Hello there, after several years of procrastinating, I've started a Patreon. It's a website where you can sponsor independent creators and get access to exclusive content and stuff. I'll be posting songs I'm working on as well as writing as much as people want to hear about them as I try to finish the next album.

The first song's about psychedelic mushrooms as antidepressants. It's called Fun Guy -- I threw it on Youtube so I could maybe lure you into sponsoring me on the Patreon, let's see if it works:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-Jpv-bk7Rw

I wrote this song for the show Bee & PuppyCat. The creator Natasha Allegri sent me a tragic story about an octopus who falls in love with a lost princess. She wanted a song for it and I came up with this one. Watch the full scene here (at 1:20).  

If you’re looking for a shirt with the I Don’t Know What I’m Doing cover art on it, you’re in luck! Now available in t-shirts and also women’s tank tops in the shirt store.

Hey there, so Brad Sucks was scheduled to play Smiling Buddha in Toronto on August 18th. I have to cancel that show as I’ve learned one of the owners was charged with sexual assault and many people have expressed concerns about patronizing a venue that may harbor unsafe actors in the music community. I tried to find another venue for that night but was unable to. My apologies for the inconvenience, I’ll figure something out and we’ll be back to Toronto soon and hopefully I’ll see you there! Thanks!

Well holy shit guys, it's been ten years since I released Out of It, my second album. To mark the occasion I'm releasing a fully remastered limited edition vinyl. It's available for pre-order now and it'll ship in September. Order it here (scroll down and click on Buy Record/Vinyl). Include a note if you want yours signed! I don't mind and it makes me feel like a big important guy.

Upcoming Shows

Ottawa, you were kind to me as usual and did a great job tolerating all the new songs we played. Let's see how these other cities do, though:

Montreal, QC - July 6th: Quai des Brumes Toronto, ON - August 18th: Smiling Buddha

Please come out to these -- I'm very easily discouraged!

New Shirts

There’s a fresh new shirt store! Plus by popular request there's some I Don’t Know What I’m Doing men’s and women’s shirts you might like?

Fun fact: the I Don't Know What I'm Doing album art is by Allen Henderson and he hosts a podcast about movies and history called Midmost Coast, check it out!

Other Stuff

I scored this cute little animation that Pendleton Ward made:

That's all I got for now, working on a lot of stuff I hope I can show you soon. Hit me up on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram! Til next time,

Brad brad@bradsucks.net

If you're looking to get yourself a copy of Better Than Nothing (my completely un-earned 'greatest hits') in vinyl and/or digital formats, you can get those in my store or over on Bandcamp. There are about 200 records left and after that they're gone (unless I decide to press more, but the record will look different.)

If you want the record signed, just include a note with your order and I'll scrawl on it.

The vinyl and the digital versions were remastered separately from each other and from the original unmastered mixes, so I think they sound pretty, pretty good. I'm considering remastering all three records now to bring 'em up to the level of this digital release, but that's a battle for another time.

Happy holidays and thank you so much for supporting me through the three records that led to this release. I'm doing my best to make the fourth one decent for y'all.

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.

Copies of my greatest hits (and first ever) vinyl 'Better Than Nothing' arrived last night and it looks sweet!!

You can still order it here: https://bit.ly/2tfIDid

Also the vinyl release show's on November 17th in Ottawa at Irene's if that's for some reason something you'd be into.

Big news! I’m releasing my first ever vinyl record. It’s called Better Than Nothing and it’s a compilation of eleven of the more popular Brad Sucks songs I put out from 2003 to 2012. It’ll be released in September via Feedbands (membership not required) and is available for pre-order now here: http://bit.ly/2tfIDid

Info:

• The first ever, limited run Brad Sucks vinyl hand-pressed on a stunning orange to red gradient colored vinyl
• 11 of the most popular Brad Sucks songs in one convenient package
• The first 300 copies will be signed (by me)
• All songs received a full remaster
• Ships September 2017
• Tracklist:

  Side A Making Me Nervous Certain Death Guess Who’s a Mess Dropping Out of School Feel Free! Plastic Surgery! Fixing My Brain

  Side B Bad Sign There’s Something Wrong Borderline Thanks for the Add You’re Not Going Anywhere

And here's that pre-order link again: http://bit.ly/2tfIDid

Thank you!

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:

And here's the Facebook event.

Here's a playlist of songs I liked this year. They coulda been released any year but I liked them in this one. Happy New Year.

Happy holidays everyone, I hope 2016 didn't do any damage to your face or hands. Everyone says this year was bad, but I’ve been hating years for years over here. Most are wildly overrated. Anyway, in celebration of the end of this garbage-ass timespan, here’s a 2016 mix of Fuck You, Motherfucker (It’s Christmas):

Originally written and released by John Benjamin on December 22, 2002, I recorded my version on December 23, 2009. My intention was for it to grow to become an Instant Holiday Classic (IHC), an irritating radio staple that once a year would make me wealthy beyond my wildest Christmas imaginings. This plan has not yet come to fruition.

JB has a band called Ménage À Garage.

I continue on as Brad Sucks.

Good luck in 2017.

What a big Record Store Day I’ve got coming up this Saturday. My friend Dan at Backbeat Music suggested we press some Making Me Nervous postcard flexidiscs. And now they exist:

POSTCARD FLEXIS

See, it’s a postcard? But if you put it on a turntable it’ll play a very scratchy, low-fidelity version of my song Making Me Nervous? Disclaimer: I’ve tested them a bit and some auto-return type turntables haven’t been able to play them so uh: no guarantees they’ll work on your system. But they’re neat!

If you want me to mail you one, just Paypal me $10 USD and send me your mailing address and I’ll get it out to you asap.

SHOWS

I’ll be doing an in-store (duo) performance at 3pm at Backbeat on Saturday. Everybody who buys a record gets a free flexidisc! Details here.

After that, I’m heading to Kingston to play a full-band Brad Sucks set at The Mansion in Kingston. Details here.

I think that’s it. After that, I’m gonna lay down for a while.

I did an interview for The Setup, where creative folk go into nerdy detail about the gear they use to get stuff done.

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.

The Crapshoot [iTunes]

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. 

Happy New Year to you all. I'm gonna do music full time in 2016, so that'll be weird.

My pal Allen Henderson, who made the famous Which Way Game and Steamshovel Harry (that I did the music for) has a new website of his animation up. It’s full of secrets (hint: click the balloon on the first page.)

Also here’s some old test animation Allen did for a project called Frank and His Exposed Brain. I recorded three theme song ideas that you can hear there.

I believe the idea was that Frank would be having a normal day but then run into problems (birds, soccer balls, weather) because his brain was completely exposed.

I’ve been horsing around with Markov chains with the idea of developing some songwriting tools. One of my experiments seemed funny enough to make into its own Twitter bot. It mashes up VICE headlines into strange new ones. Some examples:

If this is something you need in your life, you can follow it here.

I’ve been winding down the “real” work (aka hourly, billable, profitable, stable) in favor of doing music full time (aka unlimited hours, not billable, unprofitable & very unstable) which has been slower and harder than I thought. But I’ve been finishing up a few projects and songs and getting ready to crank out new Brad Sucks material all over the place. Here’s what I’ve been up to in the first bit of 2015: Bee & PuppyCat

I’ve written a few things for the awesome Bee & PuppyCat show that I’m excited about. The song I’m finishing this week is sung Felicia Day. I got to direct her via Skype which was a new and cool and frightening experience for me. It was pretty awesome to hear her singing words and a melody I wrote.

Natasha (B&P creator) posted this shot of me on the monitor in the studio while I was handsomely directing Felicia Day from my desk here in Canada:

It’s been really fun working on this, I’d love to do more. If anyone reading this runs like an uh, awesome, successful project that needs… bad music… you know, get in touch.

I Don’t Know What I’m Doing on Vinyl

A while back I asked on Facebook if anyone's interested in a vinyl pressing of I Don’t Know What I’m Doing, which was first manufactured as a real packaged CD in 2005. People seemed enthusiastic so I’ve been moving forward with it.

Honestly, I’m not a person who cares much about vinyl records. I own two: Micheal Jackson's Thriller and Twisted Sister's Stay Hungry and they’re hanging on my wall. I don’t own a turntable. I’ve got more nostalgia for cassette tapes and 128k MP3s downloaded from Audiogalaxy. Pressing (and shipping) vinyl is 'spensive and a big commitment and I’d like to avoid having hundreds of my own old-ass record in my basement, so I’m hesitant (aka scared).

But I have a bunch of vinyl quotes and I’ll figure out the next steps soon and probably re-ask that everyone’s suuuure they want my 100% digitally recorded album in an old, giant, fragile, heavy, noisy, expensive to manufacture and also expensive to ship format.

My friend Bruce’s album

Over the past year I’ve been helping my Texan chef friend Bruce Enloe out with bass playing and some recording and mixing on his new record Unseasonably Cool (soundcloud link). (Tracks 2, 3 and 7 are my faves.) I also played bass at the CD release show last week, which had this cool poster (designed by Mark Ettinger, drummer of the band):

Also there was an article in the big local city paper about Bruce and the record.

That’s it, thanks for reading. More stuff soon. "Always be social media-ing," they told us in Internet school. I update my Twitter and Facebook regularly.

A video posted by Brad (@bradsucks) on Feb 20, 2015 at 10:50am PST