RIP Suprnova - So long old buddy. We sure had some good times together. (The Unofficial Suprnova.org Closure FAQ)

After I posted my Google Suggest Poetry idea the other day I found the SuggestGetter PHP class by Adam Stiles and threw it together. The Google Suggest Poetry Generator does what I described in my earlier post except that it randomizes which results it chooses so you should get a different poem on each load.

Sometimes the results are interesting, other times they're not. The first couple of lines are usually the best part and then it just veers off into randomness. It would be interesting to try to keep it relevant to the original five queries somehow to keep things on topic.

Also it hits Google with 40-50 queries each page load and is about the dumbest use of Google's vast resources I can think of. I asked around and my conscientious web elite buddies seem to think this is okay. If Google objects, I'll take it down.

Kiddie Records Weekly - "In 2005, Basic Hip Digital Oddio will feature an entire year of albums from the golden age of kiddie records, lovingly transferred from the original 78s and encoded to 192kbps MP3 format. That's one a week for 52 weeks!"

The Fine Art of Sampling Contests - Creative Commons remix contest. Prizes are to get on CDs, one being a Fine Arts Militia release with Chuck D.

I've been thinking about making a lyric/poetry generator from Google Suggest by stringing together its suggestions. For instance, enter a first phrase like "back in the ", it autocompletes to "back in the saddle". Take the last word and enter "saddle ", first result is "saddle club", last word "club ", etc. Following that example a few times you get:

back in the saddle club med line 6 second abs cbn news of the world of warcraft 3 mobile phones 4 u haul master card games online dictionary

Which until it gets stuck on "online dictionary" forever is obviously pretty moving and great pop poetry, fit for immediate publication. You could randomize the suggestion selection and formatting to mix things up a bit.

Here's another:

i am an idiot savant syndrome x factor v leiden university of washington post office depot america west wing nuts and bolts and nuts and bolts and nuts and bolts and nuts and bolts and nuts and bolts

Beatles Christmas Records - MP3s of Christmas albums made by the Beatles sent out to their fans each year from '63-'69. A lot of funny stuff in there.

New Apple Signature iPods - funny, mean branded iPod parodies.

MIDINES - "MIDINES is a hardware / cartridge interface (game) that enables MIDI control of the 8bit NES sound chip."

So with Sick as a Dog, I'm half done releasing the source for my album I Don't Know What I'm Doing. I've gotten a lot of remixes and I want to release a compilation album of my favorites so far to show off a lot of the great work that's been done. This would hopefully be followed later by a second part with remixes of the rest of the songs if remixer interest keeps up. The plan is to offer the remix album for free download on the net and I'll also burn and mail copies to those who want them for $5 including shipping like I've done with Outside the Inbox and my album.

There's still time to get your mixes in if you're interested in being on this thing. Send them to me. I can tell you now that I'm probably not going to pick too many songs that stick closely to the original songs' structures. I want this album to be significantly different than mine.

Over the next while I'll start sorting through the mixes and getting in touch with the remixers to make sure they're cool with being on the compilation. Also thinking of a catchy title is of top priority as well.

Virtual Drum Machines - Shockwave versions of vintage drum machines. Someone should do VSTi's of all these. (via J-Walk)

Source for Sick as a Dog (60mb). Somehow this song wound up on VH1 a little while ago. Staring into its guts all I can think about are all the mistakes I made when I recorded it. What a crazy ol' world. Send your remixes in to me and I will one day post them.

Huge, huge congratulations to Matt Haughey on the impending baby girl. Way to procreate!

Five Mistakes Band & Label Sites Make is very good, though a bit nerd-centric. I obviously agree with just about everything written there and have been doing it for years. But I also know that most of the music buying public doesn't care about deep linking, RSS, or ID3 tags and they still think a cool looking Flash site is pretty cool looking.

That being said, I think the tips are essential for any indie record label and great for any musician who's thinking about relying on the Internet as a major source of promotion.

Update: Great Metafilter discussion here.

Mashing for Beginners - an intro to making mashups in Tracktion.

Magnatune selling USB Flash Drives of 10 Rock Albums in retail stores:

In partnership with Hana Micron http://www.hanamicron.com, in March you'll start seeing Magnatune-brand USB Flash drives, with 10 complete rock albums loaded on the drive. The drives will be sold in retail outlets, both in music stores and in computer stores, and will come in a variety of megabyte sizes. You can plug them into the USB port of any computer and play the MP3s right from the drive.

...

The initial manufacturing run is for 50,000 units, so this should get some visibility for us in the retail world. We'll have more information when the USB drives become available in stores. The 10 rock artists on the product are: Artemis, Arthur Yoria, Brad Sucks, Burnshee Thornside, Emmas Mini, Fluid, Jade Leary, Myles Cochran, The Kokoon, and Tom Paul. If this sells as we hope, we'll be releasing additional USB Flash drives for different music genres.

50,000, holy crap. Cool stuff.

After basically two years of mulling it over, I'm buying a new electric guitar. It's a Cort G250. I played it in the store and boy do I like it. It has pretty good reviews on Harmony Central. I've been unhappy with my current guitar for a while and this was compounded by reading its reviews the other week. Here's my favorite summary:

Overall Rating: 1 Overall, I would like to reiterate that this guitar isn't fit for firewood. If it was stolen I would shrug and forget about it, perhaps even smile.

I don't think I'd go that far, it's done me well over the years. But the Cort G250 is definitely an affordable step up and I'm looking forward to getting it tomorrow.

Exotic Guitars - May I direct your attention to the Skeletar.

In the server chaos of last week, I misplaced all the remixes people had sent me. If yours hasn't been posted yet, feel free to send it again and I'll try not to have some sort of disaster befall me until I get them online.

Additional ways to consume and a Japanese feature!

• MSN Music now has my album here. For some reason it only allows full album purchases rather than individual songs, which sucks.
• Apple iTunes is available in Canada now (article), so my fellow Canadians can buy my songs, I assume.
• Brad Sucks is featured featured on Oricon Style, a popular Japanese site.

My email was down over the weekend, so if you sent me something, feel free to resend it.

The Band Aid Dilemma - people who hate the new recording of Do They Know It's Christmas buying as many copies as they can and destroying them on camera. (via J-Walk)