I'm still playing in Toronto on Saturday. I'm pretty sure the album's available everywhere it's supposed to be. iTunes, Amazon, Bandcamp, CD Baby, Spotify, Rdio and now finally Jamendo (thanks to everyone who helped out with that). Oh and I'm slowly getting it on Soundcloud. Also a big thank you to everyone who's been buying it. For a while I wasn't sure if I'd get to still be a musician but it looks like I'm OK for now.

By the way, the source/stems for the album are here. Send me anything you make with my stuff, I'll be featuring some things in the next while.

I've been neglecting this blog in favor of Facebook and Twitter. I have some confusion about where to channel my Internet energies these days.

It's -28C outside right now. That's cold.

Would you look at that, the CDs actually exist. I'm shipping off the first batch of pre-orders today, thanks everybody.

One of the issues with finishing this record (that I have figured out in retrospect) has been that my understanding of rhythm and "tightness" changed when I was nearly done. Tracks were in the bag and then I suddenly started noticing some songs didn't "groove" or "bang" the way I perhaps wanted them to. Before this I've mostly thought about my contributions in music as chords & riffs, melody and words. The groove was just something that happened -- or sometimes mysteriously didn't happen and I'd have no idea why.

But what to do? I can't re-record the album every time I learn something new or get better at something. I know that doesn't end well for me (or anyone who wants to hear my record in the next ten years).

So I took some time and I've gone back and re-addressed things, trying to avoid re-recording everything or changing them too much (people already like a lot of these demos! some have already been licensed!). Here's an example of one I'm working on right now:

Excerpt of the original "Feel Free Plastic Surgery!" instrumental

Excerpt of the new version

It's been confusing to diagnose and treat this without starting over. In this one I ditched the South American drum loop that I wrote the song on top of and replaced it with a more straight ahead rock pattern I tapped in. Then re-recorded the bass to fit better.

I'm still working on it (I'm concerned the snare on the 4 is late sometimes), but the new one is more fun to me, dancier and rockier. It's such a small change and I feel dumb that it's taken me forever to understand and figure out. But... maybe it's a good thing? I don't know, we'll see.

2011 was kinda bananas. I think the original plan was to kick ass and make a lot of progress on this dusty old music career of mine but that hasn't really happened so much. People have been asking me about my record and I really appreciate that you guys are looking forward to it despite all the radio silence from me. Honestly I'm still struggling with it, getting the songs how I want them while not going all Chinese Democracy. It's a tough balance.

But it's moving forward now and I'm optimistic I'll be able to wrap it up soon. Thanks for your patience and support. Have a sweet 2012.

I'm off to Boston today to do a panel thing at Rethink Music. and an interview at the Berkman Center. If you're around there be sure to say hi. I have another song demo nearly ready to go which means that'll be nine out of ten done for the next album, holy smokes! The tenth track is getting there as well. With luck I'll be working on finishing the record by the summer. So that's nice.

Whoops. I found out on Friday that last week I accidentally uploaded a very old version of my Guess Who's a Mess demo. That's pretty embarrassing, I was actually pretty horrified but I think I'm good now. Anyway here's the latest one instead: Guess Who's a Mess (demo 2)

Okay, moving on...

Hey, here's another messy demo: Guess Who's a Mess (demo)

It's the title track and will probably be track 6 on Guess Who's a Mess.

Venue: The Tranzac Club
City: Toronto, ON
When: August 7, 7pm
Cost: $12

Event listings:

Facebook
MySpace
Eventful
Upcoming
last.fm

So Brad Sucks should be coming out of live show retirement this year. There's an interesting show I've been offered but I need to gauge interest + probably sell tickets in advance to make it happen. Here are the potential details:

• The show would be at Beau's All Natural Brewing Company in Vankleek Hill, Ontario.
• There would be a round trip bus from Montreal or Ottawa (depending on which city has more interest.)
• Cost would be $30, which is your cover and a brewery tour.
• It'd be in the spring or early summer.

Anyway, please let me know if it's something you'd attend. Thanks!

These are the songs that got more than two votes on the site here and on the Facebook group:

So I think we're doing the top 6, but I'm not sure what to do about Making Me Nervous. It's the most popular song but many people think it's a bad fit for Rock Band. I'm sort of thinking about doing a remix with more guitars, but maybe that'd kill some of the fun. "Play along to a different version of a song you kinda liked!"

Last month "Jack" requested twice (1, 2) that I do a cover of Goodbye Horses, the Q Lazzarus song:

Request from Brad if he's up to it. Bunch of friends and I think Clerks 2 is an awesome movie! We wanted to know if Brad would do a cover song of Goodbye Horses from Q Lazzarus. You know the creepy silence of the lambs Buffalo Bill song. Take the creepy out and see clerks 2 to understand the humor in it. Everyone at work loves Bradsux and wanted to see if Brad would attempt a cover of it. Such groups that actually sounded better that did a remix were Psyche. Anyhow just small request.

I listened to the original and didn't like it. Then I noticed it was stuck in my head and I started to like it. Then it seemed familiar and I realized my wife was obsessed with it a couple months ago. So here's my cover:

Goodbye Horses (cover) [6 MB]

I've mentioned here before that I'm working on a poppy concept album called Guess Who's a Mess. I'm releasing the demos as I go along like I did on my first record, but I'm going a step further and releasing the instrumentals and vocals as well. They're all on the album page now.

You're welcome to mess around with them however you want. Please send me a link to anything you do - when I'm done the demos I'll be looking to see if there's anything I want to include on the finished record and then I'll be in touch (so including a working email address would be a bonus.)

September demo: Feel Free! Plastic Surgery! [5 MB]

It'll be track #4 on Guess Who's a Mess.

Tomorrow I'm going to be putting all the demo instrumentals and vocals online on that page so anyone can mess with them before I'm done. Stay tuned, etc.

Holy smokes, I'm looking to hire an assistant. I figure I'd rather hire someone who reads this site, so I'm starting my search here. Are you interested? Some things:

• you must be awesome at using the web (programming not necessary)
• you must have good writing and language skills
• you must be decent at interacting with other humans (via phone & email mostly)
• you unfortunately probably have to like my music (or fake it really really well)
• your location doesn't matter
• artistic talent would be a bonus
• you like new challenges, wearing different hats, yadda yadda, etc, etc.

Most tasks are related to Brad Sucks but I've got other projects I'm looking for work on as well. If you're down, please email me at brad@bradsucks.net and tell me a bit about yourself. Thanks!

Update: Wow, I got a shocking number of applications. I've filled the position now, thanks to everyone who applied!

Hey, it's my new website! That was a hell of a lot of work and a rough transition today but it seems to mostly be online and working. Tweaks are forthcoming.

While I was happy with most navigation aspects of the old site, I wanted something a bit sexier. I hired Rob Palmer from Branded07.com to do the design and after months of hacking on it, I'm very happy. I could bore you all with the design goals but blaghhh does anyone really care? I say no, nobody cares.

Anyway it behaves much like the old one but with an emphasis on music playing and search and looking sweet. If there are any folks out there who want the job of porting the design to my forums and maybe my MySpace, please get in touch.

Now I will go drink of a beer.

April demo: Model Home (demo) [5.7MB MP3]

Two things about this track:

• It's the first song on a concept album I'm working on. All the songs are roughed out (but incomplete) and the track order is decided. The other song I've released that fits on this album is Thanks for the Add (which will be track 5).
• This is the first song I've done in REAPER. I'm really impressed with version 3 and I'm trying to switch to it from Cubase (more on that later). The mix isn't great on this song but that's not REAPER's fault. It is a demo so I'm forcing myself not to care.

My pal Allen made this animated video for my song Time to Take out the Trash. Read about it on his blog or just plain watch it here:

I declare it to be sweet.

Here's my demo for March. It's extra retarded: I Command You to Be My Woman (demo) [4.5MB MP3]

The story behind it is this: my buddy JB from Songfight! asked some of his musician pals to write songs to surprise his would-be fiancee with just before he popped the question. I spent a month working on a very tender and sincere ballad and then shit-canned it at the last moment and wrote this thing.

Check out the other entries on Songfight. And I'd say wish JB good luck but she'd have to be jerk of the year to say no after everyone wrote all these songs. So I think it's basically in the bag.

Here's the final video for the Fake It Video Project:

Thanks to everyone who contributed! Also big thanks to Allen for editing it all together.

Trying to do a song demo a month in 2009, here's the first of the theoretical twelve:

Certain Types of People (demo)

Update: BFF GrowYoYoRhino has put together a guitar lesson for this song:

He's got it pretty much perfect.