I'm trying to put my Brad Sucks gallery back together. I lost a lot of that stuff in some sort of server disaster long ago. If you've done any Brad Sucks artwork or videos, feel free to send them in. Also I'm trying to remember the credits for some of the things in there.
Oh yeah, the logo entries are now online and you'll get to see what the community rated them in a couple hours. There were 82 entries all in all, though that has dropped down to 79 now for some reason. I think I have a week to decide on a winner, so I'll do a little write-up re: my thoughts and feelings when I do.
There are 24 hours left in the Worth1000 Brad Sucks logo contest. 52 entries so far and I'm looking very much forward to seeing them.
I'll be on the "Blog-Rolling" panel at Canadian Music Week in Toronto on Saturday, March 4th. So if you happen to be there, feel free to throw something at me. I've never been to one of these fancy music conferences so it'll be interesting. I have so much great, great advice for other independent musicians I don't know if an hour will be long enough. I also hope I can go the entire hour without saying the phrase "whore yourself out". We'll see how I do!
I went to see Body Worlds 2 in Toronto yesterday. You can read about it on Wikipedia here, see lots of images of it on Google Images here. (We weren't allowed to take pictures.)
It was a little crowded but otherwise corpse-tastic. Before I went in I was concerned I might puke, I'm not big on dead things. But once I got in there that fear faded and I was more afraid someone else would puke and that would create a puke chain reaction that would take me down with it. After a while that wore off and nothing much happened. Bodies are gross though.
Gizmodo had a contest to make songs out of the sounds of hard drives failing. Very neat. Check out the write-up here. The winner is awesome.
Screenwriter John August was nominated for a Grammy for writing "Wonka's Welcome Song" from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He has an amusing first-hand account of attending the Grammys.
I've put up a $100 jackpot in this Worth1000 contest for a Brad Sucks logo. I've been trying to put together a semi-decent press kit forever now. I hate doing that stuff, it's awful and I'm terrible at it.
I thought a cool logo might help, but art is hard to come by. I talked to a few people about it but after pricing it out I decided I'd give the Worth1000 community a shot. They're enormously creative over there (check out their previous corporate contests) and I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with.
Victor sends word that I'm the 2nd most remixed artist on ccMixter. Because being number one would be uncool
Boing Boing has a good rundown on Songbird, "the open source iTunes killer." The interview's an interesting read and it sounds like a project that will be great if it can approach the usability of Firefox.I've actually been shopping around for a new software MP3 player. If I don't get distracted I'll post some reviews.
List of problems solved by MacGyver - I don't think there can be any dispute that Wikipedia is awesome when it has a page of all the problems that have been solved by MacGyver.
That's Good Enough for Me - Amusing and interesting article on the death of Cookie Monster vocals in Death Metal today.
Here's a list of some of the podcasts that have been playing my stuff lately:
- eCodeLibrary Weekly Countdown
- BandTrax
- Clubside Breakfast Time
- Hate the Radio
- The Word Nerds
- Corrosion
- Jesus on the Radio
- Journey Inside My Mind
- All Axis Radio Canada
- Podcast Outlaws
- Lodebearing
- RSM: Robert Smoove Music
- Jawbone Radio
- Soundcheck
- New Music Lab
- DJAJ Podcast
- Japundit Podcast
- Rainbow Music Champloo
- Podcastre
I'm also in this Japanese Podsafe music network now and have been played on a bunch of podcasts I can't figure out the names of.
And as for traditional radio my album's in the Top 5 of the Top 30 on WMEB, the University of Maine station. Thanks to everyone playing my music!
Nine Inch Nails Lighting Article - very interesting (and technical) article on the lighting and general show production for Nine Inch Nails. Crazy amount of stuff in there.
Hyperscore - Make your own ringtones with this Windows app.
Matt posts about his TV Time Capsule idea and this is actually something that I've been wanting to build into junklog. Being able to log and discuss episodes of TV. But I have my own thing someone should build because I don't have time. It would be an open episode guide service with some sort of API. My idea is that it would be like Wikipedia but for episode guide (and movie listings, and so on) data in a structured format. This would make it possible for services like junklog to identify unique episodes and group them. I think there are a ton of tv-based services that could exist if this data were available.
But maintaining a database of that size and keeping it up to date seems virtually impossible for just one guy (me) to do, so some sort of open wiki-style episode guide would do the trick.
There has been some discussion (1, 2) about my comments in my 2006 resolutions. When I said that rants about the music industry are depressing and exhausting to me, that's all I meant. I'm not saying everyone should shut up or that there's nothing to complain about, just that I personally find it hard to read these days. As a shaky musician analogy, it's kind of like watching your parents fight. Fans are your mom, looking out for your emotional well-being, trying to keep you from getting hurt, and the music industry is your dad, telling you to straighten up, quit your bitching and get a job. I'm sure both sides have great points and both mean well, but I'd rather not be in the house while it's going down.
Grandaddy split up - Aw man, Grandaddy broke up. Sumday and The Sophtware Slump are great albums.
I like being in press releases. Podcast Network Releases Indie Album by Brad Sucks:
TAMPA, Fla., April 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Release of the indie album, "I Don't Know What I'm Doing" by Brad Sucks, marks the debut of Slo-Monkey, the music label behind the Emergency Podcast System (http://www.emergencypodcastsystem.com). The quirky, witty album's release is backed by a TV campaign on Former Vice President Al Gore's cable network, Current TV. Current TV serves over 20 million households nationwide and has an energetic youth audience.
Smart lyrics and danceable tunes made indie band Brad Sucks an obvious choice for the Slo-Monkey label. Says music contract guy Lil' Dawgg, "If we find ourselves singing the tunes around the office, we know we have a winner."
Here's the ad that'll be (or is) running (.MOV). If you see it on TV, let me know. I like the idea that the girl in the video might have been paid to dance to my music.
Anyway they seem like nice dudes over there. It's a non-exclusive deal and it'll be interesting to see what happens.
Musical Prototypes 3 - great photoshops of musical prototypes from Worth 1000. [via]