I'm sure everyone is tired of hearing about Google Circles, but it's nice. You can find me on it here. Are invites still a thing? If so, just send me your email address. It's still early on and I have my complaints and suggestions but so far I'm finding it easier to manage than Facebook, where friend lists & groups are annoying. And it's so far been a lot more social than Twitter, I feel like I'm discovering interesting people on it and conversations are happening more. Some of that could be the novelty of the new platform but I feel like it promotes casual socializing in a way I haven't really felt since BBS's. Also the Google Hangout multi-video chat is fun.

The other point in Google's favor is that I don't trust Facebook and never have. Google has a good record of openness and being pro-web, whereas Facebook has been intent on creating a locked-in walled garden from early on. I believe my interests align more with Google than Facebook, but time will tell.

I'm trying to up my live show's lighting game. Since it's me, I'm heading towards the compact, DIY and cheap. Here's what I'm trying out:

The Chauvet 4BAR - you can get these guys for like $320 USD off eBay, which seems like a great deal since it comes with the tripod, foot pedal and carrying case. Unlike the cheaper Mini 4BAR, this one's DMX-controllable, so I should be able to sync a couple of these trees to the laptop that drives my live show and plan my lighting out nicely ahead of time.

Enttec USB Pro - to get DMX sent to the lights I need an adapter for the laptop and after a lot of research this seems to be the good one. The cheap guy in me wanted to get the Open DMX Usb which is less than half the price, but most software specifically mentioned the Enttec USB Pro and I didn't want to risk buying something that wouldn't do the job.

DMaX - I'm waiting until the lights and adapter arrive but it looks like the DMaX devices for Ableton Live with Max For Live (along with the dmxusbpro external) should let me control the lights from Ableton all easily (I hope this works).

Sound Activated EL Wire - I ordered some sound activated EL Wire to test out. It's not DMX controllable so it won't be in sync digitally, but it's only like $15 and I'm gonna try putting some on the guitar amps and drums and see if we can get it blinking in response to our playing which should be on the beat assuming we're playing OK. I'm not sure how well it'll handle the noise level at a show but we'll see. Worst case scenario I can just leave them on all the time and it should look neat.

I'll try to post about it once I figure out if any of it works. If you know anything about lighting or visualization stuff I'd mega-love to hear from you.

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?

I upgraded to the latest beta of bbPress and it's sweet. I finally have forums integrated in the site design. If you feel like testing them out you can see 'em here. I'm still working on it but feel free to post about issues. Once I get things running in OK shape I'll try adding Facebook logins and that will be sweet.

Yeah, so, there was a wiener theme to the show tonight. First time ever. I tried to communicate it from the stage but I'm not sure how clear I was. Here's the two point recap: 1. Next to the venue was an abandoned KFC with this sign:

rlggsx

2. Inside, on the bar, next to jars of pickled eggs and cheese was a jar of pickled wieners. I did some of my Seinfeld-esque observational humor from the stage re: this crazy coincidence and this wound up happening:

weiner

For those of you who are not musicians, that is a pickled wiener that has been tossed onto the stage, specifically onto the set list of your guitarist.

Good times.

Just a reminder for people who are in this specific area of the universe: I'm playing Saturday night at The Elmdale. I've never played there before. I'm told they have beer. Anyway, it'll probably be my last show in Ottawa till next year while I finish my record and work on some other exciting Brad Sucks projects. So, you know. Do what you must.

This one's been a struggle and I think it still needs a bunch of work, but I'm calling the demo done and I'll come back to it. I was trying to do something a bit different and ehhhh I dunno: I Need to Love Myself More and You Less (demo)

Anyway, that's a wrap on the demos for the next record. You can listen to them all here (warning: spoilers). Gonna take a short break and then start hassling friends for feedback and then I'll make a bunch of decisions on what needs to be fixed. And then fix those things.

Went to a 70th birthday thing for Bob Dylan last night (he wasn't there). I'm not really a huge Dylan fan. I mean, I think he's rad and much respect, good job. But I've never really obsessed over any of his music like I have for my favorite artists, despite trying. Last night at the Dylan open mic I realized the only three songs I really deeply love of his (if we count covers) I found from soundtracks:

1. The Man in Me (The Big Lebowski)
2. You Belong to Me (Natural Born Killers)
3. When I Paint My Masterpiece (Observe & Report, by The Band)

So that probably makes me a lame person. But despite not digging most of his music, he's an inspiration in that he decided he wanted to be a songwriter and has relentlessly stuck with it. That's pretty bad-ass. Also this paper doll was on the table in front of me:

Happy birthday!

Tired of staring at this demo, so here you go:

Come Back (demo)

Should be track #8 on Guess Who's a Mess. Only one more demo to go and then I get to start finishing this bad boy off.

I think I might be finished with nearly anything that happens in convention centers. I'm not sure I've ever had a good time in one. Do they happen? They're so sterile they creep me out and make me want to run far away (to my sterile hotel room). My panel was OK, though the discussion was just getting going when we ran out of time. I also felt it was a bit too focused on far-off scenarios rather than practical stuff that might help musicians. I have a hard time caring about anything I have to imagine 5-10 years into the future to get. Probably my issue, but there it is.

Once again Boston tried to hang onto me by laying down a giant storm on my way out. Last time it was snow that cancelled every flight but mine. This time it was wind that cancelled every flight but mine. It's never cool when you see this much red on a departures screen when you walk up to your gate:

I got to fly in a 9-seat Cessna propeller airplane (the ninth seat is actually the co-pilot seat). I thought it would be scary especially with all the turbulence but I found it easy to accept the idea of dying after spending so many hours in an airport. Also it felt like being in a van in the sky. And whenever I was nervous the pilot was like three feet away from me so I could study his body language. "He's not sweating and trying to secretly phone his kids, so I think this is just normal turbulence."

I took this video of the landing:

Pretty sweet landing there. The other three I experienced weren't quite as slick.

Hey party people. Got a few real world things coming up, which I must share with you: Thing 1: On April 27th I'll be in Boston at the Rethink Music conference (a Harvard/MIDEM/Berklee College of Music joint). I think my panel's at 4:45. And I think I'm doing something at the Berkman enter while I'm down there.

Thing 2:

(Poster by Geoffrey Gibson)

Saturday, May 14th I'll be playing Kingston with Dave Norris & Local Ivan at The Mansion. I believe it will be six Canadian dollars. (Here's the Facebook event.) Next:

Thing 3:

(Poster by Bill Mead)

Saturday, June 11th we're playing Ottawa. I don't know who the opener will be yet, but I'm sure whoever it is will be great. I'm trying to only play one show a year in my hometown so if you miss this sucker I'll see you in 2012.  (Here's the Facebook event.)

If you can attend or know of anyone who might, please spread the word. Thanks!

Here's a hard rock type demo. Track #3 on the next album! Slow and steady wins the race: Fluoride (demo)

I'm taking my new purple pills and they seem to be going ok. In the meantime there have been a couple of interesting articles lately on the subject of shitty brains that I'd like to share: The first is titled 'Can a Single Pill Change Your Life?' It was linked around all over the place, described as an investigative report on whether Ecstasy/MDMA can be used instead of or as a supplement to traditional talk therapy.

A few pages in I became aware this was published in Oprah Magazine of all places. So I'm reading waiting for the end of the article where the author realizes drugs are bad and you should never try them ever for any reason. At the conclusion of the article she decides to undergo the MDMA therapy herself. "Ah, here it is," I think smugly. But then she's just totally cured of her issues. Basically Oprah just told me to do a bunch of Ecstasy. Well OK.

The other one was in The Economist for some reason about a computer program that can replace talk therapy:

Cognitive-bias modification (CBM) appears to be effective after only a few 15-minute sessions, and involves neither drugs nor the discussion of feelings. It does not even need a therapist. All it requires is sitting in front of a computer and using a program that subtly alters harmful thought patterns.

Sitting in front of a computer you say? I'M IN. So I get to the end of the article and not only do they not describe what the program actually does, there's no download link or anything. What the hell.

Well, February blew if you're keeping track. Mark that one off and throw it in the stupid garbage.

On the up side I've got some shows booked in Kingston (May 14) and The Elmdale (June 11). Once I firm those up I'll post the details. Should be some more coming also. I'm actually looking forward to those shows which is a nice change.

My Mac struggles seem to have evened out. My trusty MXL v67 mic started acting up so I replaced that. I'm thinking the new brain meds might not be doing the trick anymore so I'm gonna see a dude about that (a doctor, not just any guy). Also my cheap little Nanopad I was enjoying seems to have stopped working. What do you have to do in this life for things to always work and never cause any problems? I thought that was what I paid taxes for.

Hey, who wants to hear me bitch about iMacs! I don't care, here I go:

Switching to a Mac has been great in every way except for like... the hardware. I should point out that I began this switch by buying a refurbished 27" iMac from Apple.com to save $300. I'm not made of money you guys. I've bought many things from there before and all the devices have been flawless. Except for iMacs I suppose. A rundown of the iMacs I have known:

iMac #1: Worked great! Then I went to install an additional 8gb of RAM. One of the RAM slots was so out of alignment I couldn't get one of the sticks in there. I contacted Apple Support, they offered to let me buy another one and then refund my money for the first when I returned it. Fair enough.

iMac #2: Right away I noticed the hard drive was noisy (even when idle). I had iMac #1 and iMac #2 beside each other before I returned #1 and could easily tell the difference. Turns out it was a noisy Seagate drive. Since I'm recording with this thing, that's kind of a big deal but bleh I didn't want to return it yet again. Then I noticed the left internal speaker kept making annoying intermittent crackling/static noises even when the audio wasn't in use.

I talked to Apple support and they suggested I unplug the power cord and plug it back in and see if that helps. The iMac didn't immediately make the noise when I started it back up, so the friendly Apple guy said to call back if it did.

It did later, but it took me three days call back. I was out of my 30 day return window at that point and was told I'd have to take it in for repair + be without a computer indefinitely. I told them that made me so so sad so they talked to various managers and eventually agreed to replace it, plus gave me $150 credit back for my troubles. Nice!

iMac #3: This is the one I have on my desk as I type this. The RAM slots are fine. The internal speakers make no unwanted noise. But I've noticed the fans getting loud a lot whereas I realize now I never even heard the fans on the other ones. When I'm recording for instance or watch a few Youtube videos in a row, the fan turns on and is pretty loud in this small office. After an hour of mixing just now the top of the case is too hot to leave my hand on for more than a second or two. The others were pretty warm but not at all like that.

So. Do I have the energy to complain about this one? The fan noise is annoying and maybe not tolerable. The extreme heat worries me that it'll be prone to failure over time. But I'm getting pretty tired of swapping these bastards out. Basically I want to give up on buying refurbished and go buy a brand new one, but what if they're prone to the same issues?

So: ugh.

Update: well, that resolved itself. The display on iMac #3 died last night. So now I'm on hold with Apple support. Woo hoo hoo.

Update #2: Here is what the display looks like! (The lines move!)

Update #3: Talked to four supervisors. They're taking iMac #3 back and refunding my money. I'm gonna drive to the Ottawa Apple store and buy a new iMac that hopefully isn't a piece of junk.

iMac #4: Seven hours later my Time Machine backup is restored and I'm back where I was almost 24 hours ago.

Scott's rolling to a stop on his solo live playing. I think that's cool, I started to weigh in with a comment on my own struggle with playing live but it got too huge so here it is:

A couple of years ago I was fed up with playing live. Some people love to perform and I'm just not that guy. I wouldn't say I'm shy but I wouldn't deny that I'm an introvert. Then I had a pretty bad string of rough, demoralizing gigs and it was messing with me. I'd travel home afterwards all bummed out and thinking my time would have been much better spent recording or writing or doing stuff on the internet. Plus it's easier and more fun to me.

I got fed up, took a break and decided to play less shows but to make them more meaningful. Promote them better, book them better, work harder at them. In 2010 that approach was pretty successful so I'm planning to play some more in 2011.

A lesson I learned, and this may only apply to me and my city, is that there's very little point to playing thankless gigs. Maybe you're getting some practice in. Maybe you enjoy it. But you're not building a fan base. You're not generating buzz. If you have a small draw, which most bands do, you're spreading it too thin over many sad shows rather than saving it up for a few good ones.

Now that I'm taking this new approach I'm enjoying the shows way more. I'm still not much of a performer, but I've been enjoying the crowd interaction. I like getting yelled at. I enjoy feeling like my being there and doing my thang is facilitating a good time for others.

So when people come out now, tell me they like my stuff, tell me they're looking forward to new music, it's pretty great. It's very easy on the Internet to group fans into one single entity. But when I meet people face to face who seem to genuinely connect with what I've done or what I'm doing, well that's encouraging and awesome and nice.

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.

Well, 2010 was a mixed bag Brad Sucks-wise. My live show is sounding good I think and I'm happy with that. A few encouraging shows went down. I got some demos done. But I betrayed a next-album deadline and overall I was distracted with some mid-year depressions and med change as well as other projects and jobs.

Money from the Brad Sucks stuff is nice but it's unpredictable. It's been hard to justify working on music for potential future maybe-dollars when there's guaranteed money waiting for me somewhere else.

But I need to do better. It may sound awful, but my goal for 2011 is to treat music more like a job. As opposed to a hobby that gets pushed aside as soon as I have another opportunity. I'm fortunate to have anyone wanting new music from me at all and I'm disappointed I didn't deliver more in 2010.

But that's in the past. I hope you're all doing great.

I got asked if some folks from Germany could use my music in a sport DVD. I said yes. Then they told me it was for Sporthockers (sport stools) and I said double yes. Here's what it looks like:

I love any sport where the goal is to become successfully seated.

Do you remember that I did a cover of a friend's Christmas song last year? And that it was called Fuck You, Motherfucker (It's Christmas)? Ah, good times. Back when I made songs.