I sketched this on a dull day back in 2008:
Wow, how already totally dated is all that? Separate devices for video, photos, blogging and Twitter? That'd all be taken care of with a single iPhone now. And what, no Facebook?!
That untouched guitar, though? That's eternal.
Posted October 6, 2010
“Indie rock: it’s not only yelping and glockenspiels. *Mostly*, but not *only*.”— @anthom
Posted October 5, 2010
It took a little while, but the new EPs Look Back On This And Laugh and The Last Thing You Need are available at Amazon. (Also, note to future me: choose shorter release titles, it's getting to be a pain to type them all out, jeez.)
Posted October 4, 2010
"You know who gets writer’s block? Non-writers. They think it’s cool and romantic to struggle to make Art. They make sure everyone knows how torturous the process is, so when they finally squeeze something out, it won’t be judged on its merits but rather the emotional anguish involved in its creation.
"Writers write. Hacks whine about how hard it is."
— johnaugust.com » Habits, heavy lifting, and the possibility of suck
But it's haaaarrrrd...
Posted October 1, 2010
"Metal rules. Don't like it? DIE."
Posted September 30, 2010
Today is my birthday! So for the rest of today, you can download the new recording of "Note To Self" for free (any format, no email, no retweet, no nothin') from Bandcamp.
(Something about this song makes it very appropriate for today, hm.)
If you missed it, here's the first draft of this tune and here's the first demo, both recorded earlier this year. As you can hear, I ended up keeping a lot of the original vocal and some of the guitar for the final version. I had to edit the timing a bit to make it fit the drum track as my strumming wasn't quite on the mark when I recorded the demo.
Anyway enjoy! Happy birthday to you! I mean, me!
Posted September 22, 2010
Hey there. Today I'm releasing two digital EPs. I know, right? Both are now available at iTunes and Bandcamp.
Look Back On This And Laugh is the darker, more electric and more lovelorn of the two.
Here you will find the a new song "Whatever Happened To You" and a full band version of "Note To Self," previously only available as an acoustic demo. And if you missed out on the limited release of "Love My Way" back a few summers ago, you can find that here as well.
Also here are re-thought, remixed and remastered versions of "You Promised," "Gold Star (Feel Like A Ghost)" and (my personal favorite) "We Had A Good Thing."
The acoustic-y companion EP, The Last Thing You Need, contains songs written before I released Save You From Yourself, but didn't include on that record.
Here you'll find Josh Woodward doing backing vocals on "Valentines" and a recently unearthed acoustic cover of Hüsker Dü's "No Reservations" which I originally did waaay back in 2002, newly polished to a 24-bit sheen.
Here also are finalized, no-more-George-Lucas-inserting-extra-dewbacks cuts of "Pushover," "Fall To Earth" and "Dark Corners." (And the cover art is another phone-cam shot, taken when I had longer, more questionable hair.)
You can get both EPs at iTunes right now, and eventually at Amazon. If you prefer exotic formats like FLAC or Ogg Vorbis with Creative Commons licensing, Bandcamp will hook you up.
Demo Club members can knock 20% off the asking price at Bandcamp by using the discount code I emailed out today. If you're already in the Demo Club, you'd already know that, hm?
I hope you enjoy these! More nefarious schemes are in the works.
This post brought to you by the letter L.
Posted September 14, 2010
#1 by Trevor Larkin A local discovery. I was hooked from the very first song. Don't let the cover art scare you off; there's some magic ingredient here that raises this stuff way above typical singer-songwriter fare. Standout track: "Seattle Winter Day." SO good.
Our Own Ghost City by Helen Earth Band. (Helen Earth. Get it?) Tight math-rock stuff from San Diego. Also, nice to hear prog songs that clock in at pop song lengths; no full-album-side pieces here. The single "(We All) Talk With Knives" is killer.
Love It to Life by Jesse Malin & St. Marks Social. This one frustrates me 'cause I'm a big Jesse Malin fan but this just hasn't grown on me yet. I miss the wider range of his first two records, before he started channeling Cheap Trick.
Dance Rush Project on MySpace Music. Rush music reinterpreted as club mixes. No, really. Swords.
Posted August 20, 2010
BEHOLD! Today I'm releasing Use Your Words, a free digital EP of instrumental tracks. You can grab it now at Bandcamp.
Awhile back I was digging through files on my older recording computer and came across some instrumental mixes I had been sitting on for so long I'd forgotten about them. I think the idea was to offer them for licensing, but I'm supremely lazy about things that involve making money and/or phone calls.
I've been listening to these on repeat for awhile and it's fascinating (to me, at least) to hear this music without vocals getting in the way. It brings to mind a lot of questions. Why did I put that guitar over there? Why do the drums sound better in this track than that track? Oh hey, I don't even remember recording that tambourine.
Anyway, feel free to use these in your podcasts, videos or what have you. I pulled the cover photo from my phone camera, taken on a particularly crappy day in spring 2009. The days that followed got a whole lot better. Enjoy.
Scott Andrew - Use Your Words at Bandcamp.
PS: Bandcamp will ask for an email address in exchange for the free download. If you're already a Demo Club member, don't worry, you won't be added twice!
Posted July 26, 2010
