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.

Anywho, just wanted to drop a quick note that the Touch the Sky Radical Face ep will be available next week on itunes. July 6th, to be exact (and I think it may be available in Germany tomorrow, but don’t quote me on that — I usually have this stuff mixed up somehow). Anyway, I will eventually press up some physical copies, but that may be a little while. It’ll be digital to begin with. If I do press up some copies, it’ll likely be doing it on my own, so there won’t be many made. Whatever happens with that, I’ll post about it. Not real sure as of now. But I’ll have the lyrics up here on the site soon. I’m working with my brother tomorrow to update this here site, and part of this overhaul will be adding a lyrics section.

I’m also shooting a video for one of the tracks next week, and will likely have it all edited and uploaded by next Saturday. Mark and I have been meeting about it for the past week, and everything is together now. I’m itching to get to the filming, but it’s always a process. Gotta finish making everything for it first. But we were also tossing around the idea of shooting something for “Safe and Sound” from the last Electric President record, and we came up with an idea that sounds like it’ll be fun. So we’re gonna shoot that one soon after this first one is all wrapped up. Both of these are no-budget videos, like always, but I think they’re gonna come out good. We’ll see.

Anyway, more real soon. Just gotta get a few more things in order. Hope everyone is well.

Anywho, first I’d like to mention a bit about this new Radical Face EP. It’s finished, very roughly mastered (read: I did it myself), and will be released digitally pretty soon. I’m not exactly sure when. It might be more like a month and a half, not a month like I’d thought. A small physical run will likely be pressed up afterwards, though I have no idea how many, or how it will be available. I’ll post about these things once I know. Anyway, it’s called the Touch the Sky EP. It serves as a link between Ghost and The Family Tree in terms of production (the first 3 songs will all be somewhat familiar to folks who’ve heard Ghost and the first volume of Patients), and it’s predominantly about youth, or the loss of it. But it wound up as 6 songs, not 7. The last track I did for it just didn’t work well with the others and was a sore thumb no matter where I put it. So I’ll either integrate that into the new Patients project, or just dump it in the downloads section.

Here’s the cover:

Next I’d like to mention some upcoming shows around Florida. The first is ready to go, and it’s gonna take place just outside of Tallahassee. Below is the time, date and general info:

Date: Sunday, May 30th
Time: Around 9pm
Place: 9601 Miccosukee RD, Tallahassee, FL, 32309-9662
Cost: Free
Description: It’s an outdoor show, near a co-op. There’s a stage out in the woods there. I’m not positive if there are bathrooms out there, or any comforts in general. Might want to keep that in mind. I’ll be playing with my friend Rickolus (myspace.com/rickolus). We’ll probably be playing a lot of the show acoustic, so it’ll likely be pretty quiet and low-key. The show should be brief enough that it won’t be a terribly late night for anyone. I hope some folks in the area can make it out.

If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail Tamar, the host: td05c@fsu.edu

I will posting a few dates for the following weekend, near Miami and Orlando. If you live in those areas and would like to come out, check back. I’ll post the info as soon as I have it confirmed. And I hope to do a couple shows around Georgia the weekend after that.

I want to thank everyone who’s taken a time to send in a story for this next volume of Patients. I have tons of great material to pick from, so this project is gonna work out. I haven’t had a chance to write anyone back for these stories due to being pretty swamped the past 4 months, but I have read them all. I also haven’t had time to start this officially due to making that Radical Face EP and wrapping up the first of the Family Tree records, but the project will officially begin in June. I plan on putting together a mailing list, so I can e-mail anyone who’s interested in the project a link to each song as soon as I have it online. So once I figure how best to implement that feature, I will let everyone know. Unless I come up with an entirely different way to get the songs to folks. I haven’t really thought it all out yet.

I always feel like I’m forgetting something at the end of these posts. But I can’t think of it right now, so I’ll just have to chew on it. 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.

But I have finished recording the new Radical Face album. I still have to mix it, but I’m going to wait a couple weeks and give my ears some rest first. My perspective is shot at the moment, and I figure I’d do more harm than good if I worked on mixes now. But the tracking is all done, and I can start sleeping normal again. And though I’ve already explained some of these ideas behind the album(s), I’m gonna reiterate them real quick, because I’m really excited about it at the moment.

Over the past couple years I have been penning characters and stories for a fictional family tree ranging from around 1800 to 1950 (the Northcotes). I’ve wanted to write something on the topic of family for a while now. If I had to choose a specific source of inspiration for this, I’d peg it on East of Eden, the Steinbeck novel. It’s one of my all-time favorite books (top 5 for sure), and after reading it I really wanted to try my hand at a record that covered multiple generations of people. But I wasn’t confident enough in my ability to do it any justice until a couple years ago. Family is a topic that’s simultaneously large and small, with a lot of extremes, and it’s something that means a lot to me personally. So I guess it felt like a lot to tackle. But the funny thing is, once I started writing it all kind of poured out. What was originally going to be one record became two, then three. I started writing the material back in 2007, soon after releasing Ghost, and when I began working on the actual recordings in 2009 I found myself with nearly 40 ideas for songs on my little hand recorder, and multiple notebooks full of stories.

So I divided all the material up into 3 albums, and gave them all a subtext. The first record, which I just finished (about 3 hours ago) is titled “The Family Tree: The Roots”, with the 2nd to be called “The Branches” and the last as “The Relatives.” The Roots covers the first two generations, and is all set in the 1800s. But I don’t want to imply that the music is reminiscent of music of that time. It isn’t. It’s more the basis for the content and the story-telling. Not so much the arrangements and the sounds. But I did set up some musical guidelines. I chose from that the start that first record would revolve around 4 instruments: piano, acoustic guitar, voices and a floor tom (the main source of percussion). There are some flourishes beyond these instruments when the song called for it (strings, banjos, etc), but those four were the things each of the songs were actually written on.

I wanted the first record to be the least “produced” of the three, in that there isn’t a lot of sonic experimentation or studio trickery. I kept most of the recordings somewhat raw, and was more minimalist than I normally am in terms of layering (which might not be saying much). If there was to be any grandness or strangeness in the songs, I wanted to do it with composition. I’m going to add more production into things as the stories get further along the timeline, so the second and third records will have more going on sonically. I’ll be gradually more free with the sounds and techniques I use. I don’t know how much this will affect the project as a whole, but since this is the largest musical project I’ve ever undertaken, I’m using these loose “rules” and the concept of time/history to keep me on track.

For this first record, I mostly avoided using full drums kits. If I wanted size from percussion (which I would typically get from kick drums and crashes), I did it by making arrangements of lots of “small” percussion — shakers, claps, sticks, and the floor tom. I uploaded an audio version of what I’m talking about below.

Drums!

As for content, I read up on my American history, looked over genealogy charts, and even looked up some stuff about my own family tree. It was all pretty fascinating and definitely helped get my head in the right place for this, but in the end I found myself skewing bits and pieces with some more fantastic ideas. For example: one song is about a twin who loses his brother to fever. But what he sees concerning his death is not supposed to be seen, and he winds up absorbing him, and having to share his body with his brother, two minds in one host. I have another song about them/him on The Branches record as well. A different song concerns the twins’s little sister, told from the point of view of their neighbor. He sees her leave the house in the middle of the night, sleepwalking. He watches to see where she goes and witnesses her walk across the water. Not every track is written like this, mind you, but there are 3 on this first record, and 2 so far on the follow-up. I guess I always end up twisting things when I sit down to write. I’d make a shitty historian. Haha.

Lyrically, I spent a lot of time working on the tone of it all. The root of all this is storytelling, and I wanted that to be the focus. Not to say I haven’t done something similar before, but this time around I was more deliberate. I don’t know how much of this will come across. I guess it doesn’t really matter. But it was definitely a key element to finishing the record.

Anyway, I’ve probably rambled enough on this for now. These things always take a while to actually see release, so it’ll be at least 3 or 4 months before the record is actually available. But I’m really happy with how it all turned out, so I wanted to jot some of this down while I was still excited and it was all pretty fresh. I realize it’s likely more information than folks really care to know (and in truth, I could ramble on … I get really carried away with this concept stuff), but I figure you can always stop reading or just skim if what I’m saying is boring. Hahaha.

But for some practical information …

Shows: I have updated the shows section with proper dates. I will be playing a short Radical Face acoustic set at SXSW for the Fake Four label showcase (free, no badge required) along with the Electric President show. So if you’re around and you’d like to hear some folk songs, it’d be nice if you stopped by.

And I am currently getting everything together for a solo “no clubs” tour in May, which I hope to have all worked out in the next two weeks. I have some folks helping me put together a route as we speak, and then I will begin confirming things with all the volunteers.

Patients:The first volume of Patients is now available for anyone who wants it, free of charge, on a really cool website called Musicfloss. The site was both started and developed by David Isaacson, and it’s a way for artists to distribute their music digitally with no middle man. The artist can charge as much or as little as they choose, or they can get by on donations. The proceeds go entirely to the artists. David is not taking any himself. I think both the idea and the functionality of the site are excellent. David was kind enough to host the Patients record on there, which is how it will be distributed from here on out. Here’s a link to the page:

http://www.musicfloss.com/patients

And now that I am done recording the Radical Face record, I am going to begin officially working on the new Patients project. Thanks to everyone who has sent in stories so far. I have read all of them, and already have 4 songs going. And it’s always super cool to me that people are willing to participate in these things. I really appreciate it.

And if you have no idea what I’m talking about here, check the “January 10th” entry on my news page here. I will be updating the actual Patients page with this information as well.

Well, that’s enough for tonight. I’m gonna get some sleep. 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.

That being said …

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

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

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

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

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

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

I hope everyone is well.

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

On to the projects:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I hope everyone is well.

That being said …

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

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

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

As for updates on projects …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I hope everyone is well. And stay healthy.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I hope everyone is well.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I hope everyone is well.

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

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

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

I hope everyone is well.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then the last topic I want to cover is touring.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sheesh. Long post. Sorry for the rambling.

I hope everyone is well.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alright. Enough rambling from me.

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”:

You Forget

Radical Face — “Wandering”:

Wandering

Electric President — “White Noise”:

White Noiset

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.

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

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

Articles: Science was the most common subject.

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

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

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

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

I hope everyone is well.

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

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

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

Here’s the link to the video: click

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

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

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

I hope everyone is well.