収束ゾーンでのライフ: Life in the Convergence Zone

Hello, The Future! appeared with Glen Raphael on Geeky and Genki, talking about working the geekmusic scene – or, at least, one of them. Obviously, this ties right in to my whole series of posts on music in the post-scarcity environment, and covers a lot of the same ground, but in convenient podcast form.

A couple of the comments she and Glen made were kind of interesting and even vaguely surprising to me. First, she’s in the no-backing-tracks-live camp. I think that’s probably true for her section of the geekosphere, absolutely. But at the same time, I look at chiptunes bands, nerdcore artists, occasional geekrock people, quite overtly using the backing tracks – typically from an iPod or laptop – and wonder whether some of that won’t make its way over. It’s something I’ve explored but haven’t tried yet.

There’s material I just can’t do solo that I’d really like to do solo – if I used my phone or laptop or something. I guess for me the differential is faking it; if you’re up there with your zouk or guitar or whatever and actually playing and singing it, and not pretending to do so, is there an actual problem with an effects track or extra-instruments track? I go back and forth on it myself.

Two other takeaways, for me. First, that the “friendship buy” is also known as the never-going-to-listen-to-it buy. And that’s still very nice of them, and supportive, I think, but it doesn’t build a fanbase because they aren’t going to listen and then tell other people. I’ve seen this expressed before, but I just love that terminology.

Also, and I’ve worried about this: both Nicole and Glen asserted in strong terms that putting as much as you can out there doesn’t hurt you, even if some of it isn’t, in the end, very good. Even if some of it is kinda bad. You can talk about contaminating the potential fanbase, but what they both point out is that the listeners will do the sieving for you, so it’s better to have more production and less filtering on the artist side.

This is the total opposite of the photography scene, and the fine arts scene, which I suspect has to do with relative sizes of potential audience. But I’m just speculating.

Anyway, it’s a good overview, and they talk about lots of things other than I am in this post. It all applies to any creative endeavour, so give it a listen if you’re trying to get your work out there.

Mirrored from Crime and the Blog of Evil. Come listen to our music!

Been busy with nwcMUSIC and soundtrack album this week, and today is all Daye Jobbe, so here, have a parrot singing dubstep:

And a genuinely fascinating hour-long German documentary – this version in English – on television under the Nazi regime. Turns out they started regular broadcasts in 1935! To almost no one, mind you, but it’s genuinely fascinating. A lot of filmed footage of television survived, turned out, and it’s just odd:

Mirrored from Crime and the Blog of Evil. Come listen to our music!

Got some guitar to record today – not me, I don’t play that, unless you count bass, which you shouldn’t – so have some fun things.

If you haven’t seen it yet, watch this Air New Zealand air safety video. YES, REALLY. I know. Trust me here.

I posted a video a little while ago about studio treatment, getting the room all nice and under control for recording. It was a DIY thing. I also made this 360° view of my home studio, but didn’t embed it. That’s from room centre. As you can see, it’s a small space! But it works.

STERN MICROPHONE IS VERY STERN. Also very Russian:

Во славу Родины, броситься под немецкие танки!

Finally, since we’re recording guitar today, here’s a 3D printed guitar. Change that to an Irish Bouzouki, take it on the road, you pretty much have everything I ever post about here. XD

Soundtrack album work all weekend for me – I’m going to be editing together some learning tracks for our musicians. What’ve you got?

Mirrored from Crime and the Blog of Evil. Come listen to our music!

Hey, remember a couple of weeks ago, I was invited to be a guest on The House of Julie with Julie Cascioppo? I got some video! The audio’s a bit tinny, but what do you think?

If you missed it on Friday, Cracksman Betty is on iTunes now! So I’ve started a review raffle. Write and post a public review in the next two weeks and I’ll draw to mail someone a special home-burned CD edition of the album. (It’ll be less S-100 Bus which you’ll still have to download on its own because of licensing, but it’s free, so that’s okay.) Click here to listen to the album.

Coming up next: getting organised on the Bone Walker soundtrack. But first, how was your weekend?

Mirrored from Crime and the Blog of Evil. Come listen to our music!

Working on a DIY video for how to make your own studio sound baffles the way I do. I needed to make a new one (or two, or three…) for nwcMUSIC next year if I want to do that “Find your Instrument” workshop again, so it seemed the time. Who knew editing the video would take almost as long as both shooting it and actually making a baffle?

Reminders:

• My guest appearance on The House of Julie, on Monday night at 7:30!
• The stats say Week 2 is Dead Week for Kickstarter projects. Anna’s just hit week two. ARE YOU A STATISTIC? ARE YOU? HUH?!
• Leannan Sidhe made their $1000 goal, and now have a new incentive for 25% – you get to pick a song for Roses and Ruin. Check that shit out.

Mirrored from Crime and the Blog of Evil. Come listen to our music!

So at the Portland show, I actually did “Open Mic Night at the Winking Skeever, a.k.a. Anybody Got a Banjo?” and I was also trying out all kinds of new hardware and setup and stuff? And it mostly worked! The audio setup changes ALL WORKED PERFECTLY. I couldn’t believe it, but it’s true! If I can get a handle on lighting, I can make some really good videos.

But people liked the Skyrim/Winking Skeever lyrics when I posted them, so this happened:

Mirrored from Crime and the Blog of Evil. Come listen to our music!

I haven’t played bass guitar much since finishing the bass parts on Dick Tracy Must Die (and particularly the bass solo on Stars). And that’s sad, because I really like bass. So I’m practicing again, with scales, exercises… and Irish jigs. Which I personally think is hilarious. Not tuba hilarious, I grant you. But hilarious nonetheless.

Here, I put up a video from the show at the B-Side!

Next show I’ll have new and much taller tripod, and actual video camera! It’s very exciting. PORTLANDERS! The show’s on the 26th! Contact me if you want an invitation! ^_^

Oh good, something’s beeping in the server room. I hope it’s not on fire!

i see smoke signals coming from them
they say “we are out of furniture”

Mirrored from Crime and the Blog of Evil. Come listen to our music!

Here, a video pretty much none of you guys have seen yet. It needs more plays because 4 is a lonely number. Unless you’re monogamous, in which case it’s a crowd – with benefits. Or something, I’m not sure how it works. Anyway, this needs more plays:

Also, because I apparently have nothing better to do:

Did you go boxing yesterday?

• [  ] It's not that kind of boxing, dear.
• [  ] Yes! I also brought a tazer.
• [  ] I had absolutely nothing to do with any severed heads or other body parts you may and may not have discovered. Not that there are any to discover. I'm just sayin'.
• [  ] Not yet, but there's still time. C'mere.

[Clickie here to vote]

Mirrored from Crime and the Blog of Evil. Come listen to our music!

I had to upload the last few videos at standard definition instead of HD. I have no idea why, they’re HD resolution on my machine, but the web interface insisted. Still, they’re up!

I’ve got enough videos up there for an entire set at this point. :D

I’m making a new, nicer pop filter for my studio mic mostly because working with the coathanger one is kind of annoying. So of course I’m making a DIY video of the process. I didn’t start out making a video, but realised after the first round of gluing that I should. That’ll be up in a day or two.

(Assuming I fight off whatever this is. I feel like six kinds of ass today. Blick.)

Boost this musician! Second-disc shipping is free right now on Bandcamp, and multi-disc orders are discounted 30% on CD Baby. Or download Cracksman Betty or Espionage and burn them to CDs as stocking-stuffer gifts!

Okay, yeah, definitely time for more meds. I hope this is just a 24-hour thing, because I feel like I’ve been hit by a car, and having been hit by a car, I know what I’m talking about. G’night!

Mirrored from Crime and the Blog of Evil. Come listen to our music!

AND HERE’S THE PITCH:

Hey, it’s Cyber Monday! I’ve got second-CD-shipping set to free, globally, on the band sales site, and second CDs are 20% off on CD Baby! Supervillain music: not only does it make a great present, but the locator chip in the jewel case tells us where not to aim the heat ray! GIVE THE GIFT OF NOT BEING SET ON FIRE! 😀

And now that’s out of the way…

I think I’m finally getting ahead of this learning curve.

I’m gonna put a couple of live videos on youtube, from the last stop on this past tour. I’m not sure what songs yet, I’m still narrowing that down. (Got any requests? Let me know.)

The deciding factor for what goes up will be video quality. It’s not how good the sound is, how good my mic discipline was, or even the performances, because really, that’s all just fine. It’s the video part.

And that’s new, and awesome. It’s taken a lot of work for all the many-more-things-than-you-know that go into a live amped and recorded show to come together this way. A year ago, I’d maybe get one live recording from a show that I’d’ve been okay to have public. “Something’s Coming,” on Dick Tracy Must Die, was recorded live at the Lyon’s Den, for example.

But most of them would’ve had one problem or another. Pops in the microphone. Some stupid fade. The minidisc player failing. Bad levels. The sound guy feeding my recorder the reverb effects return by accident, so all I had was reverb and not the actual music^*.

Or voice problems! Singing isn’t my core talent, and I am leagues ahead of where I started, and ahead of last year. Getting good vocals was the hardest performance part of the studio album, by far; it took dozens of takes. Now, lately, I can pop off that level of performance without even thinking about it^**.

Things like that. Live recording is hard work. So many things can and do go wrong.

But this year, this tour, and particularly, this last show, the first one where I have complete video? There’s also not a goddamn thing on this latest recording I wouldn’t play for somebody. Hell – I sing along.

Sure, there are flaws. It’s not perfect, there are always things I’d like to do better, particularly in vocals. And I need to patch together some way of getting genuinely separate vocal and instrument recordings, so I can do better equalisation and have better post-show mixes.

But this tour really was a level-up experience. Between the Spooky Action show, the guest spot with Leannan Sidhe that got me my own separate two-song encore^***, the set I’m least happy with – the Sidhehaven show – being called “wonderful” on Facebook, and this?

I’m starting to think I might just be gettin’ the hang of this thing. I really do.

I like that. I like it a lot.

Stick around, why don’t you? This trip’s starting to get interesting.

Mirrored from Crime and the Blog of Evil. Come check out our music at:
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