Scott Andrew

Yeah, that's right. We went there.

Download it for free for a limited time at Bandcamp.

Thanks to our engineer buddy Don Gunn for being game and providing the wub-wubs.

Posted February 26, 2014

Discovered after Patrick raved about them on Twitter. Bombastic guitar pop with lots of strangely detuned chords and weirdo lo-fi production values. Kind of in the same wheelhouse as The Wrens if you're into that kind of thing.

Took me a listen or two to get really into it (the lo-fi genre can get awfully precious) but what really drew me in were the number of sonic surprises in every tune. Just interesting stuff throughout. Playlisted!

Posted February 25, 2014

Kirby Krackle's fourth annual nerd music celebration is once again happening at the Hard Rock Cafe in Seattle during Emerald City Comic Con weekend. This year's lineup features the return The Doubleclicks, the Kracklefest debut of Seattle nerd core duo Death*Star and special guest Mark Blasco who'll be opening the show with some solo tunes. This years Kracklefest poster was created by the nutty-talented Dean Trippe.

Ticket are on sale now. Kracklefest always tends to be a zany good time and I'm really looking forward to this year's show.

Posted February 24, 2014

Out-Growing jQuery - Tech.Pro. Neat tutorial re-creating some of jQuery's base functionality.

Programming JavaScript Applications. No-nonsense stuff.

My teenaged daughter has recently started a webcomic. Could you give her one piece of advice that has helped you and one piece of advice that absolutely has not? Joel Watson's great advice for making (and sticking to making) any kind of art.

Don’t worry about merch. Worry about making good comics. Dont worry about getting more readers. Worry about making good comics. Don’t EVER compare your perceived success to that of your peers. You don’t know their situation, or how they came about what you think they have that you might want for yourself. Just worry about making good comics. Never envy your peers money, readers or success (sounds a lot like the last one right? That’s because it’s super important.) Instead, envy how hard they’ve worked and try to emulate that. Also, just worry about making good comics.

Posted February 22, 2014

A find from KEXP. A direct descendant of grindy 90s-style women-led acts like Throwing Muses and -- well, every other band they inspired. Playlisted!

Posted February 22, 2014

Hello fellow humans!

My mother mentioned that she noticed I hadn't updated my website in a long while, to which I thought hey cool at least my mom still reads it but the tl;dr version is I hate winter and am currently moping my way through another one. Not that I should complain since Seattle has received exactly 2" of short-lived snow this entire season while the rest of the country looks like Hoth Ice Planet, but still.

A status update for those interested:

Explone: writing and recording a new album. Pat's been on a hot streak with songs lately. Hopefully we'll release a few singles this year.

Kirby Krackle: still at it, gearing up for Kracklefest 4 at ECCC this year. We released a live EP of last year's show with Weird Al and there's some new stuff in the works. Kyle seems determined to step up our musical output this year and trying new things. Just this week we recorded a cover of a tune you're probably going to be just sick of in a few weeks. I'm in!

I've talked before about both bands wanting to commit to releasing more tracks instead of albums (and without the expected 2-year gap between albums) but until now we haven't really doubled down on this. It's not for nothing: both groups have high standards, and we're not just gonna knock something out in Garageband over a weekend just to get a track out the door.

Kin to Stars: on ice for now. After our Folklife show last year we took the summer off, which became the rest of year off as Jerin had an autumn wedding to plan (sorry fellas! She met an awesome guy who likes basketball, Iron Maiden AND web service architecture) and I headed off for a month of left-hand-side driving in the UK and Ireland. Not really big deal as we both have enough going on in our respective lives. However: we have these songs, see, and I'd like to get them recorded at some point. I may have to force the issue by booking some studio time.

Me:

Learning me some iOS app programming. Look for something to be released in the next few months.

Avoiding Facebook. It's utterly depressing and I dread even looking there. Waiting for FB to follow MySpace into the abyss.

Mixing and remixing songs I might release someday, maybe. I had an awesome plan to hide each song download behind an interactive puzzle on a special website. I was super-excited about this until about a week ago when I realized I'd wasn't because I'd forgotten all about it.

Reading sci-fi. David Marusek (future world of surveillance), Paolo Bacigalupi (future world of poverty), Ben H. Winters (no future: world about to explode). Not as depressing as they sound, trust me!

And comics. Yeah yeah we all read Saga but have you read Prophet?

Playing games. I gobbled up Year Walk and Device 6 and can't wait for more Myst-like stuff like that. Not really excited for anything console-based, though. I'm basically tapping my foot impatiently waiting for the last Borderlands 2 DLC.

Looking at a big backlog of unpublished blog posts that I ocassionally re-read (and even rewrite a bit) before closing the browser.

Winter sucks! How are you coping?

Posted February 21, 2014

If you only watch one video from this year's XOXO festival it should be this one by Jack Conte of Pomplamoose. He talks candidly about his band's rise to fame only to have it stall, his struggle to get back to making things that make him happy, and his new site Patreon which is one of the best-executed ideas I've seen for helping people make money from their creations. His earnestness and excitement are infectious!

Watch it on YouTube.

Posted November 11, 2013

Just got back from an entire month spent in the UK and Ireland. Two weeks working in Bristol, then two weeks flitting about Scotland, Ireland and London, with a weekend side trip to Bruges, Belgium. It was all great, but I have to say I'd go back to Scotland in a heartbeat. Castles! Whisky! Sheep! The best bed and breakfasts! And I stuck my hand into the waters of Loch Ness, thrilling my inner raised-in-the-70s child who spent many hours reading about the legendary monster. The photo above is Ballycarbery Castle, which just sits out in a field being awesome on the west coast of Ireland, with no public access because it's not safe to get too close to its awesomeness.

Below is my second-favorite photo: eating a liege waffle in Bruges.

You can find a few more photos of our trip on my Twitter stream. It was one of those trips where every day was so packed with stuff, it felt like we were gone for ages and yet also felt like it whooshed by in a blink. Also, my fingers ache just thinking about writing an extensive blog post about it. I think that's a sign of a good holiday.

Posted November 9, 2013

The Future of Music Coalition has lots of info on artists and the ACA:

Starting today, musicians and artists are invited to visit Artists and the Affordable Care Act. The website includes an FAQ, a list of artist-focused educational events and seminars, and links to videos and online calculators. There’s also a staffed musician-friendly hotline at 1-919-264-0418, and artists can email their questions to healthcare@headcount.org.

ThinkProgress: Why The Affordable Care Act Matters To Artists:

[T]he Affordable Care Act matters to artists–just as it matters to a lot of entrepreneurs–because it makes it easier to take chances and carve out the time that makes it possible to pursue an artistic career. These aren’t folks who are demanding instant success, or a lot of money for their art, or even consistent rather than seasonal or contract employment. Instead, they’re people who want to lower their overall level of risk, and are more than willing to pay to afford to do so. They’re folks who would like to set up their lives so that when bad medical things happen, they are merely bad, even very bad, rather than completely catastrophic.

And from the comments on that article, this quote:

Lots of union actors and musicians may not work enough to qualify for union coverage, so the ACA is a godsend for them.

healthcare.gov

Posted October 4, 2013

All I know is this: there's this guy in Tacoma, a full-time musician, self-employed. He was helping a friend with some home repairs and fell off the roof.

There's a woman from Seattle, a gifted pianist and songwriter, and her albums receive plenty of local acclaim. The type of artist who maybe played two shows a year, but you could count on them being sold out. She was in an accident, and both of her hands were crushed. Now she can't play or work.

Every few weeks it seems there's a Facebook campaign or benefit concert fundraiser for a career musician struck with a sudden illness or injury, leaving them with a stack of bills and unable to work even a "normal" job. I don't know about you, but "have friends throw benefit concert" doesn't strike me as a particularly sound form of coverage.

Americans like to talk big about individualism and practically worship entrepreneurs. Find your passion, follow your bliss, bootstrap yada yada something Zuckerberg. Yet the ones starting down this path are often literally putting their lives at risk, reclaiming their time by leaving the shelter of corporate-subsidized health coverage. These people -- and I personally know a few -- are making a big bet that they'll find both professional success and financial security before they or a loved one are in an accident or diagnosed with something scary.

The ACA won't be perfect. But it's something, and I'll take that something over another damn benefit concert.

Posted October 2, 2013