Here's my last monthly demo thing of 2009. It's a cover of a Christmas song my friend JB wrote and that I really like. It's not safe for work, was done in a day and a half and here it is: Fuck You, Motherfucker (It's Christmas) (4MB)
Thanks to JB for the background vocals! Oh and here's the original.
Anyway, that about wraps it up for 2009. I've enjoyed doing the monthly songs but I'm looking forward to taking a break. Thanks for listening dudes, have a good holiday.
I'm looking for anyone who might want to take over Brad Sucks Digital Download Store paid installations. I get a lot of requests and don't have time for them anymore. I'd be happy to send them your way if you're into it. Let me know.
This month's demo is actually mostly a song by my pal and guitarist Ben Mullin. He played a demo of it for me and I was like "let me cram my filthy vocals into that and produce it up" and he was like "let go of me".
I Think You're Alright (5 MB)
Here are some clips of Brad Sucks tracks in Rock Band:
These are the songs that got more than two votes on the site here and on the Facebook group:
So I think we're doing the top 6, but I'm not sure what to do about Making Me Nervous. It's the most popular song but many people think it's a bad fit for Rock Band. I'm sort of thinking about doing a remix with more guitars, but maybe that'd kill some of the fun. "Play along to a different version of a song you kinda liked!"
Which Brad Sucks songs would you most like to play in Rock Band? We're trying to figure out priority here.
Update: there are a lot of replies in the Facebook post.
Halloween went good. I was battling a cold so my energy levels could have been more awesome. But I still managed to put in some solid plague doctor hours:
The children were either terrified by my very presence or thought I was Spy vs. Spy (modern goth edition I guess). One really young boy said "you're a penguin!" Some yard snaps:
I'm about as sleepy as can be.
Last month "Jack" requested twice (1, 2) that I do a cover of Goodbye Horses, the Q Lazzarus song:
Request from Brad if he's up to it. Bunch of friends and I think Clerks 2 is an awesome movie! We wanted to know if Brad would do a cover song of Goodbye Horses from Q Lazzarus. You know the creepy silence of the lambs Buffalo Bill song. Take the creepy out and see clerks 2 to understand the humor in it. Everyone at work loves Bradsux and wanted to see if Brad would attempt a cover of it. Such groups that actually sounded better that did a remix were Psyche. Anyhow just small request.
I listened to the original and didn't like it. Then I noticed it was stuck in my head and I started to like it. Then it seemed familiar and I realized my wife was obsessed with it a couple months ago. So here's my cover:
Goodbye Horses (cover) [6 MB]
Hey, what's everyone doing for Halloween? My plague doctor mask's coming along OK:
I haven't decided what university he'll have gone to so the hoodie is temporary. (Waterloo's not a respectable plague doctor university anyway.)
Something I learned last Friday is that I might be allergic to goat milk. I haven't been tested or anything, but I had some goat cheese and here is what some of my skin looked like on day #2:
(That is a giant welty hive.) The rest of my body looked worse but is probably NSFW.
Then I spent the next five days stoned out of my head on benadryl and prednisone. Yes!
I'm working on a top secret project. It's totally top secret. And also a ways off (there is a lot of work to do.) Anyway here's a leaked photo:
Who knows what I could be up to.
I've mentioned here before that I'm working on a poppy concept album called Guess Who's a Mess. I'm releasing the demos as I go along like I did on my first record, but I'm going a step further and releasing the instrumentals and vocals as well. They're all on the album page now.
You're welcome to mess around with them however you want. Please send me a link to anything you do - when I'm done the demos I'll be looking to see if there's anything I want to include on the finished record and then I'll be in touch (so including a working email address would be a bonus.)
September demo: Feel Free! Plastic Surgery! [5 MB]
It'll be track #4 on Guess Who's a Mess.
Tomorrow I'm going to be putting all the demo instrumentals and vocals online on that page so anyone can mess with them before I'm done. Stay tuned, etc.
I'm not much of a keyboard player. I started writing music on the computer tapping notes into trackers with the computer keyboard. I also have a shitty right arm that wigs out when I play keyboards. So I've wound up trying a variety of different MIDI keyboards and for the most part they sit beside me and I put papers and junk on top of them and then avoid using them because I'm too lazy to clean them off. So I wind up playing basic sequences in with the computer keyboard.
Enter the inexpensive, tiny Korg Nano Series.
I snapped these up when I read about them, thinking they'd come in handy for live performances (I'm not optimistic enough to think I'll write music away from my office) but when I got them home I realized they solve at least part of my MIDI keyboard problem. Now I keep them on a shelf under my desk and pull them out whenever I need them.
The Kontrol and Pad are great - simple and effective and relatively sturdy. I've tried many different drum pads over the years and the nanoPad is actually my favorite, which is surprising for such an inexpensive device. The nanoKey is the most dodgy, but also the one I've used the most, so it can't be that bad. The keys feel exactly like (kind of cheap) laptop keys. It has the same weak/wobbly spring feeling. I'm not looking for sweet action, but it would be awesome if they felt slightly more crisp - something comparable to a child's plastic keyboard would be fine.
My only other complaint isn't Korg's fault (I think) - the nature of these devices is that I want to plug them in as I need them, swapping them out at will. But all the audio software I've tried with needs to restart (or at least reset the audio device) each time I plug in or unplug a device. Minor thing I know.
All in all, they're very useful tools and I'm happy to have 'em.
Update (3/4/11): My Nanopad randomly died and in researching fixes that seems to be an epidemic. So I wouldn't bother. The Akai LP line seems to be more durable and that's likely what I'll switch to.
Been hacking around trying to get some nifty synced visualization stuff going. Best (and cheapest) visualization seems to be Milkdrop in Winamp, so I got it responding to MIDI signals sent from Ableton Live on another machine. Here's a quick demo:
I'd like to be able to trigger video clips next, then I'm not sure about combining them all onto one display and swapping between them.
Anyone out there know much about syncing visualizations & lights to Ableton Live? I have a totally top secret project I'm working on and it requires some eye candy. I'm up to my eyeballs in reading about DMX controllers and video DJ software and there has to be a simpler way…
Over the weekend I developed something described as a blister on my left eyeball and wound up in the hospital for a little bit. It seems to be clearing up but I hope you all had a better time this weekend than I did.
So I failed again with the monthly demo. My excuse: it's been a stupid crazy busy month and I'm addressing the problem, since I can't seem to keep up anymore. It's not an awful problem to have but it's uncool.
Anyway, I need to make myself pay for my failure, so here's two humiliatingly incomplete things you can listen to.
#1: Every now and then people ask me to make intro music for their shows or whatever. Then their shows get cancelled or do not air. Amber MacArthur asked me to do one last year and the show was immediately disintegrated. Here's the thing I wrote for her:
Intro Music for the Damned [1.6 MB]
#2: Ben and I have been working on the two-person Brad Sucks live show for a while but are bringing a drummer in now. To help him out with practicing on his own we recorded the live set in my office. Direct-in, one take and at very low volume. Here are some embarrassing clips from that:
Crappy Live Clips [4 MB]
Neither are mixed worth a whatever, etc, etc, etc.
Holy smokes, I'm looking to hire an assistant. I figure I'd rather hire someone who reads this site, so I'm starting my search here. Are you interested? Some things:
Most tasks are related to Brad Sucks but I've got other projects I'm looking for work on as well. If you're down, please email me at brad@bradsucks.net and tell me a bit about yourself. Thanks!
Update: Wow, I got a shocking number of applications. I've filled the position now, thanks to everyone who applied!
I've been busy lately re-doing my “studio†(aka office). First thing was to get a new desk (out with the Jerker, in with the Galant). After that it was an Eina night stand and a Galant drawer unit. The most recent thing has been building my own acoustic panels to deaden the sound in here a bit for better mixing and recording:
I had researched acoustic panels a bunch and there was a ton of conflicting information out there. It wasn't until I found this great how-to that it seemed approachable. The big issue for me was that the rigid fiberglass Americans use is Owens Corning 703 or 705 and figuring out what the equivalent was up here in Canada was difficult. (Turns out it's OFI 48).
After locating the right rigid fiberglass, I found some black muslin fabric and cut up some plywood I had laying around. I've made two panels so far – the second one is far uglier than the first because I am not skilled, but both of them provide a startling amount of sound dampening. I've been making non-sound nerds speak against my regular wall and then into the panels and they've been shocked at the difference even if they don't care about acoustics.
I'm going to build a few bass traps for behind my monitors and then a few free-standing panels I can move around and use for whatever and then I should be good for a while.