way. We think they're pretty hilarious. A few examples:

More news to come soon. I hope everyone is well.

March 23rd, 2008:

This was a really lengthy update, all typed out, so I split it in two. I'll post the next part soon.

That being said ...

Sleep Well has been mastered, the artwork is finished, and everything is in order. There is now a release date. June 6th for Europe, June 25th for the US. By that time I will likely be knee deep in a new set of recordings, but that's always the case. I always swear I'm gonna take a big break after I finish a record, and I never do. But I'm excited to put this record out. It's certainly different from the last, but I think it's a much more interesting album. It'll be fun to see what others think.

With the help of a guy named Alex Sexton, I now have a functioning "photo" section. Click on the page up above to check it out. There are not many photos loaded, but I will scrape some more together soon. And thanks again to Alex. Had he not offered to set this up for me, that section would have likely remained "coming soon" forever.

In other news, my brother and I got a new (used) piano. It's a Baldwin from sometime during the 80s, and it sounds lovely. We can now record piano without sneaking into the college practice rooms in the middle of the night (the bottom two octaves work!), which means we may finally get more of these Iron Orchestra pieces laid down. Here's a picture of it:

I'd forgotten what it was like to play a piano that was properly tuned and all the keys functioned. I'd grown accustomed to not using certain notes, because they didn't function on the old one.

More coming soon. Weee.

February 19th, 2008:

Done!

The new Electric President record is finished. It's called Sleep Well, it's twelve tracks long, it features songs about boogie men and creatures living beneath your floorboards and the inevitable robot takeover we're bound to experience in the near future. Thirteen months is a long time to work on the same material. I'm pretty damn sick of these songs. But I'm very glad the album's done. I've been celebrating by getting some sleep, and eating too much.

I still don't have any idea when this record will actually be released. I'll post about it as soon as I know. But it'll likely be out sometime around Summer, which sort of sucks. It's very much a winter/nighttime kind of record. Oh well. Can't win them all.

But something kind of funny happened with this record ... the b-sides, if we complete them all, add up to more run-time than the record itself -- over an hour's worth of songs. Whoops. I don't know what we will do with all ofthese. It's a bit early to say, considering most of them aren't even totally finished, and actual album isn't even out. But once they're done, I'll find some way to make them available. Step at a time, step at a time.

Alex and I also tracked a cover song recently, and I figured I'd put it up for download. We've covered this song before, but the first time we did it over a course of a couple hours. It sounded pretty half-assed. So we retracked it a couple weeks ago, since there was no more work to do on the record. It still sounds sort of half-assed, but in a better way. The song is called "Time After Time." The original was by a woman named Cyndi Lauper. Link below.

More news soon. And I hope everyone is well.

January 23rd, 2008:

First post of the new year. Pretty late, I know. It's been a hectic month. And I really need to start sleeping again. The bags under my eyes are looking pretty intense.

First: I added 12 new songs to the downloads page. Descriptions and links can be found there.

Second: I finished mixing one of the new Iron Orchestra pieces, and I've posted it on the respective page. I've got anothernew one nearly completed, and soon we'll start on another set of these. We've been mostly tracking the more "manageable" songs, as in the ones where we already have access to the instruments. I'm hoping we can get to some of the more involved pieces in the coming months, though. We'll see.

Third: This Electric President album is more or less tracked. In fact, I would be saying it's totallytracked, but I've had a head cold for about three days now and haven't been able to sing. Once it clears, I have maybe another night or two of vocals and then it'll be finished. Well, not mixing, but all the recording will be done. I think I'm happy with it, but it gets hard to say after working on the same set of songs for over a year. It's tough for anything to remain fresh for that long.

Side note: I may be mixing this record in an actual studio, as I got an offer to do so and it seems foolish to pass up that kind of thing. I'm still seeing if I will have everything together in time, but it's fun to think about either way. And some better monitors would probably make a big difference on this record. There are a lot of tracks on these songs, and the bass kinda got out of control on some of them. I could manage at home, but it would likely go a lot faster in a treated room with a proper desk. But I'll see what happens

Fourth: The next Mother's Basement assignment will be underway soon. We took some time off, as Rick, myself and Jeremiah are all trying to wrap up our individual records. But this new assingment will be about scoring the audio for some footage. A film maker is supplying us with three minutes of video that we'll have to write the music for. None of us know what the content will be, and the challenge will be to write some music that goes with the footage and gives it more "mood." This assignment should be underway soon. I'm excited about it.

Fifth: I've compiled a list of books I most enjoyed this year. I'm not sure if anyone cares, but I like books a lot and I'm always buying them for people, so I'm gonna post a best-of-2007 list on my next update and try to spread the word on some good authors.

Sixth: No Country For Old Men was an awesome movie. I love the Coen Brothers.

Seventh: I finished two more songs for my next Radical Face record. It will likely be quite some time before that comes out, and I have no idea if these songs will make the cut, but I've been in "turbo recording super awesome" mode these past couple months, so I went ahead and tracked a few them. They worked out suprisingly quickly, especially for me.

I guess that's a good place to stop. I'll post another update soon. I hope everyone is well.

December 23rd, 2007:

I like the holidays. I've done nothing but record for almost two weeks now, and I'm about ready to stab something or beat my face against a wall and I haven't had a solid night of sleep in who knows how long, but there's still something about this time of year that I like. Perhaps it's just nostalgia, but I'm not gonna pick it apart.

But a couple weeks ago, something lame happened -- my piano died. I've had this piano for about two years. It cost me nothing. There was an ad in the local paper saying "Free Piano If You Are Willing to Pick it Up and Move It Yourself." It was an old flat top wurlitzer upright, and it sounded like a haunted house. The people just wanted it out of their living room. I was happy to oblige.

Now, even when first bringing it home, this thing was on it's last leg. Most of the keys were chipped and dirty, and it was scuffed and scratched and creaky. The bottom otcave was completely shot. Not just off, but the keys just made a dull thunk when you hit them. No notes. When I had it tuned, the technician said that the piano could not be tuned again once he was done. It was basically rotten, and any more work on it and the thing was going to fall apart. It stayed in relative tune for almost two years, and I thought maybe the technician was exagerrating a little. But the other week it finally keeled over. Four of the hammers are entirely broken, and about 5 more get stuck at random. Below is a picture of the old gal (notice the recessed keys ... those don't come back up anymore), and then a picture of me giving it a final salute, because I'm a cheesy bastard.

And I figure I'll go ahead and post the last song I recorded with the thingbefore it died. I've been doing these experiments with layering rhythyms over each other, but with instruments instead of drums. I've been enjoying it, and eventually want to shape these experiments into more traditional songs. But this is the last one I did. It doesn't have a name.

That being said, I guess my midi keyboard decided it couldn't go on without the piano in its life, because one week later it fucking died on me too. I'm much less forgiving about that one. It was a piece of junk anyway, and half the knobs didn't work from the get-go, but still. Midi keyboard, you can go suck it.

Beyond that, lots of progress has been made on this new Electric President record. Most of the songs are completed now. There's a couple left that need some tweaking, and a few that need a bit of retracking, and all of them need mixing, but it's sounding pretty finished. I don't know if I will meet my goal of having everything entirely tracked by the end of next week, but I will be close. I'm looking forward to being done with it.

Also, I have a new Iron Orchestra track nearly finished (just needs mixing), and I'm currently uploading some more old material to the "downloads" section of the site. But according to the queue, it will be another three hours before they're up. My modem is a piece of garbage, and it often likes to take its sweet time. But I will post up the songs once they're uploaded.

Lastly, I hope everyone has a lovely holiday.

December 17th, 2007:

Just a quick update. I will write a longer one soon, when I have more time.

First -- we, the Mother's-Basement-Boys, will be playing a Christmas show here in Jacksonville. It was requested that we reform "Gotham by Voices" and play a show for the Gothic Christmas Bash at Eclipse, Christmas night. We've agreed, so there will actually be a second appearance of this train wreck. Weird. If you're in town, come see us make asses of ourselves. In make up and ripped clothing and sadness.

Second -- I contributed a song to Hue Records (a label out of Japan) for one of their compilations. The compilation is called "Once a Hue, Always a Hue", and some other folks I know are apart of it, including Astronautalis. But the disc will likely be tough to hunt down outside of Japan, so I figured I'd throw up a flash version of the song I contributed. It's titled "If You Come Back to Haunt Me", and it's basically a b-side from Ghost. I wrote it around the same time, but it didn't fit the album so I didn't finish it until a while after. Click on the player below if you'd like to hear it.

November 30th, 2007:

Just wanted to mention: If you wrote me and e-mail and I never got back to you, I likely lost it. I really didn't have things backed up properly, and I use Thunderbird so the messages are actually downloaded to my harddrive. And are therefore gone. But that's only part of things. I'm behind on all this stuff for other reasons as well, most of which are because I suck at life.

So if you wrote and never got a response, I'm not ignoring you. At least not intentionally. Feel free to write me back, if you still care to. And if not, I understand. I wouldn't write me either.

Beyond that, I'm thinking about compiling some lists this year. Probably not about music. I've heard almost nothing from 07, and have been listening to 80% classical music and movie soundtracks again. Whoops. But I was thinking of compiling a "best of" list for books, and perhaps one for movies-that-were-so-awful-they-were-hilarious-and-wonderful. I'm not sure why. The one thing the world does not need more of are lists. But I like books a lot, and often force them on people I know. So why not try to push them on people who accidently stumble to this site?

November 28th, 2007:

Okay. I've finally got my external hard in order (well ... relatively speaking) and can finish updating the site this week. So more crap will be posted in the downloads section, and maybe a photo section will be added before the month is out. Or at least that's the plan. These things usually slip away from me. I blame Team Fortress 2 still. But in fairness to myself, I've been recording nearly every night for months now. I'm determined to get all this material completely tracked before the year's up and I've been at it non-stop.

Anywho, I thought I'd do a post on what this new Electric President record is about.

The record will likely be called "Sleep Well." That's been the working title for nearly five months, and it still fits, so it'll likely stay. Musically, it's pretty different from the last record. Or at least I think so. I have no idea what other people will think of it, but I'm not terribly worried either way. I'm sure some people are really going to hate it, but that's okay. I'm fine with that. I'm an asshole that way. I'm pretty sure Alex couldn't care less.

Lyrically speaking, a lot of the record is about bad dreams. Whenever I dream it's usually of somethng of odd or unnerving, or stressful, or outright fucked up. I don't know why. I'm sure there's some Freudian reason behind it all, and it all boils down to a random event in my childhood and some sexual hang-up I didn't even realize I had (oh, the wonders of the mind). But I started to record what some of these dreams were about, for no real reason at first, and later decided to turn these scraps into lyrics. Not every song on the record is about dreams, but a healthy chunk of it is. Or to be more accurate, that's where a lot of the lyrics began. They have a way of wandering off on their own once things get rolling.

But around the time of writing down a lot of these dreams, I was reading a lot of cyberpunk -- China Meiville, William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, and so forth. So a lot of that bled into things. Which boils down to more songs about robots, and giant machines made out of old microwaves and toasters and radiators becoming monarchs, floating around in outer space and waiting for your oxygen to run out, and other such nonsense. Again, not every song is like this, but more than a couple are. But don't quote me here. I can never quite say what the end product will be until it's over and done with.

I thought it would be fun to post some of the words beforehand. Lyrics without the context of the song have a way of reading like really awful poetry, but I'll risk it. I'm an asshole that way, too.

(currently untitled song)

In through your window the sky will fall. You'll trap the stars in jars and line them along your walls. As the moonlight fills the veins beneath your skin, You'll hear us knocking, oh, but you won't let us in.

Because you have no friends, And you have no heartbeat. Your insides are rotten now. So there's nothing to fix.

But you said it often, before you were lost, That it's only a day. That it's only a day. But now you're a monster, and you're backbone is soft. Because you threw it away. Because you threw it away.

You called me out; I shrugged you off. I don't have the time to watch you bash in all their skulls. There's a new boss in town, his heart is black, and his hands can reach through anything. Stick your head in the ground. You just might dodge the guns.

But I'm not your friend. And I will not fix you. My insides are rotten now. So you're all on your own.

But I said it often, before we were lost. That it's only a day. That it's only a day. But now I'm a monster, and my blood all runs cold. Because I threw it away. Because I threw it away.

But now we've forgotten. And we've sold our blue skies. And there's nothing to say. We'll be gone in a day. And yeah, you can't take it with you. But I can sure as hell try. Now there's nothing to say. I'll be gone in a day.

I don't really know when this record will come out, but hopefully first quarter next year. We'll see.

November 17th, 2007:

Okay. A real update, like I've been promising. First, there is now a downloads section. So far I've only uploaded one record to it; an old project between me, Alex Kane and Corey Loop called Unkle Stiltskin. But I will add more to the page as I get things organized again.

Secondly, we now have a finished Iron Orchestra track up. And it's only - what? - six months late. But both of us are proud of it (which is a large part of why it takes so long ... we can be some picky bastards, both of us). Head over the page if you'd like to hear it.

The Electric President record is starting to wrap up. A lot of the songs are getting to the "final version" stage. Most of the songs just need some vocals and a bit of manipulation and mixing. But I think we're gonna continue tracking until the end of the year, and from the looks of it we'll have both a new album and a new e.p. recorded by then. We're also planning to make some alternate versions of some of the songs, but I'll get to that idea a bit later. It'd probably be best to wait until the original versions are done before I get too caught up in anything new.

I've also finished a few tracks for the next Radical Face album. Kinda jumped the gun on that one, but the weather has been so nice that I've been excited about recording again, and I've been doing tons of it. It also helped that my computer exploded and I couldn't play Team Fortress for a while. That game is evil.

Next on the list - we had a Mother's Basement live project a couple months ago that I forgot to post about, and will do so now. A friend of ours asked us all to play a show at a club here Jacksonville. We agreed to do it, but instead of doing three individual sets as requested, we thought it would be more fun to form a temporary goth band and play "goth versions" of our songs instead. Oh, and to wear torn up clothes and make-up. The show was probably terrible and gut-wrenching to watch, which was the plan. I think we succeeded. We named the one-night band "Gotham By Voices", we covered the Batman theme song, and then closed the show with a cover of "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails, which Alex Kane was kind enough to provide the bassline for (he knows it by heart, as he should). The pics below, shot by Rachel Bess, are our proof of this. Rick (Rickolus) looks very genuine. I was very impressed with his transformation. Jeremiah (Wudun) looked pretty gross. I looked even more filthy and homeless than I normally do.

And that's good for today. I still need to add the photo section to the site, and I've got some other tidbits to post about, but all in due time.

November 16th, 2007:

Alright. It's been a long time since I last updated. But this time I have a good excuse -- my computer exploded. I was uploading an ubnoxiously large file in photoshop when the power for the house cut off. The computer was plugged into a regular power strip, not a surge protector, and the power surge basically fried everything. The motherboard, the ram, the processor ... even the damn keyboard. Sadly, the computer in question is where I store pretty much everything, and most of it wasn't backed up. Total bummer.

But I finally got some new parts, rebuilt the damn thing, and I'm up and running again. Tomorrow I will do a nice big update, which should include new photos, new recordings, new info, new parts of the webpage, and whatever else I can tack "new" onto.

And a word of advice: back your work up. Constantly. Be paranoid about it. If it saves you even once, it'll be worth it.

October 4th, 2007:

I think Team Fortress 2 might be ruining my life.

October 2nd, 2007:

For the past couple of months, I've been going to the library one day a week to write. I haven't written fiction for a long time now. When I was fresh out of highschool, I was determined to become a writer. That was my "career choice." In fact, it was in only losing the majority of what I'd written (almost a book and half) in a random harddrive crash that I started playing music again. Not to imply the things I'd typed up were any good (they weren't), but it's tough to lose a year of work in one fell swoop. I needed something else to fill my time, and music fit the bill. And here I am, seven years later, still at it.

Anyway. I've been writing again. Not full-steam, but with some semblance of regularity. I recently finished my first short since starting up again, and decided to quit being a chicken shit about it and make it public. So I'm posting it here. I don't expect anyone to read it. It's not short (over 25k words), likely needs more editing and might be terribly uninteresting. But there's something about making it available to strangers that helps it feel finished. For me, at least.

Green Thumbs: Part One Green Thumbs: Part Two

Beyond that, I have the new sections for the website sort of built. Meaning, I still need to work out some bugs, but they are almost done. And the Electric President record is still underway. New songs keep getting added, and though we're already have plenty for one record, we're going to keep tracking for a while longer. The shed isn't quite so hot now, so recording isn't nearly as miserable. I'm actually optimistic about it again.

Fall, I love you.

October 1st, 2007:

Holy hell, I am late with this update. Everything always takes longer than I think it will. Always and forever. But the new Mother's Basement assignment has finally been posted. Head on over to the website if you'd like to check it out.

I will make a much more thorough update when I wake up tomorrow.

August 31st, 2007:

Alrighty. The new Mother's Basement assignment is done. Only this one has a new person involved: Mitch, of Greenness and Sick Room Records, is contributing a piece as well. And since he's an amazing guitarist, he's going to make the rest of us look like idiots. Sweet! Anyway, we'll be meeting this coming week to show each other what we've done, then Jeremiah and I will update the website and make the results public. I'll post about the update here when that happens.

Beyond that, more recording (as always), and I've finished a few more flyers. One of these days, I will update my art page instead of just dumping the new stuff on here. But not today. Click below if you'd like to check them out.

one two

Lastly, the Iron Orchestra page will have some finished material on it soon. And I plan on making some overall additions to the site (photos, downloads, etc) as soon I can find the time. Hopefully this week.

August 17th, 2007:

Holy crap, we actually got some pianos recorded. And the session went well. It's probably the best sounding piano I've ever personally recorded, so on an engineering level, I'm excited about that. Anyway, once the accompaniment is in place, we'll have a few Iron Orchestra pieces actually finished. And it only took, what?, a year and a half?. The two we tracked were simpler -- mostly piano, voices, some computer trickery -- to ensure that we can finish them. It's not a dent in what we've written for the project, but it's a start. And hopefully it'll move along a little more quickly now that we've got the ball rolling.

Beyond that, still plugging away at the EP record, and we'll be recording Biowulf next week (ha). Oh, and I got a nod as "artist of the day" for Radical Face on Spin Magazine's website. Go to www.spin.com if you'd like to check it out.

Finally, I'm behind on e-mails again because I'm an idiot. But I'll catch back up this weekend. Promise.

August 13th, 2007:

Been a little while since I've updated this.

This new Mother's Basement assignment is tough. I still don't have anything I'm entirely happy with, but I inch closer with each attempt. And I'm also reminded of a little equation that always shows up around this time of year:

Florida + Summer = Kill Me

The shed I record in is beyond hot. It's an oven, and since I can't use fans while recording, there's no respite. My recording output always gets cut in half during July and August because of it. I'm sure it's a funny site, though: me, sitting in my underwear, sweating in the middle of the night and nearly losing my mind when I repeatedly screw up on takes because my hands are slick. Fall, hurry up and get here.

But for some good news, me and my brother are going over to the local college to record some pianos for Iron Orchestra tonight. Finally. If all goes as planned, we should have two pieces posted by the end of the week. It's been a long time coming, but I'm still excited about them, and there's something to be said for that. And the Electric President recordings are still plowing along. We already have enough material for the record (minus the vocals), but I think we'll continue tracking until we've laid down everything we've written, since we have the free time right now.

July 29th, 2007:

We've been tracking a bunch for the new Electric President record, and it looks like we'll have most of the music recorded within a month or so. After that, I'll get all the lyrics laid out and recorded, then spend a paranoid month mixing everything. Hoorah.

And though it's been slow going, I think I've got my Mother's Basement assignment written out now. I still need to record it, and until I do I won't be able to tell if this will end up as a coherent piece of music, but I'm optimistic. I have to get my guitar playing back in shape, though. I can't play all of it yet. I need to practice guitar more often, but I'm still pecking away at piano. Oh well.

Other than that, I've been doing a lot of visual art lately. Below are the links to some flyers and such (minus the words), if you'd like to see them.

one two three

I've got a few more on the way, and eventually I will add all of these to my lazyeye website, but it's easier to plop them here for now, and I'm being lazy.

July 22nd, 2007:

I figured I'd post a random song on this update. This track was recorded a couple years ago, but not for a specific project or album. It's a depressing little number called "Sad Business", and it's about a boy watching his father being hung. The recording is pretty barebones. Just a guitar and some vocals. Click on the player below if you'd like to hear it:

July 21st, 2007:

Today I recieved a junk e-mail that told me not to be impotent, which I felt was pretty good advice.

July 10th, 2007:

We've decided on what the next Mother's Basement assignment is going to be. We each have to write a composition for 3 acoustic guitars. We are not allowed to use any effects or editing, and we must only use 3 tracks for the recording. It needs to be something that three people with acoustic guitars can play at once. The idea is to remove production and words from the songwriting process, to get rid of all the "tricks" you can sometimes use to make a song more interesting. It's all gotta be how well you can write for the three instruments, and how well you can make them work together. Having worked on this a bit, it's pretty damn tough. We'll see how the end results go, once we're all finished.

Also, I am very behind on my e-mails right now. I'm pecking away at them little by little, but I've been juggling a lot of stuff lately and doing a pretty piss-poor job of things. But if it's been a really long time and I still haven't gotten back to you, feel free to send me the message again. I promise I'll get to it. Please bear with me.

And I still haven't gotten the "photo" or "downloads" section added to the site. I suck.

July 5th, 2007:

I figured I'd spend this next little update showing some of the outtakes from Ghost. I'll start with one of the songs that didn't make the cut. This instrumental track, titled "The Lighthouse", didn't fit on the album no matter where I stuck it. I liked the song (even though, as you can tell from hearing it, I'm not the most adept pianist), but the record was pretty slow paced to begin with and this one just put it over the edge on the "dreary" meter. Hit play on the flash thingy if you'd like to hear it:

I also have some photos that I took for the record, which almost got me arrested. I was wearing this get up (seen below) in a small town in south florida to shoot some photos near some of the run-down houses near the highway. I figured it would go well with the theme of the record. Well, apparently a passerby called the local police station and left the following message: "I just saw two men just got out of their car on the highway! One of them pulled a sack over his head, got a shovel out of his trunk, and marched up to one of the houses!"

The police, figuring they had a serial killer on their hands, rushed out of the station to hunt us down. Me and my brother (who was the photographer) were oblivious to all of this until we were pulled over a few miles down the road. When we got out of the car, figuring it was a speeding ticket or a busted light, the officer had his hand on his gun and was yelling at us to stay back and keep our hands where he could see them. My brother looked at me with a "What the hell?" expression on his face. The officer then asked whether we had a sack and a shovel in the car. We said we did. He asked why, and we said we were shooting some photos with them. He asked what for, and we told him it was for some album artwork, and then let him see the photos on the digital camera's lcd screen. He was visibly relieved -- his shoulders actually slumped -- and radioed the station, saying it was a false alarm, call off the hounds. He then informed us that he'd sent half his force to the chunk of highway where we'd shot the pictures to search for bodies, and that they'd even sent out a helicopter. And sure as shit, a helicopter flew overhead and circled us until he was called off.

Long story short, I am not allowed to wear my mask in public anymore. Not that I would. Burlap is itchy as hell. Now, in hindsight, I can see where this would have caused some problems, but I genuinely believed that the camera would be enough to disarm people. But the best part of all this is, I didn't even use the pictures. Whoops.

June 22nd, 2007:

I'm already not updating things as quickly as I'd hoped to. But I'm not going to give up. A nice fellow named Alex sent me a cool, freeware flash-based photo gallery which I should be implementing soon, And I hope to add a "downloads" section to the site, and I've got some new recordings nearing completion --some associated with new records, others just for shits and giggles.

Beyond that stuff, I have a book recommendation. I spend a lot of my free time reading fiction; I usually go through a book or two a week. Occasionally I'll stumble on a wonderful book that not a lot of people have read for whatever reason, and I'll start nagging people to check it out. The most recent one of these was "The Facts Of Life" by Graham Joyce. Some books are tough to sell because they require people to already be interested in the topic, but this one is just a good, creative, funny, odd, charming story, and I think just about anyone would get something out of it. So if you find yourself wanting to read something but you aren't sure what, hunt this one down. It's short, and it's excellent. It's my top book of the year so far. And if you happen to not enjoy it ... well, that's what you get for taking advice from a stranger on the internet.

June 10th, 2007:

Alex and I have made more progress on the new record. And here are a couple of pictures from last week, when we were tracking some electric guitars over at his house. I'm the grumpy one, Alex is the artsy one:

June 5th, 2007:

Assignment two for the Mother's Basement project has been posted. Head on over to the website if you'd like to check it out.

June 3rd, 2007:

Progress report:

Me and Alex have been working on the new Electric President record since late January. We've got seven of the expected eleven songs tracked. Well, mostly. Until everything's closer to being finished, it's hard to say whether any songs are really done, or if they'll even be on the record. But it's coming along nicely.

My brother and I should be laying out some Iron Orchestra pieces this week. We have plans to track pianos for two of them this coming Wednesday. If we can get a good enough sound, we should have some finished tracks posted on the Iron Orchestra page in the coming weeks. If not, we'll have to keep searching. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. This stuff has already been dragged out for way too long.

I've also started another solo project. It's called "Patients." I don't know what I'm going to do with it at this point, so it's probably way to early to even mention it, but hey. Internet. And I could post a description about what it's going to sound like, but I'd rather wait until I have something more finished.

And I guess this would be a good time to explain something:

Yes, I realize that I work under a lot of different names. But there's a reasoning behind it. I decided a while ago to tack names onto projects instead of developing some kind of a stage name. Since most of these "bands" are really built with recording in mind, I'm more or less naming the idea behind them. As such, I will likely only use a name for a couple of records. If down the road I get enough ideas for a former project to drag it back out, I will, but that may never happen. I know this makes no sense in terms of marketing or people ever figuring out who the hell you are, but I like it better. Who knows, though. I may wake up tomorrow, decide this is a thoroughly ridiculous idea and abandon everything I just said. Stranger things have happened. But for now, that's how I'm going about it.

June 1st, 2007:

So I've finished my new webpage. Webdesign has this magical way of taking so much longer than you ever think it will. Each time I start out with some statement like, "No, no, no ... this new one will be simple! It can't take longer than a week or two to get together." Months later, and here we are. One could argue that my slipshod understanding of code is the problem, and they'd be right. But I don't like code enough to get good at it. I'd rather resent it.

But that's the beauty of this new page. I know enough to be able to maintain this one, so I will actually update it. My last webpage was obnoxious to make any changes to. I didn't plan ahead with it. And since updating it was a pain, I mostly opted to not do it. With this new one, I have less excuses. We'll see what happens.