On Saturday I went to a show at the National Arts Center where my girlfriend was narrating an Inuit story with an orchestra. It was very cool and the show on world music was extremely entertaining and interesting. It was intended for kids so it was very accessible and I enjoyed it a lot. After the show, I went backstage and met and shook the hand of conductor Boris Brott. Even in the brief time I met him, he was ridiculously charismatic and energetic and friendly. I'm pretty sure he could easily have gotten me to join some sort of cult but thankfully either he was too busy or I wasn't quite up to snuff for cult membership.

If there had been more time I was going to ask him some questions about pop music. Apparently my girlfriend has his email address so I may still get a chance. I've never had the opportunity to ask someone so tremendously musically trained, talented and respected what the hell the deal is with songs like Nelly's "Hot in Here" and why music theorists can't just crank out top 40 stuff like nobody's business. We'll see.

Dirt Bag (Fear is Key Remix) Victor from Fourstones.net did this nifty remix of my song Dirt Bag and here's what he wrote on his site about it:

I'm ashamed to say I just discovered Roy Budd but I'm digging deep now and making up for lost time. Meanwhile the mad beats are from a Stone's Throw (no relation) release called "16 Corners" -- again, expect lots of digging from there in the next few tunes. And what can I say about "Dirt Bag"? Set shit on fire...

There were a number of thoughtful replies to my Creative Commons post the other day, you should go read them here if you're interested. I'd most like to reply to this part in evil_d's comment because I only really glossed over it in my first post:

Sure, licenses like these are legally binding. I'm pretty sure copyright laws don't require you to restrict use of your work if you don't want, they just allow you to. I assume you can release your work under any terms you want as long as they don't break some other law.

I see the licenses as very convenient for stating your intent to ignore aspects of copyright, but what if you change your mind? One of my questions is: how legally binding are these licenses for the licensees?

Here's a wacky scenario:

Person X slaps a Creative Commons license on their music requiring only attribution. They're pretty sure they're not going to make any money off of it, so what the hell. I, improbably evil Brad, take this music, modify it and somehow (use your imagination) make a kabillion dollars off of it. I give them credit as the author of the original work, thereby honoring the requirements of their CC license.

Person X sees me rolling around in hundred dollar bills and understandably has a change of heart. They come to me and ask for some of the money earned from their work. I, being totally frigging evil, tell them I am not giving them a single dirty damn dime, as specified in their license.

Let's say Person X doesn't accept this gracefully and instead takes the Creative Commons license buttons off their site and decides to try to get the courts to squeeze me for some of that money. Then what do the courts do? Do they pay attention to the Creative Commons license and tell Person X he's out of luck or do they just ignore it and go by the existing copyright law and force me to hand over some cash?

I haven't been able to find this addressed anywhere on the Creative Commons site. I would think that if they're actually trying to provide a real legal alternative to "all rights reserved", it's worth being concerned with scenarios like this.

This thread on Metafilter has once again made me wonder what the actual point of the Creative Commons is. I've looked at the Creative Commons before and had it recommended to me and have seen the licenses around on other sites for a while. But being a dumbass, I don't really understand how it's different than saying "do whatever you want with my dumb junk, I totally swear to god I won't sue you".

Are the Creative Commons licenses in any way actually legally binding? Is there anything preventing people from just changing their minds at any point? I assume the existing copyright laws overrule any pretty license button you may decide to put on your web site.

Maybe the purpose of the Creative Commons is simply to explicitly promote collaboration between artists. In that way I can see it being kind of handy, though I imagine there are other ideas that could be more effective for that.

So I don't understand. I also don't quite understand why people who aren't making any money off of their work worry so much about getting ripped off, but that's a whole other story.

Look And Feel Years YoungerGenre: Hard Rock Length: 4:37 Date: 05/22/03 Album: Brad Sucks: I Don't Know What I'm Doing

This is a song I made for the Outside the Inbox compilation. The subject line of the spam was, obviously, "Look and feel years younger". I have no idea what it's actually selling because I'm afraid to click on the link in the email. This song's a lot more aggro than the stuff I've been putting up here lately. Distortion and yelling and guitars as large as I could make them. There are many things I'm unsure of about this song, such as the solo and the quick drum break and how stupid maybe I sound, but I figure I might as well slap the song online and re-evaluate it sometime before the August 1st compilation deadline.

Currently my song I Think I Started A Trend is number one on the past week's top songs on somesongs, clocking in at a respectable (yet humble and indie) 8.06. Also noteworthy is that MC Frontalot of MC Frontalot fame said "I think this song rocks just the right amount." over here. That's practically a celebrity endorsement, people. I sent him an email inviting him to take part in my Outside the Inbox compilation but have insofar received no response unless he is sending emails encrypted to look like spam.

Flash Oblique Strategies:

In 1975, the musician Brian Eno and the artist Peter Schmidt published a set of cards called Oblique Strategies. Each card contained a phrase to be used as a guiding principle or strategy to help one accomplish a task. Here is a Flash version of that deck, with the original text created by Eno and schmidt.

The RIAA Radar:

The RIAA Radar is a tool that music consumers can use to easily and instantly distinguish whether an album was released by a member of the Recording Industry Association of America.

That's a pretty rad tool if you're into any sort of music activism and happen to be a little bit on the lazy side.

Bored and elbow-injured once again, I spent a bit of today looking around for music sites and thought that I should document my new finds as well as a few regular visits I make that I might not have mentioned before: resources

garageband.com - After my recent experience with somesongs.com I remembered garageband.com and went back to check it out. It's kind of a similar deal, feedback and ratings, but the music is more unabashedly mainstream and there are allegedly prizes if you do really well. I think I may try it out next and see how poorly I do. I'm not sure it's very compatible with my 26.4k lifestyle however. I've downloaded a few songs off of there and have been impressed with their quality.

homerecording.com/bbs - This is the place I go for general information and advice on home recording. It's the best resource I've found. As long as you're not a total ass, the users there are generally extremely helpful and there are a lot of very knowledgeable people kicking around.

songfight.org - This is a cool concept and a bit chaotic. Musicians are given a song title and they write a song to go with it. The songs are voted on and a winner is declared. It is once again a site that I have a rough time with, being at low speed. I hope to participate once I eventually go high bandwidth.

allmusic.com - This is generally my first stop when I'm reading up on bands. Allmusic's biographies are great, discographies very complete, the reviews are more often than not right on the money and the artist browser allows you to easily find similar bands you might be interested in. My killer app of all time would be some sort of Audiogalaxy-esque MP3 sharing client hooked up to Allmusic.

kvr-vst - Your one stop shop for the latest in VST plugin news as well as a searchable database of plugins. There are also various other useful resources for music nerds, such as the sound card latency database for when you're trying to deal with your moronic sound card. The forums are also pretty decent.

artists

scottandrew.com - It occurs to me as I list his site here that I've spoken with Scott by email a few times -- he has always been very encouraging and supportive and helpful and to me -- and I don't think I've ever told him that I really, really like his music. Maybe I'm a dick. He pulls off contemporary mature folk/rock, kind of in a Goo-Goo Dolls vein if you want to get all comparative, and his songs sound very professional and natural in a genre where most seem to wind up coming off forced and amateurish. I really like his latest song, The Big Lie That Solves Everything.

shannoncampbell.info - I was introduced to her when she kinda dissed me on her weblog over copyright thangs, but I didn't really check out her music. I just recently downloaded Scott Andrew and Shannon's collaboration on Dreaming Of Violets (originally Shannon's song I believe). It's a folky sad song and I really enjoyed it. She has one of the best voices of the women I've heard on the net.

Chris Voss - I just discovered this guy the other day on somesongs and I really like the two tracks he has listed there. I don't know anything else about him but I've been trying to track him and more of his music down.

If you have any cool music links, feel free to post or send them in.

Found here. Made with this, by this guy.

As prophesied, my song I Think I Started A Trend has taken a tumble on somesongs. It's down to #4 for the week, with a 7.5 score. Pretty neat stuff.

I'm finding my little run at somesongs.com pretty interesting. As of this posting I Think I Started A Trend is rated #2 of this week's submissions. I assume its rating will go down as more people vote and it averages out a little bit more. Earlier today I was checking every now and then and there would occasionally be a new person saying "It's almost good" or "It's just barely good" to my song. I've gotten a reasonable amount of good and bad criticism before so I'm doing pretty well in the hurt feelings department (in case you're worried.)

The interesting part is that usually when someone says that your song kind of missed the mark, that's all you've got to go on. You know that at least one person out there kinda thinks it isn't all that great. What to do? You certainly can't go and listen to the music they make or the other songs they enjoy that they feel you're not on par with. On somesongs you can. Which changes the dynamic of criticism in a pretty strange way and I would say also opens up many neurotic doorways to aspiring crazies.

One way to look at the dynamic is that it makes the critic of your music more accountable for their opinion. Another nicer way to look at it is that it gives people a better insight into where the critics are coming from. I'm pretty sure that's a good thing, but it doesn't always feel that way.

I'm not sure about offering my own commentary or advice on any other songs on somesongs. Criticising people's art always make me feel a little wrong inside.

I've been looking into music networks and communities on the net. I'm still on 26.4k dialup for at least two more months, so my participation unfortunately has to be kind of minimal. However I stumbled across somesongs.com yesterday which is sort of like an mp3.com or nowhereradio.com that doesn't provide hosting for your songs. You host the songs yourself and then the website takes care of the feedback and profiles and all that business.

Because I am starved for attention I posted my new song over there and we'll see what happens.

I Think I Started A TrendGenre: Rock/Folk Length: 3:02 Date: 05/14/03 Album: Brad Sucks: I Don't Know What I'm Doing

Here's a simple folk/rock sort of song made by me. It has some crummy slide guitar in it. I'm not really sure how it turned out.

Junk email. Spam. Art? Outside the Inbox will be a compilation of songs inspired by the often bizarre and intriguing subject lines of unsolicited junk emails.

Some examples from my inbox over the past month:

• Your Urgent Attention Please
• Do You Remember Me?
• No Pumps, No Weights, No Surgery
• Haven't Felt Like This For Ages
• Bonnie Forgot Her Clothes
• Re: Your Bowels

Interested in contributing a song? All submissions are welcome! The only rule is that the title of your song must be an actual junk email subject line. You can choose them from my list or you can provide your own (please be ready to provide the email).

The deadline for submissions is August 1st, 2003.

If you've recorded a song for submission, please email the URL of your 192k encoded MP3 to me at outsidetheinbox@bradsucks.net. Links only please. If you send the MP3 it will bounce and be lost forever.

This is a non-profit compilation. The CD will be sold on Café Shops or Mixonic at cost and all rights to the songs will remain peacefully with the original artists.

If you'd like to be notified when Outside the Inbox is released, please send an email to oti_notify@bradsucks.net.

Update 08/15: The compilation is almost complete, just waiting on one or two other tracks and then we should be good to go. The submissions I received sound fantastic, thanks to you all!

Reason 2.5 is out today! Advanced Reverb, Vocoder, Scream 4 Sound Destruction Unit, Unison and splitters & mergers for audio and CV.

I'm looking forward to playing around with the new additions, but the main thing I'd love to see would be for them to open up the whole annoying proprietary Refill format. That would actually increase its usefulness as a product and strip out a whole level of stupidity users have to cope with. I know that will never happen, but it would be nice.

Remix Marillion's latest album Anoraknophobia. I've been a big fan of this sort of thing for a while now. I've been offering the source for my dumb songs for five American dollars and zero prize money for a year or so, but so far no-one's all that interested. Cool move by Marillion. They have fans and stuff.

Groove Agent just shipped the other day. What Groove Agent is:

Groove Agent is a stunning new VSTi that provides you with ready-to-go drum rhythms in only a few mouse clicks. Groove Agent can play the hottest, most popular and influential styles from the past 50 years of music history - inside your VST host application. Based on quality drum samples most of which were recorded especially to analog tape, Groove Agent puts a top studio drummer at your fingertips.

This may be the death of music, but I really want it.

While driving home tonight thinking about all the spam waiting for me in my inbox, I had an idea that made me laugh. The idea would be to put together a compilation of songs by independent musicians where the title of the song was a subject from a piece of junk mail. I went through my spam folder when I got home and here's an idea of what the tracklist would look like: 1. Bad Credit Need Money 2. I'll Make Your Dream Come True 3. VIRGIN BABES LOOKING FOR PARTNER (ON NEW HARDCORE PARTY) 4. Get Your Pills Now 5. Ready to Enlarge Your Penis 6. Bonnie Forgot Her Clothes 7. We Can Pay Off Your Debt 8. Is Your Woman Satisfied Today 9. Viagra, Soma, Fioricent, Prescribed Online for Free 10. Women will flock to you 11. Are You Sick of Spam 12. Toner Cartridge Prices You Requested 13. Brad Feel Happier About Your Appearance

For some reason I'm actually giving some serious though to putting a collaborative project like this together and selling it for cost on Cafe Press or something. I think it would make me happy to turn junk email into art somehow.

Lately, while thinking about putting together a CD compilation of my tracks so far, I've been struggling with trying to understand mixing. It's one of those things that I don't think I get the worst results in, but I feel I don't really understand what the hell I'm doing. I always feel lost. So I've been trying to use spectrum analyzers to understand what's going on with the frequencies in my recordings. The one in Cubase is okay but I find it a bit complicated and cumbersome. While reading through the kvr-vst forums I came across this thread where Jonathan Ayres of ConcreteFX posted this excellent QSpec spectrum analyzer plugin that he made.

It's pretty cool and is something I've wanted for a while. Just from running one of my tracks through it and watching the activity of the track and the individual channels I feel like I have a little bit better idea where various instruments sit. Which I assume will be helpful when it's time to get them to stop clashing.