I shared a long lost version of “Lonely” sung by actress/author Felicia Day, originally intended for the Bee and PuppyCat show. I did a new mix and master on it but it’s nearly ten years old 💀⚰️
Album, Covers, Video
Happy spooky month to you and yours — scary busy times over here! After an epic, hard-fought battle of recording and mixing, the “Naturally” album is finally going into mastering this week and vinyl production right after that. Phewwww.
I’ve lost all objectivity on it as is tradition but people I trust say it’s good? It’s been way harder than I thought doing a more traditional live-ish album and I’m looking forward to having it done. It’s been cool to do, but after spending most of a year on this thing I’m thinking 2025 will be about releasing more DIY singles at a much faster rate.
Bandcamp Friday Clearance
I need to make room for vinyl so I’ll be doing a little old-timey media clearance sale (CDs and tapes) over on the Brad Sucks Bandcamp if you’re interested in such things.
Commissioned Covers
I’m posting some of the commissioned covers from the LP5 “Naturally” fundraiser on YouTube that I’ve already shared on the Patreon. Two so far:
Just ridiculous.
Learning to Lie Sci-Fi Pickleball video
Looks like we’re probably gonna come up short on the Learning to Lie video fundraiser goal but thanks to the everyone who contributed, every bit helps! We’re scrambling to get everything ready to film next week, may the weather be merciful. Still time to get in on it if you want your name in the credits, be part of pickleball history etc but no pressure of course!
Anyway, back to work for me… lots of stuff to get ready for the release. Hope you’re well!
Brad
Official Website (Vinyl, Shirts & News)
Official Patreon (20+ Unreleased Songs)
Brad Sucks Mailing List (Monthly Updates)
Social: Instagram, Facebook, Threads, Discord
Summer’s over and I’m mad about it!! Anyway, some news:
Video Fundraiser
So I had a dumb idea for a low-budget sci-fi pickleball music video? We shot some test footage last week and I think it turned out pretty funny so I’m wondering if we can get a little bit of a budget for it. Check out the Indiegogo here if you want to see the footage and/or you’re interested in making it happen, but no pressure! I know I still owe y’all an album! Speaking of which:
The Album
It’s coming along!! Here’s the album cover! It’s been a lot of back and forth and attempted and abandoned ideas but the great and patient Matthew Pfahlert and I finally settled on a risograph-style filtered image of a photo I took while zip-lining in North Carolina a few years ago.
We’re mixing the album right now and it’s getting there! I’ve been bananas bonkers stressed to death about it so it’s great that it’s finally coming together. Also have been making progress on all the covers I owe people — you should start receiving them soon!
Other than that I’ve been posting goofy stuff on Threads. I’m silly.
That’s all for now, thanks everybody!
Brad
Official Website (Vinyl, Shirts & News)
Official Patreon (20+ Unreleased Songs)
Brad Sucks Mailing List (Monthly Updates)
Social: Instagram, Facebook, Threads, Bluesky, Discord
My new song Myself Almost has been out for over a week and people seem to like it? Here’s the lyric video. Thanks for the streams and views and comments, they make a huge difference. The song’s received enough streams to make it into Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist so hopefully it’ll have some legs — all hail the merciful algorithm.
After a long stretch of rehearsals, we tracked the drums to the new album recording 13 songs over a weekend, whoo-eee. It went pretty well, I think we got good stuff. I’m working on getting them comped and edited so we can move on to tracking the rest. I’ll post some progress clips on the Patreon soon.
Stream shows
I’ve got TEN cover songs to deliver from the album crowdfunding so Ben and I are gonna try working on them live on stream tomorrow at 1pm EST, not sure how that’ll go but feel free to pop by. Next full concert stream will be April 25th.
Stuff I’ve liked
Some things I’ve been into this month:
Slaughterhouse-Five: The Graphic Novel is an excellent adaptation of the Kurt Vonnegut classic.
Edward Gorey illustrated a lot of the books by John Bellairs that I loved as a kid but I didn’t know much about him until I read The World of Edward Gorey. (He was also quite the dresser.)
Ghanaian Fantasy Coffin Maker Paa Joe makes amazing coffins. He has the KISS Kasket beat for sure.
I dove into the world of fan-made fantasy Nirvana albums — they’re like demo and rarity mixtapes with a helping of AI to modernize the production. AI stem separation is getting scary good and I’m fighting the urge to make my own “lost” Nirvana album.
‘Twas the season for me to be re-obsessed with Drew Sarich’s performance of Gethsemane (I Only Want to Say) from Jesus Christ Superstar. I’ve watched every performance by everyone on Youtube and this one’s the best. (Skip to 2:08 for the best part.)
That’s all, thanks everybody!
Brad
Official Website (Vinyl, Shirts & News)
Official Patreon (20+ Unreleased Songs)
Brad Sucks Mailing List (Monthly Updates)
Social: Instagram, Facebook, Threads, Bluesky, Discord
I’ve got a new single streaming on Thursday: Myself Almost. It’s a mostly-electronic song about technology and relationships. Mixed & Mastered by Rob Cosh, with visuals by Mackenzie Glisson.
I’ve included the final audio file for patrons if you want to check it out early. (The demo was called Cell Phone and was posted last June.)
Also: come join Ben & I this Thursday at 8PM EST/5PM PST for a release day live stream!
Brad
Hey everybody, how’s it going? We did it! The Untitled Fifth Album campaign reached 100% funding just in the nick of time, thank you all. Since then I’ve been hustling on the project as there are instantly a lot of scary deadlines. But I feel good about it, I’m excited to get these songs out.
The Making Me Nervous Lexus ad appears to still be airing everywhere, thanks for all your messages about it — I think I’ve heard that it’s on nearly every major TV channel, crazy! Really sweet how excited you all are to see the song pop up IRL, thanks for rooting for me.
New Single March 21st: Myself Almost
I have a new single coming out March 21st! It’s called Myself Almost (the Patreon demo was called Cell Phone). It’s a vibey electronic track about relationships and technology that I wrote last summer.
You can pre-save it if you’re into that or just keep an eye on Instagram/Facebook/YouTube for me trying to promote it. Oh and if you could follow me on Spotify or wherever you stream your music, that’d be a big help. The platforms really like it when folks play a new song on release day and they might be generous enough to play it for other people.
Stream Show: March 21st
Same day as the single release! The next stream show is on March 21st (8pm EST/5pm PST), click the bell on YouTube to get notified when we go live. These are a blast to do, thanks to all of you in the chat. Get your requests in.
I’m Burning Out of Here
Well, I’ve got a bunch of album work to finish up this week and then I’m going missing for March break to hopefully stave off some rising burn-out. Fingers crossed I return with a renewed ability to reply to everyone’s messages, listen to my voicemails and maybe occasionally return a single phone call. Hope you’re all well,
Brad
More from Brad Sucks
Official Website (Vinyl, Merch & News)
Official Patreon (20+ Unreleased Songs)
Brad Sucks Mailing List (Monthly Updates)
Wow, what a wild 24 hours! Before Monday I was like, “well, we made it to 90% of our goal and that’s still totally still great and more than I deserve! 😀😀” but yesterday the campaign wound up blowing past 100% funding in a matter of hours. Unbelievable. Thank you everybody, especially the sweet folks in the Brad Sucks Discord for your support & encouragement yesterday.
A little progress update: we’ve got one more rehearsal while we prep for drum recording on February 24th and 25th. In the meantime I’m working on guide tracks and finalizing lyrics and getting moving on the artwork and release plan. And then there’s basically an entire album of custom cover requests to record(!). It’s gonna be a busy time but I’m excited to get at it. Going forward, I’ll be posting short updates to social media and saving longer updates for Indiegogo, my website and Patreon.
And finally, I just want to say thank you all for being cool with this way of doing things. I feel a bit cheesy asking for cash but in the current streaming era the pre-order/fundraising model seems to be the best way to guarantee there’s enough interest to do these projects. And I’m extremely grateful & validated that there seems to be.
Feel free to message me if you have any questions or comments about the campaign or album or anything. Thank you again!
Brad
Update time! We’ve been working hard on the songs in the cold basement where we rehearse. Big news: we’ve cut some songs. The tracklist is now down to: Wasting My Potential, Pretty Dumb, This Meeting, Simplifyin, Over & Over & Over, Feeling Pretty Good, Certain Types of People, Naturally, In Trouble, The Comfort Zone and Learning to Lie Again. They were the ones everyone was most interested in working on, sorry if your fave got cut. There's still hope it'll get finished one day.
Fundraiser is at 65% with two weeks to go! Thanks to everyone for your support so far. Seems unlikely we’ll make it to 100% so I’m beginning to sweat how I’m gonna pull this project off with whatever budget we end up with, but we’ll see how it goes. The songs are sounding good, our parts are pretty locked. If we can get everything recorded nicely, I think it’ll turn out really well.
While I'm here I might as well mention that Ben & I have a live stream show Thursday night at 8pm on YouTube that you're invited to.
Some pics from last Friday's chilly rehearsal:
(Photos by Steve Pelehos)
So my song Making Me Nervous has wound up in a Lexus television commercial, which is the most recent weird event in the thing I sometimes call my music career. Thank you to everybody telling me you saw it on TV, I love to hear it!
While I try not to complain as I’m very grateful I still get to keep making music, it’s been a bit of a rocky year in the Brad Sucks industry. There seem to be a lot of people out there who like my music but with the algorithmic feeds, social media turmoil and focus on video these days (which isn’t exactly my forté) it’s gotten harder and harder for me to reach them. Throw in seeming business/financial downward spirals behind the scenes at Spotify and Bandcamp and the entire digital digital distribution landscape for low-budget independent musicians has gotten a bit discouraging. You might even say it’s been “making me nervous” but I would never say that, ever.
So when a creative company reached out to me late last year asking if it was OK to pitch fancy car-maker Lexus on using Making Me Nervous in a TV advertisement, I was all-in. When I was a teenager we’d call that “selling out” but I don’t know if that term even exists anymore or if it would even apply in this context.
Regardless, this lucky break will give me a much-needed boost, extending the length of time I can confidently continue to call myself a professional musician at least six to eight more months and I’m very pleased about that.
Meanwhile, I’m out here still raising funds for my Untitled Fifth Album and I still have a (free) live stream concert on January 25th you should tune into and I still have a Patreon with 20+ unreleased song demos and the most supportive patrons who help me keep doing what I’m doing, lucky breaks or no.
Yours Lexusly,
Brad
Over the weekend I hacked together a podcast feature I want: re-run a podcast from its first episode, with following episodes showing up as “new” on either a weekly or daily schedule.
So you can work your way through all the episodes of a podcast as though they started coming out today, if that makes sense.
(Images: a sort of working web UI and the first episode of Serial showing up as a “new” episode within Pocket Casts)
Just sharing in the hopes someone steals the idea and puts it in a decent podcast app so I can use it!
The Out of It tenth anniversary vinyl is in the house and they look sweet and also sound sweet. Weird to think I made that record ten years ago. Preorders are 99% shipped so if you order now it’ll be in the mail to you within a week. Grab one in my store or on my Bandcamp page.
Better Than Nothing vinyl is still available as well if you want the entire Brad Sucks vinyl collection while supplies last. Be sure to include a note with your order if you want ‘em signed (by me).
(Photo credit: @thebishopgame)
Hello there, after several years of procrastinating, I've started a Patreon. It's a website where you can sponsor independent creators and get access to exclusive content and stuff. I'll be posting songs I'm working on as well as writing as much as people want to hear about them as I try to finish the next album.
The first song's about psychedelic mushrooms as antidepressants. It's called Fun Guy -- I threw it on Youtube so I could maybe lure you into sponsoring me on the Patreon, let's see if it works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-Jpv-bk7Rw
Hey there, so Brad Sucks was scheduled to play Smiling Buddha in Toronto on August 18th. I have to cancel that show as I’ve learned one of the owners was charged with sexual assault and many people have expressed concerns about patronizing a venue that may harbor unsafe actors in the music community. I tried to find another venue for that night but was unable to. My apologies for the inconvenience, I’ll figure something out and we’ll be back to Toronto soon and hopefully I’ll see you there! Thanks!
Well holy shit guys, it's been ten years since I released Out of It, my second album. To mark the occasion I'm releasing a fully remastered limited edition vinyl. It's available for pre-order now and it'll ship in September. Order it here (scroll down and click on Buy Record/Vinyl). Include a note if you want yours signed! I don't mind and it makes me feel like a big important guy.
Upcoming Shows
Ottawa, you were kind to me as usual and did a great job tolerating all the new songs we played. Let's see how these other cities do, though:
Montreal, QC - July 6th: Quai des Brumes Toronto, ON - August 18th: Smiling Buddha
Please come out to these -- I'm very easily discouraged!
New Shirts
There’s a fresh new shirt store! Plus by popular request there's some I Don’t Know What I’m Doing men’s and women’s shirts you might like?
Fun fact: the I Don't Know What I'm Doing album art is by Allen Henderson and he hosts a podcast about movies and history called Midmost Coast, check it out!
Other Stuff
I scored this cute little animation that Pendleton Ward made:
That's all I got for now, working on a lot of stuff I hope I can show you soon. Hit me up on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram! Til next time,
Brad brad@bradsucks.net
If you're looking to get yourself a copy of Better Than Nothing (my completely un-earned 'greatest hits') in vinyl and/or digital formats, you can get those in my store or over on Bandcamp. There are about 200 records left and after that they're gone (unless I decide to press more, but the record will look different.)
If you want the record signed, just include a note with your order and I'll scrawl on it.
The vinyl and the digital versions were remastered separately from each other and from the original unmastered mixes, so I think they sound pretty, pretty good. I'm considering remastering all three records now to bring 'em up to the level of this digital release, but that's a battle for another time.
Happy holidays and thank you so much for supporting me through the three records that led to this release. I'm doing my best to make the fourth one decent for y'all.
Copies of my greatest hits (and first ever) vinyl 'Better Than Nothing' arrived last night and it looks sweet!!
You can still order it here: https://bit.ly/2tfIDid
Also the vinyl release show's on November 17th in Ottawa at Irene's if that's for some reason something you'd be into.
Big news! I’m releasing my first ever vinyl record. It’s called Better Than Nothing and it’s a compilation of eleven of the more popular Brad Sucks songs I put out from 2003 to 2012. It’ll be released in September via Feedbands (membership not required) and is available for pre-order now here: http://bit.ly/2tfIDid
Info:
- The first ever, limited run Brad Sucks vinyl hand-pressed on a stunning orange to red gradient colored vinyl
- 11 of the most popular Brad Sucks songs in one convenient package
- The first 300 copies will be signed (by me)
- All songs received a full remaster
- Ships September 2017
- Tracklist:
Side A
Making Me Nervous
Certain Death
Guess Who’s a Mess
Dropping Out of School
Feel Free! Plastic Surgery!
Fixing My Brain
Side B Bad Sign There’s Something Wrong Borderline Thanks for the Add You’re Not Going Anywhere
And here's that pre-order link again: http://bit.ly/2tfIDid
Thank you!
Oh, so this'll be my first show in Ottawa in a while or two. Gonna be trying out some new stuff, plus old new stuff and then last -- but by no means least -- ...old stuff. Bruce Enloe and the Burning Sensations will be opening. I worked on Bruce's two rad records, Unseasonably Cool and the raw, live-off-the-floor Bonfire. Both worth checking out, Bruce is an excellent songwriter. Geoffrey Gibson made us this beautiful poster:
Here's a playlist of songs I liked this year. They coulda been released any year but I liked them in this one. Happy New Year.
What a big Record Store Day I’ve got coming up this Saturday. My friend Dan at Backbeat Music suggested we press some Making Me Nervous postcard flexidiscs. And now they exist:
POSTCARD FLEXIS
See, it’s a postcard? But if you put it on a turntable it’ll play a very scratchy, low-fidelity version of my song Making Me Nervous? Disclaimer: I’ve tested them a bit and some auto-return type turntables haven’t been able to play them so uh: no guarantees they’ll work on your system. But they’re neat!
If you want me to mail you one, just Paypal me $10 USD and send me your mailing address and I’ll get it out to you asap.
SHOWS
I’ll be doing an in-store (duo) performance at 3pm at Backbeat on Saturday. Everybody who buys a record gets a free flexidisc! Details here.
After that, I’m heading to Kingston to play a full-band Brad Sucks set at The Mansion in Kingston. Details here.
I think that’s it. After that, I’m gonna lay down for a while.