Worth reading!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castlevania

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...!

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

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.

New Album Info Posted

on the kayodot main page. Finally!!

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.

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////

omg

oh jeez, i nearly died. My external firewire drive, which contains not only all the masters from Dowsing Anemone, LLLLLibrary Loft, as well as pretty much my only copies of spoonion, put to bed with a shovel, all the website crap I'm working on, etc. BUT ALSO all the drum tracks and horn/violin/bass demos from the NEW album,.... would no longer mount.

Anyway, the drive sounded fine, so I determined that the problem was basically that the firewire ports on the drive died. I did a lot of searching online for a possible solution, and I couldn't find anything where anyone mentions what to do when you know your drive's data is fine but the freakin' ports just have burnt out.

Maybe this is something that's just really obvious to people, so no one feels the need to post messageboard topics or blogs about it. I dunno.

Anyway, for everyone who DOESN'T know (like myself), after a few days of freaking out, searching fruitlessly online,and getting absolutely zero helpful responses from the drive's manufacturer and every "drive repair" company I contacted, I finally came across an article where a guy's talking about upgrading the size of his drive within its enclosure. From this article, i was able to deduce that:

When you have an external drive, basically it's just a regular hard drive inside a special case (an enclosure), and it's the enclosure which has the firewire or USB ports, not the drive itself. So if your drive's firewire ports crap out, you can just take the enclosure off the drive, and install the drive either directly into your computer, or into a new enclosure. It's actually really simple, and if this happens to you, there's no need to panic.

It's just annoying that it was so impossible to find this simple bit of info online. Is this just something that everyone already knows? For pete's sake. If I were Stephen Colbert I would give a furious Wag of the Finger to DRIVE REPAIR/DATA RECOVERY COMPANIES, who did not need to quote me $750 - $2000 for data recovery when they simply could have told me about the basic principle of DRIVE ENCLOSURES and how easy they are to replace.

Anyway, that's why I'm posting this as a blog. In case anyone doesn't know about this basic property of external drives. So I have all my data back and everything is "fine" now. Whew!

kayodot update!

I have finally been able to officially book the recording dates for the album, and it's August 26th - Sept 9!!! That's pretty soon! Also, drum rehearsal starts tomorrow morning (Friday) !

Just a quick update to psych everyone up!

Tartar Lamb Shirts

SOLD OUT

Hzael-Rah show tonight

Hey, I'm playing with HAZEL-RAH tonight at the Knitting Factory in NYC. Also playing is Tatsuya Yoshida from RUINS and TIME OF ORCHIDS.

I will have Tartar Lamb CDs for sale at the show!

Sixty Metonymies is here!!!

Yayy!! I finally got the CDs in the mail today and they look fantastic! A couple friends have offered to help distribute, so I may go through those channels soon. Although I may wait until the next pressing if there is one, because I basically need to sell every copy I have in order to break even! I spent a lot of time on the packaging so that hopefully it will encourage people to purchase a copy instead of downloading. I have posted some pictures of the package, sound samples, and details about the recording and purchase info up at Tartar Lamb's myspace blog. Please check it out and order one if you like what you hear. Thank you!!!

"60" Artwork is finished!

I've finally finished all the artwork for the CD! It took a while, having to split up my time between work, Kayo Dot, and Tartar Lamb. I've submitted my order to the CD manufacturer, and although I'm not sure what to expect for turnaround time, I assume the CD will be in-hand by the end of April at the latest, so at that point we can start offering copies for sale. Maybe we'll do a pre-order thing? I know labels tend to do that, but am not sure why.

In other news, I've joined a local concert band as a first clarinetist, so my reading and clarinet playing chops will be at full when it comes time to record the Kayo Dot CD!

Back hurts

The studio recording of 60 Metonymies is finished, and I'm pretty sure I'll be self-releasing it. I'm going gaga over the potential of boundless packaging design - all I have to do is save up the pressing costs! I should be all set to go in just a couple months from now. The reasons behind this decision were numerous, and the more I considered it, the more it made sense. And to be honest, the desire was always in the back of my mind. I have not made any great effort to solicit anyone since the recording was finished in January.

That said, if some label out there stumbles upon our clips and decides in the next month or so to throw a pile of moolah at us, we'll let you all know.

Website redesign

I've just redesigned my website to include stuff like artwork, descriptions, and this blog! I'll try to keep it updated on a regular basis.