One thing I’ve …

One thing I’ve learned is that unless you have room to put up your stuff and get it connected, then you won’t use it – Vince Clarke

The Internet is a Potemkin Village

I went to see Earth Girls Are Easy the other night. It was a special Bust-magazine-sponsored showing at Videology in Williamsburg, which they’ve really turned into a sweet bar and viewing room, by the way. Kudos.

Now I love this movie. I can recite quotes from this movie like other people do with Rocky Horror.

“If you wanted to have meaningless sex, why couldn’t you have meaningless sex with me?!”

So I was excited. I dragged two of my friends along (one: bemused, one: slightly pleased). A third couldn’t come because of holiday scheduling stuff.

We were the only people there!!!

Except for one other girl. And the fancy pantsy lady who was running the show. And her friend. Fancy pantsy is an editor for Salon and wrote a twee little book about the pains of middle class househunting in NYC. No links because I’m not trying to be that way (much), I’m just telling a little story.

She proceeded to stand up in the dark, with us all alone there (6 total people), and give this whole speech about the movie, and how much it meant to her, and how our money was going to a good cause (which it was), and then she talked about the cause for a minute, and suggested that maybe we could donate even more money, and me and my two friends were like, umm, please just start the movie because you’re making us really uncomfortable. I just felt bad because she couldn’t let her hair down even for a minute in a situation where she obviously needed to interact in a slightly different way than if she was speaking to 30 people.

And yet, on the internet, to quote a rather old song by my buddies Ninjasonik, she’s fuckin’ famous.

I like Meowtain. And Bezoar.

Me and Shayne listened to the whole cassette of Meowtain last night. I bought it from Lizzie La Fey at the Foxygen show at Webster Hall, because she sings with Foxygen and also was selling cassettes for her band. I was probably the only person to be like, the side project of the opening band? On cassette? Let me buy some of that. But that is how I roll.

Then we biked to Grand Victory and watched Bezoar, who tag themselves on bandcamp with experimental metal prog psychedelic Brooklyn. That sounds about right. Their sound is huge, you could really hear and differentiate the instruments.  Too many bands go loud and get muddy, but they were pristine. It kind of rounded out the evening.

We’re doing t-shirts for Imaginary Friends, which is exciting, working on the second video, and trying to find the perfect venue for our record release party. If I don’t have a date nailed down in a week or so, my head is going to explode. Explode! Like a watermelon being shot by an assassin’s rifle while he’s practicing for Charles De Gaulle.

Canada has better beer

Why didn’t anyone ever tell me this?

I’m in Toronto for a few days, visiting my friend Jacob and going to literary parties because he’s got some poetry published and it’s the holiday season. Of course the minute I leave there’s a bunch of shows I’m missing.

Martin Bisi has a show this Friday (7th) at 9PM at Littlefield in Park Slope/Gowanus Brooklyn. I am bummed! I met him once when I was a bartender at Planet Thai like a million years ago, and he’s a truly great producer. Altiverb just made a software plug-in so you can sound like you recorded at his studio. I have two thoughts about this: (1) what a great idea; (2) one day I’d sure like someone to make a software plug-in for my studio. I wonder, though, if any software can ever reproduce these crafted techniques.

Emulate this

Also, Gay Panic is playing Thursday at Public Assembly, according to Lior. He and I are going to work on some stuff soon, too, and I’m really excited about that.

Such great (free) music: the Fred Perry Artist Lounge Sessions at Stratosphere

So I’m a big fan of Insound, because they always give away music in the form of digital mix tapes. I like this because (1) I just finished grad school so have been on a Dickensian budget for the last few years; (2) broke or not, I think it’s the smartest move anyone in the music business can make. Last week they came out with this awesome compilation of music called the Fred Perry Artist Lounge Sessions, recorded in a day at Stratosphere Sound. I keep listening to it over and over. I’m so impressed with the engineer Geoff Sanoff who recorded eight different bands in one day. And not just different bands– different sounding bands with a variation of instruments, vocal styles, even genres. So not easy!

Foxygen, especially, sounds great– so great I’m gonna go see them at Webster Hall in December. You know, it’s always fun to be super into the opening band, and then see that the main player is someone you’ve been meaning to see, too– in this case, Of Montreal. Jagjaguwar has great taste in music.

God, this is the linkiest post I ever wrote. Whatever, I love this compilation.

No Merge Records, No!

It’s not that I don’t understand. As musicians, we’re living in the dystopian future. I got this. Trying to sell music, any type of music right now, is so close to impossible that it’s almost a joke.

However, I just don’t think a record made of ice is the way to go here. Yes, record made of ice. If you win their contest, Merge records will send you a kit so that you can make a record of a song from the Shout Out Louds in your freezer. Make it out of OJ and you can have a tasty snack.

Here are the reasons why I think this is Not Great.

(1) It sounds like crap. Even the one featured on their how-to video sounds like crap.

(2) It’s gonna make a mess on my turntable. Don’t tell me it’s not.

(3) I don’t think I can actually make the mold work well enough in my freezer to make a playable record. As someone who cooks, I can tell you that freezer molds are not super easy to do. You ever try to make a floaty witch’s hand in your Halloween punch? The fingers will break off.

It all seems like something out of the Onion to me. Personally, I’d rather try to print QR codes on rolling papers. Don’t steal that.

But what the hell do I know? I’m making cassettes over here.

BMI MusicWorld: Still not Helping

Welcome to the Second Installment of Sadly Obvious Career Advice from BMI MusicWorld. This time, it’s Four Ways to Avoid Music Submission Mistakes. Not Five and not Three. Got your flashcards ready? Let’s go.

(1) Don’t send an unsolicited email with an MP3 attached to somebody with a music job.

Or anyone. Ever. Whoever is still doing this needs more help than the BMI newsletter can give them.

(2) Avoid writing long emails with your submission.

What? Don’t blather on in a professional email? How will I ever get noticed if I don’t tell my life story when I submit my ten songs via MP3 attachment?

How Can I Write a Song when I have No Head?

(3) Don’t send more songs than the opportunity requires.

Listen, dude, they don’t like me cuz they don’t know me. And Ima fix that. Right now. My ten MP3s demand your love!

(4) Don’t forget to follow up.

Sigh. I just assume some of the cut pieces of advice were (1) make sure you spell the email correctly and (2) hold down the shift key when you hit 2 to make that fancy “a” symbol.

I guess the moral of the story here is that Songwriters are Special. A Special group of people whose little brains only light up in the songwriting sections. Like Gizmo.