Silber Services Now Available

Posted on August 3, 2009 by Brian John Mitchell

I spent a couple hours looking into what would be necessary to form the micronation of Silberia.  It seems the likelihood of being taken over by a third string country like Tonga might make it impossible.

Got an ad done for a friends website today.

Worked a bit on a requested remix for a friend’s noise project.  It’s always funny to me because sometimes people send you ten tracks of static & you want to say, “I think the files are corrupted.”  Just got to overlay a guitar bit & I’ll feel it’s complete.

Anyone have a spare snare drum shell?  I don’t need one with snares on it, but at least one rim would be ideal.

I’ve gotten some of my mini-comics picked up by a couple distributors.  Which means I need to print & assemble a bunch more.

I spent a few hours today making a page for some of the services we’re starting to offer to musicians & comic book creators.  So if you or anyone you know needs help with promotion or getting an album mastered or making digital versions of their comics made, tell them to go to www.silbermedia.com/services.  Our rates are incredibly reasonable if you want to shop around.

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press releases, remixes, free music, & more

Posted on August 2, 2009 by Brian John Mitchell

Moving right along on things today.  Got through the second & third drafts of Worms #5 & laid it out & sent it off to Kimberlee Traub to draw.  For the first time ever I actually included reference photos for an artist.  Normally I leave everything up to the artist to draw, but there was a reference to the type of fuel tanks where I use to work at the airport & I don’t think it’s that intuitive how those things look & how the stairs are set up on them if you haven’t worked around them before.  I was realizing as I was writing the issue that part of the surreality of the series makes it feel like it might go into the “Owl Creek Bridge” it was all a dream thing & I would like to make a public statement that I never plan to use that trick in anything I write.  Maybe I’d use a cop out where somebody shoots there mind back in time into their own body with the new knowledge to avoid an occasion from happening.  Though then again I have been thinking of doing an XO spin-off that would explicitly be dreams.  In fact at one point the Just A Man storyline was going to be the original XO Dreams (I think of them as similar characters, but I guess they’re not perceived as such based on recent reviews).

Worked out the second & third drafts of Remora’s Derivative press release.  Just need to do the final layout in Pagemaker & it will be ready.

Had a long talk with Brian McKenzie (Electric Bird Noise) about things on the new Vlor record about some EQ changes & shortening a track or two.  He thinks the bass is a little too loud & that a bunch of songs would sound more clear with rolling off a lot of things under 75 Hz.  I need to listen to the disc on a boombox to figure out exactly what needs to happen since I feel studio headphones & monitors don’t give an accurate interpretation of sound & my stereo is currently using a DVD player for a CD player & it distorts sound & my car stereo is busted.  I’m giving this disc way more attention than anything else I’ve ever worked on & hopefully that’s the model for the rest of my career.

Speaking of Electric Bird Noise, you can check out a recording I did of their recent live show here.

We are going to try to do a remix EP for the new Aarktica album.  If you think you’d be interested in working on something for it, please contact me.  Jon DeRosa will be in charge of it in the end, so you could go to him directly as well.

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slow post

Posted on August 1, 2009 by Brian John Mitchell

Spent a lot of time trying to find some review outlets for the Lost Kisses DVD & it’s looking harder than I anticipated.  I suppose what I should do is go to a store & look at where all the blurbs are from on the back of the Adult Swim stuff.  Maybe that’ll give me some leads & then I can build the promo list from their links.

I wrote the first draft of the press release for Remora’s Derivative.  Just running six months late on that one.

I also wrote the first draft of the next issue of Worms.  I like it a lot.  I feel it’s my strongest comic no matter what any of the reviewers say.  I think it could have a great translation into some stop motion animation thing one day.  & then I could retire & write full time….

A lot of reviews have been coming in on the comics lately.  I’ve been posting the links up on Facebook, but I should start posting in the text here as well I suppose.

Did a re-mixing & re-mastering of a couple Vlor tracks.  One day I’ll be done with it.

I got in the art for the Aarktica disc.  We actually seem to be ahead of the curve on that one for the release date.

Mastered another song for Sarah June’s new disc.  I think we’re narrowing in on the songs being recorded & selecting track order so it’ll be ready to go to manufacturing.

I gotta get back to work or sleep, sometimes it’s hard to differentiate the two.

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Back at Work

Posted on July 28, 2009 by Brian John Mitchell

Had some fun on my days away, of course now I’m behind on a bunch of things.  The best part was seeing a guy changing a tire on the side of the highway while his wife/girlfriend sat in her underwear in a folding chair watching.  I made money on the string of shows if I just pay for gas instead of wear on the car ($0.50 a mile).  It’s hard for experimental bands to make the money to pay on the mileage plan.  I’d basically need $100 a day at that point & meanwhile I’m pretty happy with $50 lately.

Does anybody know what you’re supposed to do for weird sounds coming out of an effects rig at random venues?  I already use a power conditioner & a ground lift.  I can’t test it at home because there’s no problem in the house.  It’s really irritating the 10% of the time I run into it.

The Lost Kisses DVDs came in.  The amount of work it will be is a little overwhelming to say the least.  I need to research where  to send promos & try to figure out about distribution of a DVD.  Yeah, those are things I should have done before I even started looking into manufacturing  DVD, but I had the initial plan to sell them at some mini-comic conventions, but the timing is flawed.  I guess part of it too is that I got a grant towards them & that makes me take them a little less seriously, which is totally bogus.  I guess it’s the same reason bands seem to be willing to push a self-released album harder than one a label helps them with.

Playing the Pinhook on Wednesday in Durham, NC.  Why not come out?

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Mind Working

Posted on July 24, 2009 by Brian John Mitchell

Last night’s Remora show went well, a lot of fun as shows at Myrtle Beach always tend to be.  Not the most packed show, but I made enough money to cover the day’s gas, food, & bar tab.  No complaints at all.

When I got to Myrtle Beach my car alarm kept going off & I couldn’t start it because of it’s anti-theft feature.  The battery in the little remote had gone bad.  Maybe there is some solve for this, but it doesn’t seem like if the battery in the remote goes bad that your whole car should become useless.  I wish I had a Ford instead of a Honda.

Does anybody out there have an opinion of Kerchoonz?  Is it worth me signing up for?  It seems there are an infinite amount of music based social networks these days & I’m not sure if it’s worth the hour to make the page or not.  But I just saw a press release that Beggars Banquet signed up for their entire catalog (including all the 4AD stuff) to be on it & that makes me think it might be something worth doing.

I’m thinking about doing a sub-label for Silber to release short runs of stuff that I like & either doesn’t fit the Silber style (like the Wet Teens) or I just don’t have confidence in releasing a thousand of.  This would not be a replacement of the free net release EP series, but an addition.  I know, I probably have too much I’m doing already.

I got a tracking number that the Lost Kisses DVDs have shipped.  I need to start doing research for review outlets.  Anybody no places that review snarky cartoons that casuse them to buy things?  Or the process for getting involved with Netflix?

I wrote the first fourth of the new issue of Worms.  Getting a little done on the down time.  I’m thinking about turning the comic into a bit of The A-Team or The Hulk after the girl escapes the hospital.  You know, the girl is on the run while helping people in whatever town.  I always like those type of shows

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one step closer

Posted on July 23, 2009 by Brian John Mitchell

I finally gave names to all the tracks on the Vlor album, which was the main stumbling block for finishing the artwork.  I also remastered another track on it (which seems to happen nearly every time I listen to it).  So it feels closer to release.

Going out of town for a couple shows & a couple days out of the house.  Hopefully it will clear my mind a bit.  Today I rotated my tires by hand moving the jack around to switch them all & I remembered how much I love doing physical work.  I also realized how cheap Honda must be, the tire iron is only 8 inches long & I couldn’t get enough leverage to get the nuts off with it.  How much extra per car would it be to have an extra 4 inches on the thing? A quarter?

Hoping to write a few things on this little trip, like 3 press releases & 3 comics & the re-write of questions for the guitar issue of QRD.

Anyone else get the new Dream Magazine?  Interviews with Sarah June & Glenn Branca in it (tons of other cool stuff too).

My buddy Shaun Sandor (Promute, Bicameral Mind, etc) said he heard one of the $100 mastering jobs  I keep seeing advertised & it sounded like a $50 mastering job.  Makes me feel a little better about my prices doing it.

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wasted day

Posted on July 22, 2009 by Brian John Mitchell

Spent the day doing stuff to promote the upcoming shows, then I got a call from PD Wilder that he isn’t going to be able to do them.  Kind of a headache.  If it had been two weeks ago it would’ve been find, but as it is it sucks.  Gotta try to put my mind on other things.

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suddenly… shows

Posted on July 21, 2009 by Brian John Mitchell

So the big news is that Sarah June will not be able to make the upcoming string of shows down here in the south.  PD Wilder (Hotel Hotel) will still be doing about ten.  Remora will now be doing about 7.  Been trying to get things organized for all these changes.

I re-worked my pedal board.  Two pedals changed out, but getting them mounted onto the board & adjusting the volumes always takes longer than anticipated.

The sixth issue of XO went out to Melissa to draw yesterday.

 

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Bowmbowmbowm

Posted on July 19, 2009 by Brian John Mitchell

The first review of the new batch of comics came in.
http://forums.jazmaonline.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1159

Got the go ahead from Melissa on the XO script, should lay it out tomorrow.

Thinking about doing some slowcore versions of Queens of the Stone Age songs for the upcoming Remora shows.  Not sure yet.  I think they might seem a little too “ironic” & not enough “good.”

Not sure where my day went.  Seems like not much was done besides staying on top of the emails about the comics arriving/not arriving to reviewers.

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Comics are Comicy

Posted on July 18, 2009 by Brian John Mitchell

I got the digital comics up.  Go to our new comics page to order physicals or follow the links to download digital versions.  This also means I did the hundred emails for the digital promo & sent out the 60 follow-up emails for the physical promos sent out.  Which means the next couple of days will be a lot of just answering emails.  It’s kinda nice as email contact seems to be lower lately.

Designed a couple flyers for some of the upcoming shows.  Hoping things work well for the shows next week.  Still trying to squeeze in some extra NC shows for July 27 & 30 as well as August 3, 6, 7, & 8 if anyone knows any place that would take stuff on such short notice.

I got in the artwork for Just A Man #2!  I have only just started the promo for issue #1.  Still it’s good to be ahead of things instead of behind.

I’m thinking about reworking my pedal board for my upcoming shows.  A second looper & a different reverb unit, maybe a second envelope filter.  We’ll see.

For those of you interested, Chris Olley (of Six by Seven) has a MySpace page for his new solo project here.

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