Scott Andrew

The official Kin to Stars promo photo, courtesy of Christopher Nelson. My favorite of the bunch.

Posted August 7, 2011

Portal Space Core Cake closeup | Flickr - Photo Sharing!. He's a cake, and he wants to go to space. Spaaaace!

REAPER | Audio Production Without Limits. Outstanding recording software for Windows, free to try, cheap to buy. The new 4.0 release is out. We recorded the Kin to Stars single with this.

Felicia Day: Mogul In The Making. Forbes feature on how the creator of The Guild built her mini-empire on the web after most studios turned down her script.

Books Without Borders by Paul Constant - The Stranger, Seattle's Only Newspaper. Amazing article by a former employee-turned-writer on the collapse of the giant bookstore chain.

Posted August 6, 2011

This Saturday 8/6 is the live debut of Kin to Stars, my urban-folk-pop duo project with Jerin Falkner. All the details are here if you're still thinking of coming, which you totally should.

Then on Sunday 8/7, Explone will be performing at the "We Heart Tracy Dart" benefit, to raise funds and awareness for breast cancer activist and survivor Tracy Dart, who is fighting the disease for a third time. Also on the bill is In Cahoots and Pete Seäzle of West Seattle Funblog will be MC'ing. Also: door prizes! If you're local, we hope you'll check it out.

Posted August 5, 2011

If this fog bank had been just a little higher, this photo would have been a lot more awesome.

Posted August 4, 2011

Don't worry, it's not always like this.

Mostly, but not always.

UPDATE: hello, 1500 posts!

Posted August 3, 2011

My new city-folk project with Jerin Falkner Kin to Stars just released its debut single "Hello Ohio", a quiet roadtrip down a darkened midwest highway:

(If you can't see the audio thingy above, just go directly to our Bandcamp page.)

Our debut show is this Saturday 8/6, and hopefully we'll get a decent enough recording to allow us to post some live tracks. Until then, we hope you enjoy the single -- maybe enough to, ahem, share, or perhaps like and or even tweet, although I fear it may be terribly out of fashion these days to ask for such things directly, which I totally didn't do just there.

Posted August 2, 2011

ATTENTION ALL ROCK FANS OF THE SOLAR FEDERATION:

My band Explone just released three extra tracks from the Dreamers/Lovers sessions. You can grab them for free right now at the Explone website, for a limited time, after which they'll be available at the standard digital goods outlets.

It's hard to pick a favorite, but our cover of The Devil Whale's "You Were Good" is the clear frontrunner. My ego, on the other hand, insists that "Hard To Keep A Secret" deserves merit for the meaty, all-weather-traction bass riffage.

I COMMAND YOU TO DOWNLOAD NOW.

Posted August 1, 2011

I've been using the free version for a week. My initial impressions:

The awesome:

• It feels a lot like iTunes, except you don't have to pay for anything. This is sounds boring, but it's actually amazing.
• The catalog is really deep. Lots of both indie and major label music.
• It's got a Pandora-like "radio station" option, in case you like that (I do).
• The ads are not nearly as annoying as I expected.

The not-so-awesome:

• There's no web component. If you want to listen at work, or on a friend's computer, you have to download the Spotify player and install it there. Gack. Likewise, if you want to share a track with your friends, they must have Spotify to listen. Double gack.
• The ads are still annoying, especially in the wrong context. I don't want to hear a clip from the latest Pitbull track in the middle of listening to R.E.M.
• Tons of missing artwork and info, especially for indie music. I swear there's a business opportunity here to compete with AllMusic and Gracenote by actually doing the work they fail to do.

You also still can't find The Beatles, Zeppelin or Pink Floyd. They (the copyright owners and publishers) want you to buy that stuff.

Are you using it? How do you like it?

Posted July 31, 2011

John Mayer 2011 Clinic – “Manage the Temptation to Publish Yourself” – Berklee Blogs. - John Mayer's presentation at Berklee is pretty great. The first half focuses on how social media has become an addictive replacement for actual work -- Mayer tells the audience how he eventually had to swear off Twitter when his obsession with writing clever tweets started to eclipse his songwriting. I recently wrote that social media seema to fill mental gaps and Mayer's story sounds similar, except he's all famous and stuff.

How to Hook Up Heads and Cabinets - simple primer on understanding Ohms and how they relate to wattage pumped from amps to speaker cabs. Took me awhile to wrap my head around why more cabs results in less impedance.

Seth's Blog: "It will be good exposure". - Good thoughts on the balancing act of working for payment and working for free in exchange for credibility, goodwill and other intangibles.

Posted July 30, 2011

It's no longer a secret. Say hello to my newest project, Kin to Stars:

(Watch the video at YouTube. Looks best in HD.)

...a.k.a. a collaborative songwriting effort by Jerin Falkner and myself.

We don't even have a proper website or mailing list yet, but we do have a Facebook page which we hope you will check out. We also have one other thing: a live show! We'll be performing live without a net, test-driving our co-written musical wares for a lucky audience at 9pm on August 6th at Egan's Ballard Jamhouse here in Seattle. Here's the Facebook event.

If you're thinking about checking out the show, we recommend calling or emailing the venue for reservations. Admission is $5. Seating at Egan's is limited and this show is highly likely to sell out.

More good stuff -- including, we hope, a record! -- to follow as the year rolls on.

Posted July 19, 2011