After a lengthy detour, I finally managed to wrangle new music into the Rock Band Network. Please enjoy.
Back in the day
January 15, 2012
An old friend just sent this over. I must have been 17 or 18. It was the time I played guitar on the debut album “The Rope” by Black Tape For A Blue Girl. The best part was that I had no idea I had done so until I met up again with Sam Rosenthal about a dozen years later. I think he was kind of bent out of shape that I didn’t remember it (but when he played it for me, I recognized my style — I guess it must be true!). In my defense: those were hazy days, so to speak.
Splashdown boots
November 30, 2011It has been brought to my attention that the only version of the Blueshift bootleg available on the net has been ripped at awful 128 Kbps audio quality. Considering how hard everyone involved worked to make the album sound good, I find this unacceptable. So if anyone is interested in higher fidelity, please contact me for information.
For those wondering: our contract with Capitol stipulated that Stars & Garters and Halfworld remained the property of the band. Blueshift, however, we don’t have the rights to, and the label won’t even sell us back the ownership (but fortunately, somebody leaked it to the world!). So if you want to buy the remastered editions of our earlier stuff on iTunes, we surely wouldn’t mind. But Blueshift now belongs to the Internet.
UPDATE: Jan, 15, 2012
Here’s Blueshift with better quality. But I’d ignore the Redshift since it’s still at 128, and the Asia At Odd Hours AllieCat mix — we didn’t make that. And the woofy live recording of Nomadic… sheesh…
Los Angeles
October 5, 2011In L.A. today, and I hung out with Melissa for the first time in eleven years.
I heard a preview of an upcoming song that was just beautiful. Onward she goes…
New song: “Skulls”
September 8, 2011Anarchy Club has just released our new track, “Skulls”. It’s a sad, sad song. About love. Kind of.
“Apotropaic”
September 4, 2011Currently reading the Hitchens autobiography, and encountered the word that is the title of this post. Apparently, it’s an adjective which means “supposedly having the power to avert evil influences or bad luck”. Gotta find a way to use that in casual conversation this week!
In other news, the full Anarchy Club and Map & Key catalogs are now up on Spotify. The first two Splashdown releases (the only ones for which we own the rights) are up as well.
The Devil’s fiddle
August 21, 2011Recorded violin today for the first time. After Russell rained sorrowful tones and tears all over the new Anarchy Club song, I had him noodle on a bunch of other tracks. Now that I know he can do Shakti, things are going to get interesting.
Getting the smell of the music in his nostrils.
Capitol’s $30,000 (recoupable) photoshoot
August 2, 2011
Found this while going through some boxes this weekend. Hope Splashdown fans get a kick out of it.
This promo photo was intended to accompany the Blueshift album as it made its way out into the world.
It was quite an experience to go through the “LA glamour machine”, with stylists, photographers, and A&R people all piling on (and getting crazy paid from money the band hadn’t even earned yet).
Spotify
July 16, 2011Just tried Spotify for the first time. Meh. Unless you’re looking for basic Top 40 fare, there is very little of interest to be found. Nothing even slightly obscure, not even recent Top 40 from other countries. (Zero from Japan or Korea, for example).
“The history of recorded music at your fingertips”? Hardly. I looked for dozens of long-established, non-mainstream artists, all of whom came up blank. But if you want Britney or Mariah Carey — hey, you’re in luck. What a surprise.
If this app is the future of music as everyone is saying, then music is about to become vastly more homogenous, not less. Just what the world needs… Bring on the global monoculture…
