For those of you interested in the Indie Music Cancer Drive CD I talked about before, apparently if you order them before March 1st you can get free shipping on the physical CDs, or a couple of bucks off the digital ones. Yay!
It’s been a hell of a lot of work, but I can finally say that I’ve finished this year’s submission to the Indie Music Cancer Drive. This is the second year that I’ve submitted to IMCD, but this year is much more interesting for me, since this submission is also the first song by my new downtempto band, Fever Pitch, which my good friend Katharine and I started some months ago.
Pre-orders are open for this year’s Songs for the Cure CD at http://www.cancerdrive.org. You can view the list of contributing artists at that site. There are some pretty well-known names in there, in certain circles. I’m very much looking forward to hearing what they’ve come up with this year, as there seems to be a push to step it up from last year’s disc, which had some excellent tracks on it. we’ve been asked not to distribute our work for now, so as not to compete with our own project, so you won’t see my song on this site in the near future, and IMCD will be the exclusive distributor for the time being. Apologies for the inconvenience, but we feel it’s the best way to help their efforts.
Pricing is variable – we aren’t selling CDs, we’re asking for donations to cancer research. For donations over $25, we’re sending out physical copies of the album, which I believe is going to span two discs, considering there’re something like 30 groups contributing. For smaller donations (I forget the cutoff) there will also be a digital copy available later. The physical CDs will be a one-time pressing, so get yours in now if you want one. All proceeds go to the American Cancer Society.
It’s been a few years coming, but I’m happy to present to you this, my first finished song. It is an electronic rock song entitled “No Reason Not to Fly” and is available here as an MP3. Other formats are available upon request.
Warrior Bob – No Reason Not to Fly
I originally wrote this for Josh Whelchel’s excellent Indie Music Cancer Drive album last year. The version on that CD was written by me and mixed/mastered by Josh, but I’ve learned a bit more about how sound works since then and have, with his permission, decided to release my own mix of it for free on this site. I hope you enjoy listening to it. I certainly enjoyed making it. It is the limit of my current ability.
My brother, having decided that he rather likes guitars, decided to take it upon himself to build his own. And damn, he’s getting good at it. He just came home with his third one, a purpleheart-encrusted thing of beauty. I wish I was that cool.
At the very least, I can look that cool, since I happen to have his second one in my possession: a beautiful bass guitar that matches his fist lead guitar. And it looks awesome. And I do, by association. Rock.
I FINALLY upgraded to the latest version of WordPress, which as of this writing is 2.8.4, and it looks like I can write a post from this little thing in the admin console. Let’s see what happens.
EDIT: Not like anyone reads this so it’s no worry. :)
Gamestop was having a rather ridiculous deal over the weekend in which the bundle for Guitar Hero: World Tour was more than half off. It seemed like something I’d enjoy, so I traded in my used and squeaky guitar controller and came home with a big box of new toys to play with. I’m quite happy with the drumset – it’s sturdy enough, the pads are made of a well-chosen rubber that doesn’t make as much of a “thwock” sound, and the cymbals are passable. In particular, the pedal appears to be impact-sensitive, as opposed to the proximity-sensitive Rock Band pedal, which I actually find I like, though I did not expect this to be the case. The drumset also appears to have a MIDI-in port on it, which I do believe I will need to experiment with considering the implications for using my beloved TD-6 in such an entertaining game.
The single hilarious failure – and it seems there will always be one - were the crappy drumsticks included with the set. They’re lightweight, to match the admittedly small set, and are otherwise unremarkable except for the “Guitar Hero” logo printed on the side. Also they appear to have a use-life of approximately eight minutes, as halfway through my third song one of them decided to become two of them over the course of several strikes. It didn’t shatter or snap, like you might expect, rather it just sort of disintegrated, so that I was holding a stick in my left hand, the front half of a stick in my right, and the back half of a stick against my right palm. It didn’t really affect my playing, other than distracting me via the WTF reflex.
Fortunately I had a set of Drum Circuit-branded Studio 1 sticks which were about the same weight and were within rummaging distance, but I’m not really sure what market they intended the pack-in sticks for. As if giving kids (who love this game) little sticks to hit each other with wasn’t bad enough, now they’re giving them sticks that turn into spiky implements of jagged stabbery when their parents aren’t looking.
I wonder which suit at Activision thought that up.
Twitter, the microblogging service, is about exactly what I figured it would be. Blogs, famous for being self-effacing condensations of angst and conspicuous choice, are even further condensed into enforced simplicity, which allows them to become ever more numerous. And I cannot look away. Like most “Web 2.0″ ideas, I use it to track musicians I like, and getting that kind of miniaturized look at people that I admire is strangely compelling. I admit my defeat.
Score one for Twitter, and I guess, by extension, one for drinking.
The “Songs for the Cure” album arrived today. I may have noob’d up the recording, but even still, seeing “produced and arranged by Warrior Bob” in print was kind of exciting. There are some excellent tracks on there by some artists that I really need to dig deeper on. Big Giant Circles and Karen Kosowski come to mind immediately, though there are several others that I’ll probably end up talking about on here pretty soon.
Unrelatedly, due to drinking, I have apparently made myself a Twitter account despite claiming I would never do such a thing. Username is the same as AIM for those of you who know it. Time to see what all the kids are up to.
Well, my music got submitted a couple of weeks ago and Josh’s charity project from my last post should be heading out soon. I think I did about as well as I could hope to, but the mix (and performance) was still kind of rough. This is the first time I’ve ever been on a compilation and is only the second time I’ve put something on the internet and called it done, so hopefully it will show well. I’m very eager to hear the other musicians’ work. I’m sure it’ll blow me away but at least I get to see my name up there with theirs. Little victories.
I’ve taken some time off from more dedicated musical pursuit to do other fun things. I’ve finished Shadow of the Colossus, and gotten myself a fresh install of Ubuntu Studio to play with. The former is as nice as you’ve probably heard, and the latter would be if my video card didn’t decide to upchuck all over the screen now and again. Baby steps. At least the sound works this time around without me sacrificing a goat.
I’ve mentioned him before on here, but my friend Josh Whelchel, splendid musician, is running the Relay for Life this year. Last year I guess he raised some $800 which is pretty great, and this year he’s upped his goal by a bit. As an incentive to donate, if you donate so much he’ll send you a copy of an album that’s he’s putting together, and likely actively putting together as you read this. He’s collected quite a cadre of musicians together and I can’t wait to hear it. I’ve been a fan of Josh’s music for most of a decade now and am very excited about his new projects. If you’re so inclined I urge to to throw a few dollars his way.