That being said, thank you to everyone who came out to the shows. I realize that performing isn't exactly my strong suit (I'm a pretty sloppy musician, even at my best), but I hope that people at least had fun. That's the main goal for me when doing shows. While in Europe, Laura (my friend who did merch for me) was kind enough to shoot a bunch of photos. I never remember to shoot any, so it was a nice change. I did my best to take pictures while in Japan, though. I've been uploading some these to a new Tumblr over the afternoon. I'm gonna try using it as a photo blog, since I can update it easier when I'm not home. Here's a link to that:

Tumblr

Also, while in Japan, I wound up shooting a lot of video with the video-mode on my point and shoot camera. I did this a lot more than shooting photos. I was itching to make something with it when I got back, so I cut it into a video for "Feathers" from the last Electric President record. It works both as a music video and a little tour documentation. Here's a link if you wanna see it:

Electric President - Feathers

I'm in a video making mood lately. I have a few new ones that I'm gonna be shooting this month. One of them is another Electric President video. I bought some toy video cameras while in Japan, and I wanna shoot a video with them for Safe and Sound with them. One of the cameras doesn't even have a view finder, and they're both really tiny. But the footage on them is pretty awesome. The second video will be for "Always Gold" from The Roots and will be more of a production. I have a treatment written out based on the story of the song, and we'll be shooting that pretty soon. I just have to get some clothing and props together and we should be ready to go.

As for new plans, I'm gonna be focusing on The Branches now. I plan on having it all wrapped up before the year is out, but we'll see. I'm terrible at predicting these things. Also, Clone will be released this year. I'm getting all the material for the presentation of it together now, and I will be posting a preview of the album shortly. I've posted about the Clone project before, so see former entries for that info, but I'm excited to finally show people this. I had no idea it would take this long to see it released, but I never do.

So that's really it. Make videos, release Clone, finish The Branches. Oh, and our film! Me and a the guys I make music videos recently finished shooting out movie. I wrote a script in 2010, and it took us about a year and a half to film it all (we thought it would take 3 weekends ... ha). We are now in post production for it, finally beginning to really edit and color and all that. Me, Emeral (my brother, other member of Iron Orchestra), and my friend Anthony (who plays in the Jacksonville Orchestra) are writing the score for it as well. We'd like to have it totally wrapped up before Autumn, but I'll be happy if we finish before the year's out. I still have no idea if the movie's even gonna be any good, but it's been a really fun project. And stressful. But mostly fun.

So yeah, that's it. Back home and starting to really move on new work. Oh, and for those who have been asking, Electric President is not a dead project. We're going to do one more album. It likely won't be until next year, but we haven't called it quits yet. We've just been on hiatus.

I'll update more soon. Unless I have nothing to add or say. I hope everyone is well.

First off, we finally got the web store up and running. And only 3 weeks later than planned. Haha. If you click on the "store" button, it'll show you the two spots to order from (and yes, I'm aware of the typo at the bottom). Both will ship anywhere. It will just be cheaper and faster shipping depending on where you live. But one thing I want to be clear on: it's just me and my sister running this, and we're learning as we go. So please bear with us in the beginning. We're still establishing the system for how it's all gonna work, and it's never as simple as it seems. I also ran into a bunch of problems during manufacturing (as well as getting nitpicky and redoing the entire booklet multiple times to get it right), which will delay when things can ship. Sounds like the CDs won't even arrive here until the 10th, so everything will probably go out a week late, and other fun issues like that. But the store is finally functioning for placing orders at least. And since there's a new record coming out, we have some preorder bundles. Those are pretty limited, though. We're just doing it until we run out of shirts (and bonus packages) and have to reprint, so there's 300 total. It'll all be separate after that. And I will eventually be adding the older records and posters and buttons and such, but it'll have to be when I get back from playing shows. So maybe in November.

Next in line: the video for "A Pound of Flesh" off the new record is finally public: youtube

As usual, I made this with my friend Mark Hubbard, alongside Michael Walter and my brother, Micah. The three of them shot it, and it took us the bulk of 3 days to get all the footage. We drove around Florida and hunted down locations that didn't have anything glaring modern in them for all the travel shots, then we shot all the night stuff here in Jacksonville. It cost about $165 total, mostly just for our clothes, gas, a fog machine and renting a generator. My sister and my mom helped make the costumes, and my brother Emeral (other half of Iron Orchestra) helped organize all the shots and collected all the props. The people in the hoods are my brothers (Sam Cooper on the right, Micah Cooper in the middle) and my cousin (Timothy Brown on the left). The guys with axes are my friend Curtis Lyles (he's our resident stuntman) and Mark Hubbard.

Here are some stills from the shoot:

Mark and Curtis

Group Shot

Curtis applying the make up on Sam

Micah in costume

The idea for the video was to just shoot what the song was about. Starts with the aftermath of killing a man, then a long walk home with plenty of time to think over it and regret it, followed by discovering that sometimes dead men have brothers. Then the stuff at night was just some added fantasy elements, because I'm a sucker for those. All-in-all, it was fun to make. But all the sweat and dirt wasn't fake. Hahaha. It gets pretty hot in Florida during the summer (imagine that). Also, after going in those swamps and such, I had a bunch of weird bites on me. On the third day after filming, I woke up and the back of my neck was red and swollen. Had to go to the doctor get it checked out. They had me do a run of antibiotics. Which is what I get for mucking through swamps, I guess. Anyway, we plan to do a couple more videos for the record over the fall and winter. The other ones are gonna be tougher, logistically speaking, but I think they'll work well.

There were some other things I meant to post about, but I can't think of them now. I'll just do another post when I think of them. Oh, and if you've sent me an e-mail in the past couple months but didn't get a response, I apologize for that. I've been juggling way too many things at once and there's a lot of holes in my response list. I'm slowly getting caught up, but if you never heard back, feel free to write again or forward your question. It's not a hassle. I've just been a mess lately.

Well, I'm off to bed. I hope everyone is well.

It's currently up for preorder digitally through itunes. Early next week, I should have the webstore up and running and I'll be taking preorders for the physical CDs (the details of which I'll dig into next post). I will also have vinyl, but not for at least a month after release. I screwed up a bunch of stuff over the course of getting everything manufactured, so I totally botched the release date. Better late than never, I guess. But yeah. I suck. And I'm really just learning as I go. One thing I've really learned this summer is how crap I am at time management. Hahaha. But I'll have more details on all this shortly. Just trying to get everything in place first. It's always more complicated than I think it'll be.

But I also have some show dates. Not a lot. These will be short runs, but I'll have two band members with me, and we'll be playing with choirs, so I think they'll be really fun. I'm excited to see how it's all gonna turn out. And hopefully it isn't just a giant mess. Hahaha. There may be a couple more dates coming, but we can't go out for very long because of jobs and whatnot.

October 6th: San Francisco, at the Brick and Mortar Music Hall (with the Albatross Choir)

October 11th: Los Angeles, at the Bootleg Theater (with the Easterly Singers)

October 22nd: Arlington, Virginia, at the Rock Spring Congregational United Church of Christ (with the Yorktown Vocal Ensemble)

October 25th: NYC, at The Studio at Webster Hall (guest to be announced ... still working it out)

I actually have a lot more to post, but I'm falling asleep. So I'll move it to the next update, which will happen shortly.

More soon. I hope everyone is well.

I think I mentioned this in earlier posts, but I'm giving away a free EP. I'm gonna be releasing a number of free EPs over the course of this Family Tree project, all of them part of a series I'm calling "The Bastards." So this is "The Bastards: Volume One." It's 3 songs. None of them are on The Roots, as they didn't make sense on the record no matter where I put them, but they were recorded at the same time. Plop your e-mail in the little widget below if you'd like to download it. It should be up for at least a few weeks.

More soon. I just wanted to make sure I made this available. I've been a mess lately, and I wanted to do this before I forgot. I hope everyone is well.

So first off, the release date is October 4th. Hence the little splash page currently on the website. The digital version will be available in all the usual places (itunes, amazon, etc). But the CDs and vinyls will be sold predominantly here, on my website, as I'm doing this without a label. Or rather, I'm becoming my own label. It's really just a formality, to be honest. I'm not gonna be putting out other people's records. It's more for legal purposes than anything else. But I've got a name (Bear Machine Records) and a logo (see below ... not necessarily a final draft, though) and all that fun stuff.

Anyway, I'm putting together a webstore with my brother, and then my sister is gonna help me run it (I have a cool family). So this site will be the main place to get everything, unless you live in Japan, in which case it will be available on Lirico Records. And starting around the beginning of September I'll have a limited number of preorder bundles available. The kind of thing where you get a CD/Vinyl, a shirt, and stickers and post cards and buttons. Not really sure what it will include yet. Still finishing up all the designs. But I'm gonna do my best to keep it as cheap as I can. I'll post more on this as it gets closer. Oh, and I now have a proper e-mail list. It's currently on that opening splash page, and I'm gonna put it up on somewhere on the website as well. I'll be sending out updates and random stuff through that list (extra songs, stems for remixing, bonus artwork, etc), so if that sounds interesting go ahead and sign up.

And for the past couple weeks, I've been shooting some press photos with my brother. As always, we did them in the family backyard, just building sets and doing ridiculous things. And then I sent some to my friend Gordon McBryde, a photographer and editor out in the UK, who messed around with them as well. I think of a lot of them came out pretty funny. In a good way. I like ridiculous photos. I'll post a few below.

I'll just update the Radical Face stuff today. I have more to say with Clone, putting in a properly working forum, the upcoming webstore, so on and so forth, but it'd be a monster of a post. So I'll break it up.

I'm now done with all things audio on The Roots. I wrapped up all the final mixes last night. It's been a long time coming, so this is a bit of a relief. As long as I have the ability to tweak things and tinker with them, I do. So it's good to have it out of my hands, with a “finished” stamp on it. And I can focus on getting the artwork together, finish writing some short stories for it (I'm gonna tell some of the back stories of songs on the album … mostly as an excuse to write), getting the CDs/Vinyls printed, and all that fun stuff. I already have a lot of it done, in terms of ideas and rough drafts. Just gotta get the actual layouts together and make final versions of everything.

I can't say the specific release date yet, but it'll be around the end of September. So not too far off. And it'll be my first fall release! I usually do the bulk of my writing and recording in Fall, so I'll be glad to put it out around that time. I notice the seasons a lot, which is why I mention that. I realize most people probably don't care. Hahaha. I'm really excited to finally get this album out, though. It can be tough to sit on material for such a long time, and I've been itching to get this trilogy rolling. Oh, and I plan on putting out a free EP just before the record (3 or 4 songs), and that should be available for download in August. I'm also putting together a mailing list as a way to do announcements, and give away extra songs or alternate mixes and all that fun stuff, so check back for that if you're interested in staying up on all this. Should have the sign up button on the site by next week.

I'll talk more about the record as the release date gets closer. For now, I gotta start getting some of my videos ideas going.

Shows: I wasn't quite sure how I was gonna tour for this record at first. I usually end up playing by myself, and unfortunately I don't write a whole lot of music that works well with just one person. I often have to rewrite the songs and do totally different versions live. Which is fine for the most part, but doesn't always work out the way I'd hope. With this new record, I have a lot of voices on it. And while talking with my manager, Rachel, about what to do for shows, she suggested playing with a vocal/choral group. I think I just laughed when she suggested it. I can barely afford to play with a regular sized band, much less a chorus. But she came up with the idea of seeing if any choruses or vocal groups would be interested in learning the music beforehand, and I could just travel to where they are, rehearse with them, and then do a show.

I loved the idea, so that's what we're gonna try to do. This will be volunteer based. I've been working with my friend, Anthony, who plays bassoon for the Jacksonville Orchestra, and he's been helping me notate the record. We'll send ahead everything needed to learn the vocal parts (sheet music, recordings, etc) and you'll have a couple months to practice it. None of it should be terribly difficult – if I can sing it, then someone who can genuinely sing should have no problems. So no worries there. We'd have a rehearsal the day before the show, the day of, and a performance that night. The choral group could also open the show with a performance of whatever they're currently working on as well, and half the ticket sales will go to the group, or their arts program if it's a school, or a local charity, or whatever you want.

So if anyone reading this post is in any such group, or knows someone who is, and would be interested in doing this, the link below is an application.

Application

To be honest, I really have no idea if this is gonna work. There might not be enough people interested to do a proper tour. But I think the idea is awesome, and I love the sound of lots of voices. I think it'd be a really great way to perform the record. So it's worth a shot. If you have any further questions, please e-mail me and Rachel (both our e-mails are in the contacts section of the site).

I will also be doing some smaller backyard-style shows off an on as well. I actually have some dedicated live band members now, for the first time. I found some friends who can tour with me, so I won't always have to go out solo all the time. It'll be great to finally have something consistent in that regard. Usually, every time I agree to do a show it feels like starting from scratch, in terms of members and arrangement. I won't miss that feeling.

And yes, I plan to do some stuff overseas, too. I'm still working out the whens and hows, but I'd like to go do some of these shows in the UK and Europe (both proper clubs, and smaller backyard and living room shows as well … see former posts if you don't know what I'm talking about with the “odd venues” concept). It'd likely be late this year, or early next. I'll post about it as soon as I know.

Lastly, I wanted to mention a project I was involved in recently. Google decided to take the “It Gets Better” project to television, and they asked to use my song “Doorways” for it. Normally, TV and film stuff is fine by me, in that it helps new people hear the music in some form and pays some bills (or in my current situation, pays so I can release my own records), but that's about it. I can't say I'm terribly excited about it. But this one was different. This is a project that really hits close to home, and I already supported it before the offer even came up. So I'm genuinely glad to be a part of it. Click below if you wanna see it:

youtube

Okay. That's enough for now. I'll post the other stuff shortly. And I should be doing more frequent updates as this goes along (maybe twice a month instead of once?), and using the mailing list to get stuff to folks as well. But for now I'm gonna go jump in the ocean.

I hope everyone is well.

I am playing a small set on Monday, April 25th, in Orlando for the Invisible Children benefit. It will be really simple, just me and a guitar, and a handful of songs. 3 or 4, is what I was told. But if you'd like to come out, support the cause and say hello, the details of all this can be found on the charity's website: Invisible Children

Also, there's a new Electric President track up on the "Anything For Progress" compilation, in which all the proceeds go to help raise money for the earthquake victims in Japan. The song is called "The City and the Machines", and it's only available on itunes for now. Here's a link with more info: project page

That's it for now. More soon.

I blame Autumn. This is my favorite time of year. Whenever Fall shows up, I find myself writing and recording constantly. It's the time when I'm most excited to make things. And as a result, I usually get in over my head and wind up juggling five projects at once. Happens every year. I wouldn't change it. But a large part of this just boils down to circumstances, I think. The shed I write/record in is the same temperature as it is outdoors (hotter, in Summer). So once the weather's good, and I'm not out there recording in my underwear and sweating the entire time, I'm happy to just work without all the annoyances. Or maybe I just like Fall.

But for some general updates on how everything's been going with each of the projects ...

Radical Face: Still not a whole lot of news concerning the release date for The Roots (first record in the "Family Tree" set). Having this concept span 3 records has proved pretty challenging in lots of ways, both in the making of it, and in figuring out how to release it. I think it's getting close to having some kind of release plan attached to it, but I thought that a month ago. Who knows at this point. The one upside to these delays -- I've already started recording for the 2nd record, The Branches, and as some of the songs I had planned for album two came together, I realized more specifically where I'm gonna go on part two. Knowing this, I went back and looked at record one. And I found a few things I wanted to add. Almost as foreshadowing, or to better tie them together (both in terms of melodies and production). And one song I had planned for the beginning of The Branches actually wound up being stronger toward the end of The Roots, and I'm really happy I moved it. I realize that this stuff is mostly just for me, and no one will likely care all that much either way, but that was the good that came from the delays. But at this point I really just want to get it all moving. So hopefully that happens soon.

But the Touch The Sky ep (a digital only little guy of some b-sides and alternate versions, as well as a couple new tracks) is out everywhere now. I think it finally got released here in the US yesterday, via itunes. And me and my friend Mark Hubbard made a video for one of the tracks. Here's the link:

This is my favorite video that Mark and I have done together yet. We shot it here in Jacksonville, in a spot called Hanna Park. We had our usual budget of about $150. All the kids in the video are relatives of mine (nieces and nephews), and my mom and my sister helped gather all the supply and make all their clothes. This was one of those ideas that, when I wrote it out, seemed simple. I figured it'd take 3 or 4 days to put it all together. It took three weeks. And on top of that, when we were shooting, it was the middle of Summer. Two of the kids got heat exhaustion and vomited. Which I still feel shitty about. I made a five year old girl puke. Some uncle, huh? But they're tough. Really awesome kids. They were out there for hours without complaining. They did really great. Plus they work for pizza. Hahaha.

Clone: We are wrapping this up over Winter break. We've barely been able to work on the record these past four months. Rick's been pretty busy just with life in general, and we haven't been able to find days when we can get together. So we're just setting a deadline and using this Winter vacation to finish it up. It will be done before the year is out. Or else. Hahaha. But we're really close. Everything is written, minus some small patches of lyrics. Maybe 4 more solid work days and it's wrapped up. Only took us 2 years. Ha. But once we're finished, I'll put up some samples from the record so people can here what it's all gonna sound like.

Patients: I have not forgotten about this. I still have everyone's stories. I just completely misjudged what my free time was gonna be this year. I have 4 songs over half recorded, but I haven't been able to get back on them. So I'm moving this to next year. Luckily, enough of you sent in stories for the project that I have more than enough to make a record with. Far more. So at this point it's just gonna be finding the time. But I'm not giving up on it, and your stories were not sent in vain. I appreciate everyone who took the time to send one. There's some really great stuff there.

Shows: So the small run of scattered shows I did around the southeast worked out really well. I learned something at each one, so now when I do some small tours this way, I think I'll have nearly all the kinks worked out. They were fun shows, though. It seemed like everyone who came had a nice evening, and the hosts have all been really helpful and generous. And I'm going to do more, but like Patients, I just gotta manage my time better. I don't think I'm gonna try to squeeze any in before now and the end of the year, because the weather's so nice and this is the best time for me to record. But once it gets cold, it gets pretty difficult to do much, so I'm planning on doing a run then, something out of the Southeast.

I'll be sure to post any dates once I have them.

And I guess that's good for now. I also just realize I never finished updating the lyrics section of the site. I'll get back to work on that. And I'll try to be more diligent about updating.

I hope everyone is well.

I have three upcoming shows around the Southeast. And more around the US planned for the fall. But the ones that are currently booked are as follows:

The first is next weekend, the 18th, in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Bleubird and his friends are throwing a warehouse style show, and asked if we could come play. We'll be playing as Electric President, since Alex can come to this one. Jack will be playing drums as well. I think this is the first EP show in Florida since 2006. Hahaha. It'll be a short set, as this isn't just a show, but a bit of everything (see the flyer). The show is free, and should be a lot of fun. The information for this show can be found on this.

The second is going to be on the outskirts of Jacksonville, September 25th. I will be playing a Radical Face set, alongside Rickolus and That Kid Art (who's been kind enough to host this show). It will be outdoors, and the show is free. But for specific information (the address, the show time, etc.) you will have to e-mail Tyler (thundor5690@aol.com). This is because we'd like to know how many people are going to show up. So the location will not be posted publicly. You have to write him to get it.

The third is in Tifton, Georgia, on October 2nd. This one will take place in a cabin, on a river. I will be playing as Radical Face, alongside Rickolus. The space is, of course, limited. So this address and time will not be posted publicly either. You have to e-mail the host of the show to get the information (Katy: kowens18@student.gsu.edu). And due to the location, the amount of people that can come will be limited. The first 50 people to write in will get the time and location, but if there's more than that, then we'll have to just do another show at some point to accommodate. So it's a first-come-first-serve deal. This show is also free.

So that's it for now. But more are coming. And I have updated the shows section of the website with this information as well. Or I'm going to right after this. I probably should have done that first. Oh well.

More soon. I hope everyone is well.

One: I have a working photo page now.

Two: There is now a lyrics section. I haven't finished punching up all the lyrics yet, but once I have there will be pdfs of the lyrics for every released song. I'm on record 3 of 7 right now. I should have them up this week if free time permits.

Three: There is now a forum. I've been on the fence about trying this, ever since someone wrote me about the idea 3 months ago, because forums have a tendency to devolve into nothing but arguments or get really cliquey over time. Or at least I've seen it happen a number of times. But I don't think there'd be too many members to juggle, which should help with that. So I'm gonna give it a spin, and as long as it seems like something productive and helpful it'll stay up. It will help a ton in organizing these "no clubs" tours, too, or for projects like Patients or anything where people other than me are involved. It's also the only form of internet communication I really like beyond e-mail. I'm not on the social networking sites very much (that hasn't been me on the facebook pages, for example). I don't have anything against them. It just isn't a form of communication that I enjoy very much. Whereas with forums you can actually get to know folks over time, in an internet sort of way, and there can be some depth to the discussions, instead of just broadcasting opinions all the time.

I don't know how much time I'll have to actually post, but I'll be involved when I can. And it'd be a place for folks to discuss whatever they want, as long as it remains respectful, not just whatever projects I'm rambling about at the time. But I'd like to be clear that if it doesn't work well, or I just don't like how it's going, I'm gonna shut it down. This may not even be something people want to be apart of at all, which would make everything I've said a moot point anyway. But like I said, I'm just gonna try it and see what happens, and better to be up front just in case.

Also, for the past three weeks, Mark Hubbard and I have been working on a video for the version of Doorways on the "Touch The Sky" ep. It's almost done. In fact, we should be wrapping it up tomorrow. It was supposed to be done last week, but we kept running into little issues. Which is kind of always the case. I'm really happy with it though. It's probably my favorite thing we've done together, in terms of music videos. But I'll type up more about it once the video is done and uploaded.

Also, the tour that I'd been getting together for the past two months fell through. It was no one's fault. It's just that the camera-guy who was gonna come along and film everything got a paying job during the dates I'd had together. Since I can't afford to pay him, we had a deal that he'd come along as long as he didn't have any paying work at the time. Worst case scenario happened. So I'm rebuilding everything again, this time simpler and more full-proof. But more on that once I have all my ducks in a row.

I'm also going to be posting the first song for the new Patients project soon, as well as incorporating a mailing list for it, so folks can get the songs sent to them via e-mail. But I gotta finish updating the website first.

So lots of things that are almost done, but not a lot to show for it. Kind of a crappy post, I guess. Sorry about that. The next one should have some content.

I hope everyone is well.

Shows: Some things have changed here. I'd planned on doing my outings for these "no clubs" tours in May and August. But my test run up to DC brought something to my attention -- renting cars is a lot more expensive than I thought it was. What I'd be spending to rent a vehicle for two weeks was enough to get a (cheap) used car. Which is what I'm going to do. But as I need time to get some money together and to search around for something decent, I have now moved these mini-tours to July and August. That gives me two months to get the vehicle situation all worked out. And in the mean time, I'm gonna do some weekend runs around the southeast with my friend Rickolus, mostly in Florida and Georgia. Maybe some Alabama.

So, if you have any interest in hosting a show in the coming month (late May, early June), have a good/interesting location and live in the southeast, please send an e-mail to shows@radicalface.com. I already have some offers from folks around Florida, whom I will be contacting tomorrow to see if they're still available, but will likely be looking for more. I'll send details in a return e-mail if I hear from you. And for more info on the kind of shows I'm talking about for this, check my post from November 11th of last year.

Radical Face: As I mentioned before, the first record of the Family Tree set is finished. Still no release date, but I should hopefully have that together soon. But if all goes as planned, I will also be releasing a 7 song EP. Before the main record comes out. About a month from now is my hope. The EP is going to bridge the gap from Ghost onto this next set of records. I don't have a name for it yet. I don't think I'm gonna give too much information about it just yet, as I still have 3 more tracks to wrap up (which should happen before the week is out). But I'll post some info on the content and how it's going to be released as soon as I have it all together.

I have more things to write about, but I'm having trouble keeping my eyes open. It's been a long day. I'll pick this up again as soon as I can.

I hope everyone is well.

And concerning The Violent Blue, I was talking with Mark (the video director friend of mine) and I think we're going to do another music video since I won't be touring this month. Though my budget is even less than last time. Hahaha. Guess we'll have to get creative about it.

And "The Roots", the first of the three upcoming Radical Face records, is very close to done. I spent the night going over the transitions between tracks. Once my sinuses clear up so I can record the vocals for the last two songs, and I redo the drums on two other tracks, all the tracking for the record will be finished. It was actually supposed to be done about two months ago, but my laptop dying and this crappy flu season set me back a lot. I'm excited to explain what the record is all about, but I'm gonna keep my mouth closed on it until I'm totally finished. Don't want to jinx it.

More soon. But I'm going to attempt to get some sleep tonight. I hope everyone is well.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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:

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.

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.

More soon. I hope everyone is well.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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):

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

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.