So with some hesitation I decided today to send my CDs into CDBaby.com. $35 setup fee and they're going to charge $4 markup on each CD, but I'm hoping it will get the album in front of a few more indie music fans who might be Brad Sucks compatible.

Well, I submitted Brad Sucks: I Don't Know What I'm Doing to CDDB (I think) the other night and it has been showing up in Winamp, but I can't find any mention of it on either the CDDB for freedb website. So I dunno what's going on with that.

All the Brad Sucks: I Don't Know What I'm Doing CDs that have been ordered were mailed this afternoon. I assume it'll take about a week or so for the ones in North America and I have no idea how long for the overseas ones. I have a bunch more albums here all prepared and ready to go. So if you order one now you are free of the guilt of making me burn and label a CD. You will have only the guilt of making me address an envelope to contend with.

I slaved over CDs and envelopes and labels tonight to get all the CDs that were ordered ready. Barring some terrible unforeseen obstacle, they should all be in the mail tomorrow afternoon. Thanks to everyone who ordered one and also a big thanks to everyone who has been linking to me!

I've decided to start up forums again, but this time with a twist:

I get asked a lot of questions about home recording and songwriting and music business stuff. I also ask a lot of questions about home recording and songwriting and music business stuff. The questions and answers generally just disappear into thin air.

The idea is to use this forum for question asking and answering and archive everything so that it hopefully becomes somewhat of a Frequently Asked Questions file of music and recording eventually.

Everyone is welcomed to ask and answer questions. The best stuff will be kept and organized so that new people can easily browse through it. While I'm by no means an expert, I will try to answer any serious questions people ask and I will be encouraging musician and industry pals of mine to do the same.

The forums are pretty generic still, but they're open.

Brad Sucks: I Don't Know What I'm Doing now for sale. It's homemade. It's $5 US including shipping worldwide. I think it sounds pretty darn good.

I finished the Brad Sucks album today. It's called I Don't Know What I'm Doing and has twelve songs on it, mostly ones that are on this site though they've been tweaked and improved. I'll post a track list soon. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. After a whole lot of investigation and research, it seems the best option is for me to just burn CDs and mail them off as people order them. It would be nice to have cool packaging, but I really can't find a way to do that without it costing either me or you guys a bunch of money.

Best case scenario is that I come close to breaking even, the album is really inexpensive and it gets into a fair number of people's hands. These should not be crazy goals, but apparently they are.

I think I'm just about done the Brad Sucks album. There is so much I don't know about mastering and mixing it is just stupid. The only thing left to be done (I think) is to worry that the volumes of all the tracks are approximately the same. I think they're "close enough" right now, but could probably be closer to perfect.

I wrote to both DollarCD.com and CDBaby.com the other day but either haven't gotten replies or I've lost them while deleting the literally kabillions of Sobig viruses I've received today. I think I've figured out my plan for distribution and it is both cunning and sad.

Seems like all I do anymore is worry about sibilance, which is pronounced S, CH and T sounds in recording. I've been trying to listen to the tracks on my album on different systems, and on headphones there are often sibilance issues. I'm trying to figure out whether this is just because headphones suck and are all high-end or if it's a mix issue and I need to go back and obsess on all the sibilance a bit more.

It occurs to me as I spend hours doing this sort of stuff and not enjoying it at all that it's like the exact opposite of writing and playing music. Ho hum.

I'm just about finished my little compilation of my songs which I will call an album. I've been trying to figure out the best way to convert the songs into CD format without costing me a ton of money or sticking me with a big batch of CDs I can't sell because everyone just downloads the MP3s instead or doesn't care. I asked about CD duplication on the Songfight message board and got some really helpful replies.

I originally thought I'd just stick the album on Cafe Shops and be done with it, but since then I think I've decided that I want to distribute my album with CD Baby because they seem really frigging hip and on the ball. CD Baby requires a minimum of five CDs sent to them. With Cafe Press that would cost me $8.99 US a CD and then shipping on top of that. That is crazy expensive and dumb.

So this week I'm trying to figure out how possible it would be to make the CDs here on my own, at least in a limited run capacity. That and maybe DollarCD seem like the best options right now.

It would be nice to have a super slick product to try to sell all y'all, but I think it would be even nicer to be able to keep the cost real low. There is nothing more rock and roll than saving money.

There's an interesting interview with Ween at the Onion A.V. Club. Here's a bit on record labels that caught my eye:

O: At this point, with your Internet apparatus in place, is a label even necessary?

MM: People have been bringing that up a lot, but we were definitely not interested in putting out our own record. Everybody kind of expected us to do that, because we release records through our web site anyway. But they're live records, just for the fans, in very limited editions. I'm a traditionalist about music, in a lot of ways.

I like electricity. I like it a lot.

Here's a real interesting article written by Mike Edwards, frontman for Jesus Jones on the topic of selling out:

We didn't hesitate to accept the offer and I can't think why we should have. I recall from my music-press-reading days that accepting money from The Man is wrong but I can't remember why, or how it differs from signing a recording contract or playing a heavily sponsored festival.

Thanks to Kottke.

I'm thinking about renovating this crappy website and for the love of god I don't want to do it myself. Any web designers out there? Email me portfolio, rates, etc.

Daypop Top Weblogs reports that this humble weblog is the 83rd most popular or something. I have a very small number of weblog citations (pls link to me omg) but have somehow managed to rack up a 10.57 Daypop score.

My Bad Attraction song won Songfight. Hooray! Cool experience, very fun, lots of nice people met. Thanks to everyone who voted for me! You can read all the feedback my song got here if you're interested.

On Friday night I saw Grandaddy live in Montreal. They were fantastic, you should check them out if they show up near you.

As I am competing in Songfight this week, I am going to log all the critiques people post in this thread here like Bryan at Blind Mime does. So far we have: "I liked the musical intro. Well performed. I can't stand this radio style unfortunately; any number of (to me, irritating) mainstream bands might have written this, which may be a compliment to you. Take it how you see it. Decent use of the title with the “satisfaction/bad attraction” bit. 6" - Jesse

"It got my vote." - untoward

"just great, everything about it i liked. even went to you site to get a few other songs." - Self Supporting Squirrel Cage (hi!)

"This is a solid rock song. It's not really my thing, but it's not bad." - Lady PFM

"WROCK! You totally pull off a believeable gritty vibe here. Again, I compare to the White Stripes. "I can tell by your middle finger that you're warming up to me." Funny as hell. I like this a lot, actually, though I can't be much more specific. I just happen to be in the mood for this kind of music, I guess, and when I'm in the mood for it, I seriously love this stuff. Keeper." - Jon Eric

"from the intro alone, you could have told me that this was a new audioslave song and i'd never question it. the vocals help carry into its own direction. the "middle finger" line is amusing to me. the snare is so deliciously overcompressed. i always loved overcompressing programmed drums. rock and roll in its true form is a rarity around these parts, so you're already doing well in my book. a better guitar tone could have gotten you the b+, but i shall give you a B due to the painful midrange and lack of low end." - The Idiot King

"Very good vocals. Ben Harper meets Eddie Vedder. A lot of music of this style is attempted on SF, but it rarely works. I wish the chorus were a little more interesting. With the one-chord verses, my ear is begging for a change of any kind in the chorus, but it really sounds just like the verse. Too bad, because otherwise this is solid, and if it ends up winning I won't feel that the world is unjust. 6." - Jimmy KO

"You had me from the beginning. I picture this as Led Zeppelin and Nirvana meeting up in a dark alley. The vocals are great, the production is tight, the lyrics are cool.. The guitar tone is kick-ass, the solo rocks. It is VERY likely that you will get my vote.

CHANCES THAT I WILL LISTEN TO THIS SONG AGAIN = Will listen to this one over, and over, and over, and...." - Glenn Case

"Brad does not suck! Lemme tell you that! I mean, sure, you've got the cock in the rock, but it uh, rolls! Or something! Good music, yessir. Sounds very good for having two electrics and no bass. ****" - sparks

"this one is huge. I absolutely love the vibe this has going for it. Great guitar riff, great vocals which perfectly match the vibe of the guitar. This is what guy and guitar should sound like. Very lenny kravitz, hendrix, jon spencer. This will be very hard to beat. Nice ending too" - jack shite

"No point in stopping the comparisons now...this reminds me of a Lennie Kravits song. A lot. It really rocks too. Good vocals also. I'd love to hear a nice dirty bass line on this one. And then see the video. 5/5" - Tryx Nia

"Brad sure as hell doesn't suck; he's actually quite good. I like the intro, a lot. And all of your transitions are smooth and great. The song is catchy and the guitar playing is slick. Though it's not complex it gets to the point and is played without any kind of missed notes. Good tempo and good key. I like it, maybe if it was longer you could do more...89%" - Intense

"I don't really like the style, but I can appreciate that this is very well done. I won't pick on your tag because I'm prone to the same sort of thing, and, hey, at least you spelled "reaction" right." - bzl

"quite like this one. really like the guitar grunts in the beginning, nice vox, nice changes. cool. yer the spam guy! sounds a bit like lenny kravitz." - HeuristicsInc

"I like this a lot. It's well produced and interesting. Kinda like Lenny Kravitz vs a mellow Rob Zombie. Or maybe not. Your voice fit the song excellently, and it was the right legnth. I dont' know what Brad Sucks at, but it wasn't this week's entry. +" - prayformojo

"This is like something I might have heard on Canadian rock radio in the 90's. Very tight sound, but needs more low frequencies, either from a bass guitar, or just pull more lows out of the kick and snare to compensate." - remopear

"Everyone whining about 'it doesn't have enough bass,' shut it. This song rocks the god-damn socks, bass or no bass. Buy some new speakers. This is my new favorite 'get out of bed and get myself psyched up to CHAT ON IRC' song. I mean, work. Work, not chat on IRC." - Blue

"I like the production and your slacker presentation. A lot. I don't knwo your influences that well, so I probably misinterpret what you say about them. I don't associate that impression with what I hear you producing. Most likely, this means nothing." - roymond

"Ahh! Rockin' groove. I wish the guitar were a little more "ringy" and a bit "feedbacky", but other than that, it grooves me. The vocals sound awesome. I enjoy the "middle finger" reference thoroughly. Rox0r. " - adjuster

"BRADRAWKS: This is a cross between AudioSlave, Lenny Kravitz, and CLUTCH. This is my favorite song this week. Anybody who screams SATISFACTION over really cool screaming guitars is my hero of the day. I really really like the groove. I like the raw energy and simplicity of the sound. Just rocks out. I like the lyrics especially about the eye socket stuff. This gets thrown into the collection and gets my vote. Great work Brad." - Hoblit

More as they're posted.

Bad AttractionGenre: Rock/Blues Length: 3:12 Date: 08/06/03 Album: Brad Sucks: I Don't Know What I'm Doing

This is a song I made for Songfight. It was written and recorded in under a day because I slacked until the last moment. I used Songfight as an excuse to try to rock.

Here's a Metafilter thread about this Ars Technica article. From the article:

The big question is: why. Why is the RIAA launching such a public offensive against its own customers when obviously the greatest threat to their business right now are real pirates?

I think that one's pretty obvious. It's because much more dangerous to their business than street pirates is everyone collectively deciding those guys aren't actually doing anything illegal. Which is what's been rapidly happening. It's only against the law as long as the majority of the public agrees not to break that law.

As somebody who makes music from time to time, I'm getting a little tired of reading arguments about whether P2P file sharing is wrong or not. I don't think it matters if it's wrong and I don't think scaring or shaming people into paying for music is going to work. You may be able to put the hurt on the Napsters and Kazaas right now, but networks are only going to get cooler and cooler. Everyone knows it's all changing, it's just a question of who's going to be able to adapt. (Everyone knows that too.)

I treat CDs like I treat paypal donations to websites right now. I know that if Artist X doesn't at least pay off what it cost to get their album on the shelves, there might not be another album because they'll go do something that actually pays the bills instead. With some artists I don't care. With others that I think are doing something special, I want to support them in a small way.

And I'm not even forcing myself out of some sort of moral or ethical obligation. It comes naturally when you realize that there's a very real bottom line in the music making process.