We’re doing a concert on my YouTube channel to celebrate my third album Guess Who’s a Mess turning ten this week. It’s on Thursday November 3rd at 8pm EST, come hang!
Happy new year! I don’t know what it’s like where you are, but up here in Ontario, Canada we’re locking down again for fun! Join me for a Brad Sucks live stream on the 27th, tickets here! Stay safe if you’re into that✌️
(poster by @sisc_daily)
The last one was a blast so we’re gonna do it again! Doing another private stream concert, $10, 100 tickets max. December 17th!
I've been getting lots of photos and messages telling me people are getting their Better Than Nothing records which makes me super happy, thanks you guys. I keep starting to write something about how humbling and emotional it is to feel so supported after like a decade and a half of making songs, but then I feel dumb and delete it. So, like, thank you? The vinyl release party's November 17th in my hometown of Ottawa. Hope to see you there! Here's the gig poster by Geoff Gibson (@sisc_daily) who also did the awesome Better Than Nothing album artwork.
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:
Status update: I’m still doing music full time in 2016! I’ve got some things I’m excited for you to hear/see but they ain’t ready yet. So here’s other stuff:
I’ve got a live show coming up on April 16. Details over on Facebook. If you’re near the place where it’s happening on the date and at the time that it happens, you should come inside the place and see a music show.
I was on a couple podcasts recently if you wanna hear me talk with my dumb mouth. One of ‘em’s short and serious and the other’s long and wacky:
The Passionative Podcast [iTunes]
In this episode, I interviewed Brad Sucks, the OG of crowdfunding your album and one of the first people to give away his music for free online. Brad and I talk about how to trust yourself and your art, stop worrying about things being perfect and focusing on building a fan base instead.
We’re thrilled to welcome Brad back to the show for a deep dive on Stardew Valley. On the way, we also touch on Moshow the Cat Rapper, Stovokor, Axl Rose, Bee and Puppycat, Kickstarter entitlement syndrome, Undertale disruption, Josh’s impending spin-off podcast Quarter Quorner, John Campbell, blind-fire delivering psychology services, a series of tweets that Jesse never got over, veterinary rackets, Andre Agassi, getting involved in an ass tattoo, signatures versus Signature signatures, living in the formative and evolutionary age of video games, and what kind of murderer you would be.
Also I have a note here reminding myself that I’m way, way overdue on sending out my mailing list, so sign up for that if you want to get in on that.
I think that’s all for now. Thanks for reading. I enjoyed 10 Cloverfield Lane.
The new album will be out November 2nd. There'll be a release party:
Last night's show was fun, thanks to everyone for coming out. These three shows I've done with the new band have been pretty encouraging. I'm not someone who actually really enjoys performing or being on a stage, but I do get a huge kick out of an energetic, happy crowd and instigating a good time. So I'm gonna let that motivate me into more show bookings and hope it's enough.
This past Friday was the occasion of my birth. I am now old enough that I wasn't sure what age I'd be turning. Thanks for all the kind wishes.
I am in “crunch mode†for the Denver show on Thursday. I am also “nervousâ€. This'll be only my third solo show but it'll also be the first one where I'm not doing my own sound. So maybe that will be good? Maybe I have nothing to worry about?
Welp, I had a good time at the CD release party last night. Thanks to everyone who showed up and anyone who jumped on stage at the end there during the crowd-participation part of “Out of Itâ€.
Besides the talented Dave Norris and the Harvey Cartel who played, musicians in attendance were Jesse Dangerously, Claude from The Peptides, TheHipCola, Meredith Luce and MC Frontalot was on a phone in IM capacity.
Various Songfighters and REAPER users came out of the woodwork, which was awesome.
Out of It goes on sale for everybody out there tomorrow night at midnight (EST). Woooooooo.
The CD Release Party for Out of It is booked and officially on September 5th at Cafe Dekcuf in the city of Ottawa. Times and bands are still TBD, though I am practically guaranteed to be there and drinking heavily. But you are super invited and hey, you could pick up a copy of the CD three days before the release date! What a coincidence that is!
This will also likely be the last show as a regular old three piece rock band. It's been super fun, but I can't resist putting a computer in the live show and electronifying things and making us prone to tech problems. Anyway, I hope to see you there.
Now, if you would like to, you can mark down your location on the Brad Sucks Live page so I can hassle you if I happen to be playing in your area (scroll down to the map).
It's something I've been wanting to build for a while -- a replacement/alternative for Eventful.com and it was pretty easy with Google Maps.
Eventful's nice and I'll continue to use it, but since it doesn't give the artists access to their subscriber's email addresses it's a lock-in bullshit proposition and I can't fully trust it.
I'm now also asking new mailing list subscribers to mark down their location and will be doing so for new BFF members as soon as I get around to it. It's all optional of course -- I know giving out locations creeps some people out, but think about how traveling to another city and nobody coming to my show creeps me out.
Just an FYI: through some mix-up which was not at all my fault, the Brad Sucks gig on December 17th has been cancelled. Total drag.
Been getting some confused emails from Waterloo University students. But I've double-checked: the show is still on: 10pm this Friday at the Student Life Centre. See you there!
It's been confirmed: Friday November 23rd I'll be doing my first solo show at the University of Waterloo. That's nearly a seven hour drive from my home and will be my first time playing outside of the Ottawa area.
It'll also be my first hardcore test of the laptop + guitar + vocals setup. I'm hoping it goes totally awesome as that would mean I could travel with this sucker when there's no budget to lug a full band around and I could start fulfilling some of those Eventful demands.
The only two huge issues I'm really worried about are:
The laptop could flake out - I'll have the backing tracks on MP3 and CD as well as the laptop which would mean only my realtime vocal effects would be killed if something terrible were to happen to the laptop.
It could be totally lame - A dude singing and playing guitar to some laptop backing tracks -- is that cool? My favorite rappers generally just have backing track -- or a DJ going through the motions if they're rich and want to be super cool. Doing an acoustic show seems like a cop-out, but maybe having backing tracks is too phony.
Of course I'm sure something unexpected will happen instead. Who knows!