I'm off to the Zap Your PRAM conference this weekend. It should be some awesome nerdy maritime fun and I'm really looking forward to it. Regular conferences have a little too much desperation going on and this one feels like it'll be more of a bunch of like-minded (but not too like-minded) folks hanging out.

Matt Haughey from Metafilter was supposed to be going but I guess he's not now which makes me sad. At least now I won't have to drunkenly confess about how many ideas I've stolen from him. So I can tell that to Daniel Burka (Digg designer), and Cal Henderson (Flickr architect) instead.

I'm giving a presentation on Friday I'm maybe calling “A Brief History of a Song” where I tell the story of one of my songs -- from the initial idea to its recording and release and to some of the crazy adventures it gets up to when it's out of my hands. It's been something that's been on my mind for a while so I'm looking forward to getting it out. of my system.

Out of It's travelling around out there, which rules! A brief recap:

• I'm a Featured Commoner on the Creative Commons blog.
• There's a Jamendo feature.
• There's a Q&A with me over on ccMixter.
• I did an interview for the Command Line podcast.
• Wil Wheaton likes it!

Remixes and stuff:

• There are a good number of remixes going on over at ccMixter. Still going through them to find the gems – finding listening to my voice difficult.
• This partial-Flash video for Certain Death makes me happy.
• Athene (best paladin in the world) is using the new songs!
• I'm behind in updating the music info page but will get on that soon.

Extra places you can get it:

• Out of It is now on Amazon.com. It's out of stock right now but I shipped off some more a week ago so it should be up soon.
• It's on Magnatune now.
• It's on Jamendo.
• It's been delivered to Napster, Rhapsody, Amie Street, Apple iTunes and eMusic (and a few other I've never heard of) but when they put it online is up to them. Let me know if you spot it.
• Out of stock at CD Baby but should be back in soon.
• A bunch of the new tracks are on iLike, if you're into adding stuff to Facebook and so on.
• The whole album's up on Last.fm as well.
• My MySpace page has been updated with new songs also.

There are a lot of things I'm missing, but this will have to do for now.

One of the nice things about finishing the new album is that I can indulge my useless creative impulses again without feeling quite as guilty. Last couple of days have been a flurry of making a tagging (aka non-hierarchical – delicious/flickr style) audio sample organizer. I mentioned it earlier here and here.

With a lot of obsessive struggling and swears, all the main functionality is there (in “sloppy learning-windows-programming-as-i-go” style):

It indexes a directory and all its subdirectories for .WAV files, saving them to a local database. You can select folders in the tree on the upper left and you can select files on the right side and they'll play. If you right-click on files on the right side, you can enter tags (also known as labels and keywords). The tags are saved and displayed in the lower left panel. You can then click those tags to display the files tagged with them. This way a sample doesn't have to belong to only one directory.

Also drag and drop to most audio apps I've tried works fine, preferences are saved via XML. The buttons at the top are just for easy testing and the search does nothing.

Welp, after my last post on the subject and emails to the author of Sample Tagger, I broke down and whipped out the C#. After a bunch of hours, I have this:

It indexes a directory tree on the left, shows any .WAV files that are in it on the right when selected. Selecting a WAV file plays it (or you can hit the play button). And you can drag and drop the files into any audio application I've tried (Ableton Live & Sound Forge). Next is library saving and tagging I guess.

Can I also say how freaking annoying it is searching for Microsoft development related documentation and tips and examples on the web? Let's see, first there's the difficult-to-search-for terms: C#, .NET, ADO.NET, etc. Then there's all this other crap that gets in the way like ASP.NET, .NET being available in a billion different languages (C++, C#, Visual C++, Visual C#, Visual Basic, J#, etc, etc) so even if you do find what you want, it's probably not in the right language or platform. Frustrating.

Seventeen years ago today Nirvana's Nevermind was released. I'm re-watching the Classic Albums Nevermind episode:

It's real interesting and worth a watch if you're a recording nerd or a music fan.

Personally I don't think the production on Nevermind holds up as well over the years as In Utero, but that's me.

Sample Tagger is exactly what I want for sample organization. Only problem? Loading and saving doesn't work (works on some files, not on others). I'm frustratedly staring at C# tutorials now and thinking about all the time I could waste making my own. Ugh.

Album release has gone well, thanks everyone! Decent sales, lots of positive feedback. Still lots of work to do, which I am working on doing.

I rewrote the guts of the music submissions/you section and added all the new album tracks and source in there. Still haven't added all the items I was sent from the new album release, but that'll come soon.

Some stuff I need to blogs:

• There's a Fake It remix contest coming up at Remix Fight.
• The Fake It cliche video thing has sailed past another deadline. Still trying to figure out how to drum up more submissions.
• I nominate this fellow as “happiest to receive my CDs”:

Yes!

Okay I haven't figured out much of a bandwidth solution so let's just party. All the source for Out of It is now on ccMixter here. Also there are acappellas on ccMixter separate from the source if you only want those. Here are the source files direct from me. I pray to the lord my server will survive this:

• Dropping out of School [33mb]
• Certain Death [24mb]
• Fake It [20mb]
• Bad Sign [31mb]
• There's Something Wrong [24mb]
• Gasoline [27mb]
• Total Breakdown [14mb]
• Understood by Your Dad [18mb]
• Out of It [22mb]
• You're not Going Anywhere [22mb]

You should upload anything you make to ccMixter and I'll list it on the song pages and like… you'll be part of song HISTORY!

Okay, I thought I was going to post all the Out of It source today but I'm honestly a little concerned about my server right now and ccMixter only takes 10mb uploads so I can't make it their problem.

So for now here's track 1: Dropping out of School [33mb zip]. I'll see what's what, but the rest is definitely on the way, sorry for the wait.

Update (9/10): The vocals for all the tracks on Out of It are now on ccMixter. Working out getting the full source up shortly.

My new album Out of It is (FINALLY) out! Please listen to it! Please spread it around! Please like it! (And perhaps please purchase it!):

It's got ten songs, you can pay what you want, it's available in CD, MP3 & FLAC. There's no stupid DRM and it's Creative Commons licensed. CD purchases get instant downloads and the full audio multi-track source will be available in the next day.

Some thoughts:

A lot's changed since I started putting music on the Internet way back in 2001. Artist-endorsed free downloads were shocking. Flexible pricing was still an untested novelty. It was rare to find source files from artists and sharing music wasn't encouraged by new artists.

Recently I was asked if I'd do anything different this time around. Would I still give the music away for free? Would I still give away my source files? Would I still be easygoing about copyright? Surely I could pull back now and try to cash in.

And I honestly couldn't imagine why I'd do things different. The only reason I, a dude who made an album by himself in a country basement, has had any sort of success is because people took it upon themselves to share my music with their friends. They remixed it, they used it in their videos, they played it on their podcasts, they included it in software and games and it took on a life of its own.

To sabotage that would be a huge, retarded mistake. Instead I'll be grateful if Out of It worms around the world in even close to the same freaky way I Don't Know What I'm Doing did and continues to.

Anyway, this is a long way of saying I love you Internets. Thanks for all your support and I hope you like Out of It. I'm going to bed, good night!

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 It”.

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.

I don't normally “web log” my feelings but I'm actually pretty nervous about this whole CD release. I was all “beh whatever dudes we'll see how it goes, just another day on the grind you know dog” until a couple hours ago when I became like "!!!! HOLY LORD". It feels like my future "as an artist" sort of hinges on it but then I feel that way about everything.

Honestly, I think the neurotic anxiety has been getting to me for a couple weeks but I've had tasks to keep me busy. Two weeks ago I was sleeping away peacefully and then I guess I tore at my forehead with my retarded talons. As you can see from the picture up there I managed to put a two inch scratch in my dome. That ain't relaxed behavior.

The CD release party is tomorrow night. It's sort of a drag though, you folks who read my blog and have been with me for a long time are not generally in my town so you won't be there. So that part breaks my heart kinda because I love you guys okay now the vodka's talking catch you later.

First batches of pre-ordered Out of It CDs are away! Release is just around the corner! Some people said they don't hate it! I'm nervous as can be!

Thankfully I've got a lot of mail processing to do, website and source to get ready as well as rehearsing for the CD release party this Friday, so that's keeping me a bit distracted.

I had it in my head that I'd write a bit more about the process of getting to this point but there just hasn't been any time. So maybe you can use your imagination?

The track I did with MC Frontalot (“Livin' at the Corner of Dude & Catastrophe”) is now apparently available for download in Rock Band as part of the PAX Pack. Proceeds go to Penny Arcade's Child's Play charity till the holidays.

Milton writes:

Re: What might just be my greatest achievement…

0600 hours on September 2nd
Livin' At The Corner Of Dude & Catastrophe
Expert vocals...371,588, 100%.

I AM A GOLDEN GOD

Go Milton!

Update: Josh sends in a video of it (thanks Josh):

Lotta bagging on rap in the comments, did we not get over that in 1995?

Had to get one last week-long sickness out of my system before the album release. Ahhh much better.

The pre-orders are all ready to go and will be in the mail this week! Thanks to everyone who's ordered one, it slightly counter-balances the release dread I feel.

Also: everything seems to be happening according to schedule. Crazy!

Welp, my Fake It cliche video project is officially a success. Oh we still don't have enough videos, no no. But this was created:

And by any measure it is now a success.

(But I would very much still like more entries. )

So the dark, paralyzing fear of having a new album coming out shortly is that maybe nobody will listen to it! So I pose you this question:

If you were (or are) an independent musician with a very limited budget and a new alternative/rock-style album scheduled for release in a few weeks, where and how would you promote it?

I'm mostly looking for places/people to send/pitch it to, but I'll appreciate more elaborate or imaginative suggestions.

A long time ago I was interviewed for a book called the Indie Band Survival Guide by some nice fellas. It's published and available to buy now. I didn't know what to expect, but I got a copy in the mail the other day and am impressed.

It's real thorough and just the Internet stuff alone would be valuable to any musician trying to wrap their head around this web thing. Plus I run my big mouth off in it.

Well, there were some real good last-minute submissions for the Fake It cliche video project (thank you!). But I think we need more to make a truly cliche video so I'm going to extend the deadline out for another month (September 15th). And I'll try to dream up some way to force more people to submit with my mind powers.

It's been a big couple of days here at Brad Sucks HQ (aka my house). Besides picking up the Out of It CDs (which look SWEET), my songs have been in a condom ad:

Someone sent me this Barack Obama / Work Out Fine mashup which actually works pretty good:

http://www.nevilo.com/content/listen.html (third song down)

I don't like to get involved in American politics really but VOTE FOR OBAMA. VOTE. FOR. OBAMA. VOTEFOROBAMA.

And the hottest new iPhone/iPod Touch app called Simplify Media which allows you to stream your media (and your friends' media) to your iPhone/iPod Touch has my stuff all over its promotional materials:

I don't have an iPhone or iPod Touch but this makes me want one.

This is the stuff I can't really explain to people when they ask me how to promote themselves on the Internet. “Uh, be all slutty with your music and then weird shit will happen?” HOW WILL YOU MONETIZE IT BRAD. “I don't know?”