Posts tagged update
A Shameful Delay
A Shameful Delay

Here's a post I made over at the Brad Sucks LP5 Indiegogo:

Let me hit you with the bad news first: I need more time! I planned to have the new album to you all in August but I’ve clearly underestimated how complicated it’d be to put this very human record together. I’ve never made an album with this many people and tracks involved and it’s been moving slower than I hoped.

So with a huge apology I’m moving the release to November. If anyone’s super bummed and wants a refund, please contact me and I’m happy to give you your money back. I’m really very sorry for this — it’s been stressing me out and I should have budgeted more time from the get-go.

The good news, though: we’re basically done tracking — drums, bass, guitars, keys and vocals. So next it’s overdubs (additional percussion, keys, sounds and backing vocals) and then finally mixing and mastering. I think it’s all sounding really good and I can’t wait to get to the final stages of polishing everything up.

I’ve also got an album title: “Naturally” (after a song on the album). I think the title works on a few levels — it speaks to the more organic/natural process of this album with real musicians playing everything instead of my usual computer-first DIY approach. It’s also a bit of a double entendre — Brad Sucks “Naturally” aka “Brad Sucks Of Course”, and there’s also some irony in there as unless it’s truly live, no recording is really “natural”.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the rise of artificial intelligence in visual arts and music. It’s fascinating from a technology perspective — I owe my career to digital home recording and file-sharing which analog purists hated — and of course it’s very scary from a professional artist perspective. The seven-fingered A-OK logo (featuring video of my hand) is a reference to the trouble AI has had drawing hands. 

Making this album in a more traditional way with real organic performances and contributions from a full band feels like it could become a thing of the past so I’m very thankful to you all that I’m getting to do it at least once in my life. It seems like music will be in a very different place once this project’s done.

Anyhow, my apologies again for the delay and a huge thank you for your support and patience, 

Brad

Brad Turcotteupdate, front Comment
Album Update: Rehearsals Complete

Putting in work in the basement (Photo by Steve Pelehos)

Well well, we wrapped album rehearsals last Thursday and are headed into drum recording sessions this weekend. About a month behind schedule 😅 but I’m hopeful that won’t mean any changes in the release schedule. 

It’s always tough (for me, anyway) to commit to final versions of songs but it’s been good to take the time to really work on them. They’ve all locked in and stopped changing much so I’m working on reaching the acceptance phase here. The songs sound good in the basement, so I feel like as long as I can get a recording in that ballpark we should be in good shape. This is new territory for me recording-wise so wish me luck.

I call this look: “dead inside due to finishing album” (Photo by Steve Pelehos)

After the drums are recorded, I’ll be getting all the songs into shape and then it’ll be time to track bass, guitars, keys and of course, least enjoyably — my vocals. I’m still tinkering with the words on a bunch of songs even though I’m sure I’m lost in the OCD weeds here.

Also, tangentially related: we’ve got our monthly stream show tomorrow and two weeks after that (April 4th) Ben and I are gonna try live-streaming working on the cover songs we owe everyone from the crowdfunder (10 in total! that’s a whole other album!!) so feel free to come watch us work on songs by Nirvana, Commodores, They Might be Giants, Janet Jackson and many, many, many, many many more.

Also ALSO: I’d be a bad indie musician if I didn’t mention that I have a new song out on all streaming services tomorrow called Myself Almost. It’s about relationships and technology. Give it a listen?

Thank you thank you.

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2023

I posted a little 2023 update about my plans for this year over on the Patreon:

Hope your 2023’s off to a good start! I took some holiday time off to chill and sketch out what the year’s gonna look like for Brad Sucks. Here’s the timeline so far: 

The main ones:

  • I Don’t Know What I’m Doing 20th anniversary. Working on planning a big show for August 26th. Main tasks: learning the full IDKWID album, getting the full band back in shape, warm-up shows, booking, lights, video, streaming, promotion. Also want to come up with some fun stuff to celebrate the album. 

  • Officially release Patreon songs. I've gotta finish the recordings, mix and master them, then do video, promotion, etc. 

  • Streaming & more video content. Shooting for stream shows with Ben every 1.5 months or so as we practice the I Don't Know What I'm Doing album.

  • More song demos for the Patreon. Still have a huge backlog of songs to finish over here.

  • Plus tons of small to medium sized things in between.

I'm anxious about having this many deadlines and moving parts -- not to mention nervous about finishing songs and playing live IRL again 😅. I think this'll be the most I've tried to pull off in a year... but mapping stuff out like this has made things manageable for the past few projects so hopefully that'll keep me in check. Wish me luck!

Brad

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2022 Year in Review

2022! Not my favourite year but the competition hasn’t exactly been stiff lately. Thanks for being along for the ride! All your likes and shares and comments mean a ton to me. And of course special thanks to all the Brad Sucks Patrons: your support each month reminds me to keep at it even though why bother doing anything ever am I right.

In 2023 the plan is to finish and release a lot of the Patreon songs I’ve been working on and try to force people to listen to and share them. Next year is also the 20th anniversary of my first album I Don’t Know What I’m Doing so I’m hoping to do some fun stuff for that. Also artificial intelligence will replace songwriters and musicians soon so that’ll be relaxing. 

Gonna try and chill till the new year I think and then get back at it. Here’s a list of some of the stuff I put out or was involved with this year:

PUBLIC

PATREON $3+

PATREON $10+


I think that’s it until next year, thank you again! My links: web, patreon, instagram, tiktok, spotify, twitter, facebook, discord ✌️❤️ — Brad

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Everything's Shipped!

Very happy (and relieved) to say that all of the orders from the Guess Who’s a Mess Indiegogo have been shipped and are on their way!

My huge thanks to everyone who supported this project — I was able to do a high quality remaster of the original album and now I have all four full length Brad Sucks albums available on vinyl. Amazing. I feel so grateful and I can’t thank you enough for your support.

So that wraps up this project and after some clean-up and catch-up over here I’m planning on turning my focus to working on finishing new Brad Sucks songs for release and also trying to get better at regularly producing and putting out video content as that seems to be what modern music promotion requires. 

Songs in progress will still be going up on the Brad Sucks Patreon (there are 20+ unreleased demos over there) and I’ll be making more of an effort on the YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. Also there's a (usually monthly) Brad Sucks mailing list you can hop on if you want to stay updated. Wish me luck and thanks so much for coming along the ride with me. Love,

Brad

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Working working working

Trying to be a pro up in here but it's quiet, not too interesting work: 1) Working on the new album - met with Rob Cosh who I worked with on Out of It and it looks like we're good to go. I just need to finish off the tracks. Also I'm trying to decide on album artwork.

2) Working on the live show - adding lights and visuals and working on improving the general live sound and presentation.

3) Planning - I have a sheet of paper here with Brad Sucks stuff (releases and promotion etc) planned out until next June. I feel so legit looking at it. Legit and overwhelmed.

4) Video - trying to get some video stuff going for the next record. It's an area I never really enjoy but I should probably do it.

5) Website fixing - tidying up this place a bit. Upgraded bbPress, added Facebook connect and fixing my mailing list software since I haven't sent out the Brad Sucks mailing list in forever.

6) Secret projects - plotting out some new projects which have so far involved a lot of meetings.

7) Maintaining my mlkshk account - this thing doesn't update itself you guys.

But enough about me, how are you?

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Twitter status

I've been lazy with the blogging lately. Too busy, too boring. To make up for this I have put my latest Twitter status at the top of my blog now so you can know that I'm not dead if this is a concern of yours.

Twitter has been a pretty interesting service. Casual status contact with people I like is a nice addition to instant messaging. What would otherwise be a worthless bit of information is meaningful when it's someone I care about.

That being said, I hate it when blogs that I subscribe to decide to cram their worthless twitters down my throat via RSS so I will not be doing that.

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