This Friday, Jerin and I will be performing a holiday show we're calling the Kin to Stars' Ugly Sweater Holiday Adventure, and while ugly holiday sweaters are not required, your presence may be, if you live nearby. We've been working on the set since late September, drawing from the GLEE and indie rock songbooks instead of the standard fare of hymns and carols. I just may dress like an elf. And we'll be unveiling an instrument we're calling, for lack of a more absurd name, the Xmas-O-Matic 3000. You'll -- you'll just have to wait and and see.
Public Facebook event is here, and reservations are encouraged! Our last few shows at this venue have sold out. Here's the poster we whipped up (not exactly sure what's happening with my legs there, or if it's even a physical possibility that someone could stand on a ladder in that condition):
Table Titans. Super-excited for this one! Scott Kurtz of PvP and The Trenches teams up with Wizards of the Coast to produce an official long-form D&D comic. Subscribed to this SO HARD.
Unfortunately, our business is utterly focused on strategies to get music in front of people in their teens and 20s. Other than pushing what worked on younger people, and complaining that those avenues are ineffective with those same fans as adults, the bulk of our business isn’t TRYING to reach older listeners.
In my view, labels and artists alike simply suck at reaching anyone. Crappy, crippled tools, poor execution, a preoccupation with their own navels, and an unwillingness to stick it out for the long haul. It goes way beyond making people comfy at shows.
It may help, the next time you hear that voice in your head that says you have nothing original to say, to remember that that voice is not coming from the part of your self that you write from, or paint from, or shoot film from. That voice is coming from the shallow end of the pool. Stay in the deep end.
Studio Neat — It Will Be Exhilarating. From the guys who made the Glif, a great little book about jump-starting a business, with tips on manufacturing, prototyping, etc.
Nnewts by Doug TenNapel. Newish adventure web comic from the creator of Earthworm Jim. Lush colors and awesome art. I've been reading since the start and am totally hooked.
I came home from a weeklong Thanksgiving furlough to a bunch of cool Kirby Krackle news! Well, actually I knew it was coming because I'm in Kirby Krackle but still YAY OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS.
First, we released our new single "One More Episode," an ode to those weekends spent plowing through a DVD box set with your loved one. See how many TV title references you recognize in our video below:
And second, we have official confirmation that Kirby Krackle will be performing at the 2013 Calgary Expo, opening for "Weird Al" Yankovic.
Yep. That's not a typo. That "Weird Al." In a 5000-seat arena. All of this is kind of nuts and most likely evidence that the Mayan calendar is real. But if you wanna stick it to those ancient Mayans you can purchase Expo tickets here on December 1st. What a weird, awesome ride this whole nerd-rock thing has been.
I think the biggest lesson of 2012 is that the people are much better connected now than they ever have been. That means that bold manipulative lies don't work, because they can be exposed, quickly, by networks of people that voters trust. In the past, politics was totally centralized. Like everything else, it is not centralized anymore. We have fact-checkers, we can listen to them, and now apparently enough people do that we can enforce a certain discipline on our candidates.
Would we even know about Romney's 47% comments if Twitter, YouTube and Facebook weren't as prevalent as they are today? It's a new world. And the people who hate it are going to come gunning for it, hard.
People love to gripe about how there's just too much stuff going on all the time. Too much tweeting, too much music, too many choices. There's too much noise. So how is it that I haven't heard a single song by Mumford & Sons or watched a single episode of Modern Family or The Big Bang Theory? It's never been easier to ignore things than now. Thank God.
