Wow, I have a lot of poetry to read now. Thanks to everyone who suggested and emailed me stuff. I'll have to ask about good pulpy sci-fi books later.

Does anybody out there read poetry? I did when I was a teenager to impress girls but now I'm wondering if there's anything out there that isn't junk. Please tell me who the good poets are so I can go read some. Note: I'm biased against poetry that uses language normal people don't use. ie. "Thine heart hath made mine whole" = groan city from the Brad section of the audience.

So far the neatest poet someone has suggested to me is e.e. cummings who is at least pretty nuts a lot of the time.

This article claims the Fraunhofer Institute (the folks who invented MP3s) have announced that they've figured out a way to create surround sound MP3s. They claim it'll work with existing players as well, which seems like the real trick. Very cool. (via Slashdot.)

What's cool is that other people are starting to do the radio digest thing much like Steven Garrity's Acts of Volition Radio (of which there is now session 8 online). There's now Mathcaddy Radio Sessions and LugRadio. Very cool to see it spreading! Steven's also made up a helpful FAQ about his Acts of Volition Radio, it has a lot of helpful information for anyone looking to start their own. That guy is just plain helpful.

Here's the Spin Symposium radio ad for your listening pleasure. I've been told it's been heard on CHOM FM in Montreal. Just remember: when you think extreme winter sports; think Brad Sucks.

Some other Brad Sucks related stuff: Apparently my song Making Me Nervous is going to be in a radio ad for the same event the TV ad is for. Not sure what stations it's running on, but I think it's cool to be sneaking onto radio in this manner.

Interview in Flak magazine - Here's an interview I did a month or two ago. I was kinda "in the zone" and rambly so here's hoping I make at least a bit of sense. At least I got to say "The arts are just fucked." Thanks to Adam for his time and patience. (Turns out this wasn't officially online yet, I'll replace the link when I get the word.)

My music's been being used on Binary Revolutions' HackRadio. They also feature a lot of other cool indie bands so I'm in good company.

Too Old To Rock, Too Young To Die describes the exploits of one Jef Hickey, roadie:

He's contracted gonorrhea (six times), crabs (four times), syphilis (three times) and herpes. For more than a decade and a half, with lab-rat consistency, Hickey carpet-bombed his cortex with enough pills to stock a hypochondriac's medicine cabinet.

Anyone who enjoys good crazy rock stories will probably get a kick out of it.

98.5 WNCX Classic Rock in Cleveland says:

We wanted to play "Darkside of the Moon" in it's entirety since it is the #1 album voted by YOU!! But we are unable to since the album contains the song "Money", which is deemed indecent by the U.S. Government since it contains the "S" word. Current pending legislation calls for a fine of $275,000 if we play that song.

This is getting pretty crazy. A couple of months ago I was thinking that the airwaves in general had gotten more liberal and permissive and suddenly it's like decades of progress is being undone. Glad the Internet is still full of swears.

In this article Ernest Miller suggests that remix construction sets (such as the Jay-Z Construction Set) are the future of music. He compares it to gaming mods, which is an interesting comparison. This sort of thing has actually been going on for a while now, specifically in the Acid community where artists like Madonna and Beck have been offering up the source files for some of their songs in remix competitions for years now (there are even prizes).

When I originally started doing this net music thing I started offering my own full bloated source tracks on CD for $5. I thought it'd be a neat way to get people involved and engage listeners and also get across that I don't care too much about copyright (for the nerd cred). But hardly anybody ever bothers with those things and when I eventually revise my FAQ I'll probably take the offer out because it doesn't seem to accomplish anything.

I've been giving some thought to chopping up my album into loops so that it's smaller and easier to distribute without having to mail actual CDs around but I'm not sure if it's really worth the hassle. Are there really a ton of would-be remixers out there?

There's been a lot of buzz about song analysis software lately, but this is the first one I've seen that actually mentions a song. Hit Song Science Scores A Hit On First Attempt – Anastacia's Left Outside Alone:

"HSS takes a song that sounds like it might be a hit and makes sure it can be one. With finely tuned adjustments in the mix we can ensure it has the optimal mathematical patterns for maximum market performance," said Wake who has been using the new HSS technology in his studio for several months. "With that base covered, the odds of success are tremendous."

Sounds like they're talking about it analyzing more mix-related stuff rather than the actual songwriting and performance itself. I'm not sure if I buy that minor adjustments in the mix can turn something from being a dud into a hit, though I can definitely see how it might make label execs feel like the song is 100% perfect and ready to have lots of money invested in it.

I'm retiring, says George Michael:

Pop star George Michael is abandoning the music business to release his songs online for free instead.

The multi-millionaire singer said he will never make another album for sale in record shops because he does not need the cash and does not enjoy fame.

Fans will be given the option to make donations online in exchange for downloading the tracks, and the proceeds will be given to charity.

Neato.

A few things I meant to link to over the past while:

• Magnatune blog - Magnatune owner John Buckman has a blog now, very cool.
• INgrooves - seems to be just like Magnatune but heavily slanted towards electronic music.
• Jay-Z Construction Set - "The Jay-Z Construction Set is a toolkit with all of the necessary software and raw material to create a new remix of Jay-Z's Black Album."

Probably I'm forgetting some others.

Looks like my song Making Me Nervous is gonna be in a commercial for Spin Symposium '04, some sort of skiing/snowboarding thing. The spot will be airing on the French-Canadian MusiquePlus video channel starting Saturday through the end of April, if you see it, let me know! I've uploaded a copy of the ad here, if you're interested.

Hope everyone who has ordered a CD can bear with me a bit, for some reason I've been having an on and off love affair with strep throat for a month now which has been slowing me down on the "doing anything" front. I'll try to have all orders out by this Friday, sorry for any inconvenience and thanks for buying stuff, that is the best.

John Bintz from Coswell Productions wrote in to tell me he used my song Making Me Nervous in a cartoon called Slippie Slide. Thanks a lot John! It's always really neat to see my music along with video.

Eminem's Publisher Sues Apple Over Song:

At issue is an ad for Apple's iTunes pay-per-download music software, in which a 10-year-old sings Eminem's "Lose Yourself." The suit claims the commercial aired on MTV beginning in July 2003 and ran numerous times for at least three months. It also appeared on Apple's Web site.

Seems like another Grey Tuesday-ish issue of artist control. Eminem doesn't want to look like a sellout to his fans, the Beatles probably don't want their music reappropriated. What's the difference?

I'm a big Brian Wilson fan and am really looking forward to the release of SMiLE:

Perhaps the most highly-regarded unreleased record in rock history, the Beach Boys' SMiLE, is reportedly getting its official release 37 years after its creation, in fall 2004. According to a recent report from BBC News Online: "A few months ago Wilson revisited the SMiLE tapes in Capitol Records' vaults and went on to finish the album with his original lyricist, Van Dyke Parks."

Also the Pitchfork article says there are bootlegs floating around out there of the recent live performance Wilson did of the material. Anyone know where I can find it?

As much as I like the rabble-rousing, I just don't get the point that Grey Tuesday is trying to make about copyright. Is the argument that anyone should be able to chop up Beatles and Jay-Z recordings and be allowed to sell 3,000 copies of it without compensating either party? Is this being illegal a huge injustice against consumers and artists that I wasn't aware of?

Don Henley of all people weighs in on the current state of the music industry in his Washington Post article Killing the Music (fake registration required). It's kinda just a big list of complaints, some of which being dopier than others. He brings up things like megacoporations being bad and Wal Mart not stocking a wide variety of music, and that Johnny Cash wouldn't get signed today and so on, which I think are all completely, boringly beside the point. The only things that matter about the future of the recording industry is the Internet and the lowering cost of recording technology.

Rather than whining about Wal Mart and megacorporations and piracy, why not point out that the Internet affords any musician starting out today the ability to be heard by millions of people without even having to put pants on? Wow! Johnny Cash might not get signed if he was starting out today, but he could easily get his own web hosting (I would happily loan him some if he was broke), post MP3s, sell albums, t-shirts, get his albums in CD Baby, get on iTunes and all these other digital download services, get signed to Magnatune, reach fans directly, tour and god only knows what else he could do to make money. And all of this outside the control of the record industry.

The root of the issue most troubling Mr. Henley I believe is that it's getting harder and harder to make millions and millions of dollars off of each album and new artist due to the Internet and the public's diversifying tastes (due to the Internet). That's why the record industry's not signing or developing much new talent, because they only want stuff that they know will definitely knock it out of the box. That's just the way the business is right now, no point getting your feelings all in a tussle about it. Industries don't care about your feelings unless it benefits them.

What irks me most about his article is that I think Don's only looking at the situation from the perspective of recording artists with mansions and regular fat royalty checks rolling in funding their glamorous lifestyles. Sure, they probably have reason to worry, as do the artists hoping to achieve that sort of arrangement for themselves. But new artists in my opinion are in better shape for making a comfortable living off their art than they've been in for a long, long time. And I think that's way more important to the future of music than keeping the rich elders afloat.

Just thought I should let y'all know (because people been buying my shirts) that Cafe Press is having a President's Day $2 off sale on drinkware (cups and junk). So if you go to here or here and buy Brad Sucks cups, enter the coupon code PREZDAY16 in and you get a shiny two dollar discount. Looks like the offer's good until February 23rd.