Tag: Original Music - Page 15 - UNDERDOG of PERFECTION

It’s good to be “Downcast”

One really cool thing about participating in the RPM Challenge, beside forcing myself to record a new album and get it out there in just a month’s time, was getting to discover so much great talent out there amongst my fellow home-recorders. One of the most interesting people I’ve been introduced to through this process is a Chicago-based artist and musician named Joshua Wentz. And Josh was kind enough to invite me to be featured on his B-Sides podcast. Check it out!

While you’re there, be sure to check out all of Josh’s great graphic design work, not to mention his own music. I especially recommend the latest in his series of improvised tracks known as the Winchester Sessions.

Looks like I’m a “Very Us Artist”

Participating in the 2008 RPM Challenge was great for a lot of reasons. I got fired up to produce what I think is my best solo album so far. I learned about some great online resources for musicians like Kunaki and INDISTR. I met some cool people along the way.

But perhaps the most exciting thing to come of it is that I’ve discovered the Very Us Artists, a loose collective of musicians and visual artists who collaborate to produce a brand new, “various artists” (get it?) album every few months around a shared concept. There’s some tremendous talent involved, and it’s a wonderfully welcoming environment. The upshot of all of this is that I have recorded a track to be included on the next Very Us Artists album, The Future Is Now. It’s a very cool concept (which, of course, I had to twist in my own way), and I am really looking forward to seeing and hearing what my co-conspirators have come up with. Stay tuned for more!

If it’s good enough for Radiohead, it’s good enough for me

In the wake of the RPM Challenge, I’ve stepped up the presence of my solo music online, most notably making all of my recent music available as a paid download on INDISTR.

Initially I had assigned prices to the albums, but INDISTR has recently added a new feature, “Name Your Own Price.” Well, that works for me. Even if you only pay $1 (the minimum) for my albums, I still make about as much off the sale as most signed musicians make when you buy their CDs for $19.99 at Sam Goody.

So, in short, Sam Goody can suck it. But that’s not really the point. The point is that I want you to download my music! You can listen to it for free here, and then head on over to INDISTR to download it for whatever price you feel is fair. If you want. Or you can suck it too.

Just kidding. Buy my music!

Fall Out Boy falls into GarageBand

Geez, writing headlines like that I could get a job at Entertainment Weekly.

Anyway… although I would not consider myself a fan of Fall Out Boy (in fact, I’ve never even knowingly heard any of their music other than that snippet of the song that plays on the annoying workout guy’s cell phone in the commercial that seemed to be all over TV at one point last year), I can definitely get behind their lead singer Patrick Stump’s embrace of GarageBand. I’m not a pro musician, but I do have a B.A. in music, so I know a thing or two about it. I spent several years doing home recordings with Pro Tools LE (which, as far as I know, is limited from the full version only in the models of Digidesign hardware it accepts as dongles), and I hated how it broke with every OS update (because it was “breaking the rules” of how software should interact with hardware) and how ridiculously convoluted it was to do things as simple as set up a click track!

GarageBand has revolutionized my music making (including my latest project which I just finished as part of the 2008 RPM Challenge, and as Apple’s profile of Patrick Stump shows, it’s had a similar impact on how Fall Out Boy records.

Don’t buy my music on iTunes! (Yet)

I was delighted — no, overjoyed — when I checked the iTunes Store today and discovered that my EP is available. But my enthusiasm was quickly tempered when I noticed that, curiously, all 3 songs appeared to have a running time of 45 seconds.

Curious, considering that the tracks are 4:36, 1:38 and 2:36, respectively.

I decided to spend the $2.97 to see what a customer would actually receive, and sure enough, each track cut off right at the 45-second mark. So I contacted TuneCore tech support, with a fairly mild (for me) email explaining the situation and requesting assistance. I received a response a few hours later informing me that the files they had on their server were corrupted. I will be emailing this rep new versions of the files shortly, and hopefully within a few days the correct full versions of the songs will be available. Maybe I should try the same approach to get them to replace Magma’s truncated K.A. 3!