Hey hey. I need some background vocals for the title track of my next album (Out of It). I kinda want it to have a singalong vibe. Instead of just going to some of my singing buddies I thought it'd be fun to try opening it up to anyone out there.

So here's the unfinished song with rough vocals:

Out of It [3MB MP3] (lyrics)

How to play along at home:

1. Record yourself singing along with this song as best you can. It doesn't have to be the greatest quality, but try to keep clipping/distortion & mic pops to a minimum. Note: I need a recording of only your singing to be able to mix you in.

2. Upload your audio files to ccMixter.org under an Attribution Creative Commons license (which gives anyone permission to use your vocals as long as they give you credit). Please tag the file with "outofit". Update: ccMixter has a submit form specifically for this. If you're logged in, go here.

Deadline: Monday, October 15th Sunday, November 11th.

What's in it for you: If I use your vocals I'll credit you in the liner notes for the song and ship you out a free copy of the record when it's done. Woo!

Thank you! (You can see the submissions so far here.)

Update: fieryprophet has mixed all the vocals as of October 16th, check it out [5mb mp3].

So last night I met William Gibson. What a super nice man. I was, I think, only slightly to mildly retarded while speaking to him. He said very nice things to me and it was a pretty great and extremely surreal experience. I kept having flashbacks to watching him on Prisoners of Gravity as a teenager.

Aside from the personal meeting, the Q&A itself was inspiring. My ongoing creative struggles seem small and ridiculous when compared with the pressures and ups and downs of a quarter century career largely saddled with the expectations of others.

Wow, linked to by William "father of cyberpunk" Gibson:

People sometimes ask what I was listening to during the writing of a given book. For Spook Country, I've usually cited the complete ouvre of Drive By Truckers (whom I happened to discover for the first time just as the book was really getting started), and, toward the end, Neko Case's Fox Confessor Brings The Flood. But I've been forgetting Brad Sucks, who I discovered when I was somewhere in the middle. Anesthetic's remix of "Dirtbag", in fact, came to have much to do with the tonality of my character Milgrim. I'd drive around and listen to that if I felt I was losing the peculiarly floaty grip that Milgrim required.

I don't know if I will ever feel any nerd-cooler than this moment.

The Anesthetic remix of Dirtbag is here by the way and it's by my fellow Magnatune artist c.Layne.

Thanks to everyone for coming out to the Rainbow tonight for the gig. It was a small crowd but there was rock and a girl fell down which is about all I can ask for. Also thank you to the mystery dancing blonde girl. I will always remember the yelled conversation we shared:

"Play another song!"

"Another one? Do you see how sweaty I am?"

"I know, you're disgusting! Play another one!"

(We played another one.) Over and out.

The double CD ccMixter Brad Sucks remix compilation is finally out! Links: CD 1, CD 2.

ccMixter is a website where artists can upload source files under Creative Commons licenses so that other artists can remix them free of legal worries. Their community has been very kind to me.

Like everything I seem to do, this compilation took way too long to put together but it has somehow struggled its way into daylight.

Thanks of course to all the talented remixers, Magnatune, ccMixter, Victor Stone in particular for his help and Katie Sekelsky for the awesome album art.

This isn't the first remix album for I Don't Know What I'm Doing, but it'll be the last I work on. Other I Don't Know What I'm Doing remix albums that I know of:

• I Don't Know What I'm Doing Remixed
• I Don't Know What I'm Doing Either (MC Jack in the Box vs. Brad Sucks)

I know there are a few other full-album remix projects out there in various states of completion so let me know if I'm missing anything.

Did an interview with Amber MacArthur for CityTV and her show Webnation. She's super nice though the interview was marred by my crappy webcam, power brown-outs due to thunderstorm and general internet retardation. Regardless it'll be on tonight around 8:20 or something, hopefully they can cobble something together from my stammering.

Update: the piece is here, thanks Amber!

Here's a weird one for y'all: Brad Sucks - Tracker Array [10mb MP3]. 

As I've mentioned in a bunch of interviews I took classical guitar lessons when I was 8 or so but got bored of it. It wasn't until I came across trackers on the PC around 1993 that I got hooked on making music (and realized that song files were the future) and it's been downhill ever since. The trackers I spent the most time in were Scream Tracker and Impulse Tracker, though I did my time in Composer 669 and Farandole Composer as well.

Recently I came across one of many stashes of tracker files I had converted to MP3 years ago. I thought about putting some of the songs online as a joke -- some of the ideas are okay but the sound quality of the samples is so low it makes me gag. Instead I compiled them into one retro audio highlight reel. These songs are all from around 93-98 I think. You can picture me working in DOS, chatting on BiModem, running a Telegard BBS (Renegade is for lamers) and not getting much sun or healthy social interaction while you listen to this.

The show last night (first as a three-piece) at the Live Lounge was super fun, thanks to everyone who came out, especially Brad Sucks Live Show MVP Donna (I think) for dancing almost through the entire set!

Richard's bass amp died right before the show so we had to improvise, which sabotaged him for the entire show which I believe was the Lord's plan.

The three-piece was cool. Having only one guitar thinned out the sound, which I liked but some people didn't. But then other people had previously complained there was too much guitar before compared to the album. So I think I'll just... go die.

Guess I should post this here also (already in the forums):

The title of my next album, barring mind-changes, will be "Out Of It". I'm looking for album art & ideas.

I want to go with a different style from I Don't Know What I'm Doing, so nothing too cartoony or that looks like a kid drew it.

Stuff you've made (that I can use) or things found through the Creative Commons search would be sweet. Thank you!

Figure I should get a jump on it. Thanks!

There are a couple upcoming Brad Sucks shows that I encourage you to attend, one's next Friday night! Look here.

Also I'm looking into the cost/demand of doing shows outside of Ottawa. If you're interested in a live show in your area, you can demand some Brad Sucks on Eventful here:

My friend Puce asked me to do a guest-chorus on his Songfight Sidefight entry. And that I did. Here's State of Emergency (mp3).

If you're logged in as a Best Friend Forever, you now get a 10% discount on anything in my Digital Download Store. Hooray!

Here are some photos I have been sent lately:

Gia models her Brad Sucks button and a hand-written note from me.

 

Steve's motorcycle, now with an advertisement for this here website. I'm gonna rake in the hits... from the ladies!

You can now sign up to be my Best Friend Forever. I don't like the sound of fan club or anything else I could think of, so I figured we could just straight up be BFF via you filling out a simple form. (Note: if you already had a forums account, that's now your BFF account.)

It's free of course. And right now it gets you extra music, access to the forums and a super-badass Brad Sucks BFF identification number. I'm hoping to add automatic discounts for CDs and digital downloads in the next couple of weeks.

For a long time I've been wanting to put more experimental stuff online -- stuff that I don't think would make a great first-impression for the majority of visitors, but maybe some people would like. This should give me a place to put that stuff.

Thanks to everyone who submitted artwork for the upcoming ccMixter/Brad Sucks remix compilation, there was a lot of great stuff. My favorite was by Katie Sekelsky:

Hooray for almost being done with this project!

Here's a clip last year of us playing Riverpalooza. Fireworks are sweet.

Well, after having it pointed out to me that it's at least a good idea to get in front of people who might like my music, I'm now on Sellaband.

My original nitpicking about Sellaband is still valid I think, but I guess we'll see. Have a read through the comments of that post for some rebuttals to my cynicism.

Magnatune & I will soon be putting out a double CD of Creative Commons-licensed ccMixter remixes of songs off I Don't Know What I'm Doing. It's a pretty awesome project that shows a lot of the super wickedness that can come out of the Creative Commons. Only hitch right now is: OMG we need album art!

I have no visual arts talent, so I'd really appreciate some help. I need four pieces of artwork: the cover, reverse side of the cover, tray card (back) and the CD itself.  (If you need the dimensions they're here under jewel case print dimensions.)

The title is "Mixter Two: Brad Sucks / I Don't Know What I'm Doing". Even if you (like me) have no artistic skills, you could contribute by rifling through the Creative Commons Search (particularly Flickr) for photos or drawings that might make good album art material (make sure to check the two boxes at the top for photos that can be remixed & used commercially).

I don't have much to offer other than eternal peace in heaven. We'll credit you on the album and I'll send you some CDs and buttons and maybe a letter explaining how nice I think you are.

Post anything you got in these comments, my forums or email me directly. Thank you!

Hey hey, Making Me Nervous is track of the day on CBC Radio 3, sweet! Thanks to Steven for letting me know.

If you're coming here from the CBC website, I have nothing brand new to sell you, which is unfortunate. There are only buttons and digital downloads or real CDs you can hold in your hands. I also have no shows coming up, but I hope to book some.

And I uh... I love you.

There's a new section on the site called You, an organized directory of all the remixes, lyrics, videos, tabs, frets on fire projects and so on that people have made to go with my songs. (For example here's Making Me Nervous.)

I know I'm missing a lot of stuff in there so please submit if you notice something missing. Also let me know of any credits and credit urls you want updated, I did a fair amount of guesstimation.

Also: newer songs are not in there yet but will be soon. Just upload stuff as "other" for now and let me know in the notes what it's for.

By the way, I stole this idea from Jonathan Coulton.

Thank you to everyone who's contributed stuff, it was awesome going through it all again.