Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
New music
I'm working on a suite of gloomy songs for bass guitar (Toby Driver), alto clarinet (Jeremiah Cymerman), synth (Tim Byrnes), and vocals (Yoshiko Ohara). To be performed in late January 2008 at The Hunt Studio in Millstone NJ as part of their Winter Series. More info regarding this soon...!
Monday, December 3, 2007
Larval
Went and hung/jammed with Bill Brovold of LARVAL over the weekend upstate. We will be doing more stuff together in the near future. Check out his stuff, he's great:
http://www.myspace.com/billbrovold
http://www.myspace.com/billbrovold
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
today's PSA
I have been refraining from saying so much online regarding the following topic because there is a fine line between useful public relations and self-aggrandizement. But, in light of stark generational differences, I have learned that there are many people who just don't realize. Therefore, let me say the barenaked following and I'll leave it at that.
I came across a blog today that was offering the two Kayo Dot albums and the Tartar Lamb album as full, free downloads via megaupload or other similar file transfer sites. I will speak only of Tartar Lamb for now - an album that was 100% self-financed by maxing out my credit cards and going through dumbfoundingly brutal circumstances on the road; an album that took two years to produce. At the time of this writing, 174 people had downloaded Sixty Metonymies via the aforementioned blog alone. Anyway, the point is: musicians being Anti-Downloading is NOT an issue of greed. Just because you have seen someone's name in a magazine or on a messageboard does NOT mean that they are doing well. Who knows if downloading is a big deal for rich artists like Metallica? I sure don't. But probably every single person that reads my blog, and the blog I complained about above, is a fan of the whole world of music where every CD sale matters in a big way, makes a difference whether your artists can eat on tour or not, makes a difference whether they can pay their bills at home, and makes a difference whether a label will have the confidence in sales to help their artists make another record in the future. Think about it this way too: if merely one-sixth of the Kayo Dot fans on myspace bought a CD directly from the band, that would generate as much income as a person makes in the entirety of a year working a full-time job for a meager wage. So there is clearly something unbalanced about the number of people whose lives have been enhanced by our hard work vs. our personal situations. I'm sure this also applies to 95% of all the bands that we listen to and claim to love so much.
Of course, this is not a new thought, nor am I saying anything revolutionary here. I just decided to post this in case a reader out there was unaware.
I came across a blog today that was offering the two Kayo Dot albums and the Tartar Lamb album as full, free downloads via megaupload or other similar file transfer sites. I will speak only of Tartar Lamb for now - an album that was 100% self-financed by maxing out my credit cards and going through dumbfoundingly brutal circumstances on the road; an album that took two years to produce. At the time of this writing, 174 people had downloaded Sixty Metonymies via the aforementioned blog alone. Anyway, the point is: musicians being Anti-Downloading is NOT an issue of greed. Just because you have seen someone's name in a magazine or on a messageboard does NOT mean that they are doing well. Who knows if downloading is a big deal for rich artists like Metallica? I sure don't. But probably every single person that reads my blog, and the blog I complained about above, is a fan of the whole world of music where every CD sale matters in a big way, makes a difference whether your artists can eat on tour or not, makes a difference whether they can pay their bills at home, and makes a difference whether a label will have the confidence in sales to help their artists make another record in the future. Think about it this way too: if merely one-sixth of the Kayo Dot fans on myspace bought a CD directly from the band, that would generate as much income as a person makes in the entirety of a year working a full-time job for a meager wage. So there is clearly something unbalanced about the number of people whose lives have been enhanced by our hard work vs. our personal situations. I'm sure this also applies to 95% of all the bands that we listen to and claim to love so much.
Of course, this is not a new thought, nor am I saying anything revolutionary here. I just decided to post this in case a reader out there was unaware.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
OK OK!
OK ok, we're basically done! I promise I'll announce the details, like titles and all that good stuff, in a few days. What's the hold up? Well, everything just always takes longer than you think it's gonna. In the meantime, a concert date has been added to the calendar. Sat., Nov 17th @ The Stone. Please come check it out if you are able.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Back from recording!
Actually we didn't finish. There just wasn't enough time! I have to go back in a couple weeks to finish up. Everything sounds amaaaziing though////
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