More Drawing & a Dream

Posted on November 8, 2012 by Brian John Mitchell

So I’m just spending the days drawing lately.  Some of the stuff is a bit more intense than my normal stick figures & I really do feel like I might be leveling up a bit.  I kind of gave up drawing a bit when I was seventeen & took an art class & saw how much raw talent a lot of the kids had.  So much like I did with the guitar instead of going the route of doing the same thing as everybody else only worse, I tried to re-invent the wheel instead.  Anyway, I’m doing stuff other than stick figures lately.  We’ll see what people think I guess.  Hypothetically I finished the drawings for two comics today, but getting them laid out & ready to print takes longer than you might think….

Last Night’s Dream (okay a couple nights ago):
I’m in a fight with some dude that’s at the point where we’re exhausted & locked up & semi-wrestling & I lean over & bite the guy’s collar bone & start shaking my head like a terrier.  I’m clamping down hard & I’m shocked that my teeth don’t break on him.

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One Response to More Drawing & a Dream

  1. GoddakkAttack says:
    November 9, 2012 at 9:01 am

    make that dream a music video, i think you’ve got a winner.

MISTER SCIENCE & Pittsburgh

Posted on November 5, 2012 by Brian John Mitchell

It’s Monday, so we have a new 5 songs in 5 minutes EP.  This one is primitive electronica from MISTER SCIENCE.  Free to stream.

Yesterday I got to go to a bar with David Lawrence (creator of Ex-Mutants) & watch a Pittsburgh Steelers game.  It’s pretty crazy when people you have admiration for from childhood casually hangout & then take you to a grocery store so you can have breakfast the next morning.

Still working on a lot of comic book stuff here in Pittsburgh.  After just five days I’m already pretty far behind schedule if I get full backers on the Kickstarter end of things.

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Remora, Plumerai, Irata, Mister Science, Pittsburgh, Dreams

Posted on November 2, 2012 by Brian John Mitchell

Remora, Plumerai, & Irata all nominated on Top Choons this week.  Vote if you have two seconds.

I did some work for the debut EP for MISTER SCIENCE.  It’ll be the next in the five songs in five minute series & hopefully go up Monday.

As you may know, I’m now in Pittsburgh doing my residency about the comics (see the Kickstarter about getting some artwork from it).  Here’s a picture I took from my car coming into the city.

Okay, so in my “oh crap” scenario for the day, I started an electrical fire.  When I was grabbing the power cables to bring up here, I grabbed a cable that looked like the one that went into my printer instead of the actual one (harder to get the actual one out of the wall).  It’s one of those three pronged deals like powers a desktop computer or a DAT or a million other devices.  Anyway, it ends up those cables aren’t actually the same.  Some say “250″ on them & others say “120″ & mine caught fire. I suffered a minor burn and experienced a mild swelling, luckily it was possible to get prescription medicine online to help with the pain and an ointment for the burn. Funny stuff.

Recent Dreams:
The girl that I might be falling in love with has a new tattoo on the inner bicep of her left arm.  It’s a red circle with a black silhouette of the three wise men crossing the desert.

I’m at the gate of heaven & I’m given the opportunity to write one name in The Book of Life.  Rather than writing my own name, I write my grandmother’s & walk off to accept my fate.

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One Response to Remora, Plumerai, Irata, Mister Science, Pittsburgh, Dreams

  1. the girl says:
    November 6, 2012 at 9:16 am

    i woke up thinking about this. sketch out this tattoo, please.

    xoxo

Plumerai & Dreams

Posted on October 30, 2012 by Brian John Mitchell

Vote Plumerai to the top of the charts on a classic rock station? I don’t know how the world works either…. Vote at the bottom of the page.

So I’ve been working on a bunch of stuff the last couple of days.  I got the promo emails out about the new releases, I stained some puzzle boxes, I made some bottle comics & set them free, I’ve been trying to book some events while in Pittsburgh, & I’ve been spending time hanging out with people since I’m leaving Raleigh for a month.  It’s going to be pretty crazy getting my car packed up for the move up to Pittsburgh over the next couple of days.

Last Night’s Dreams:
There’s a Plumerai show (or maybe a burMonter show since I seem to be in the band) & Martin is the singer, but he has a pedal which makes him sound like a girl singer in a way that sounds true instead of gimmicky.  It’s a college campus show & we’re playing at a cafeteria type space.  We’re opening for Melt Banana & I notice as we’re pulling our equipment off stage that instead of putting equipment on, Agata & the rest of Melt Banana are taking their equipment out to the van.  The show is cancelled.

I’m hanging out with Peter Aldrich & he’s gone back to university & is living in a dorm room.  The idea of being the fourth guy drunken & passing out in a dorm room with three beds doesn’t seem super appealing.

I wake up & I’m staying at Andrew Weather’s parents’ house.  All the young rockers are still asleep & when I wander out of the living room where we are all crashed out his parents are having a brunch party & ask me to sit down.  They pour me some red wine into a red tinted glass & the alcohol makes me feel at home.  I compliment Andrew’s mother on how well she did raising my son & she immediately changes the subject asking if I heard that Tracy Gold of Growing Pains is a writer on the new season of Breaking Bad.

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One Response to Plumerai & Dreams

  1. GoddakkAttack says:
    October 30, 2012 at 2:29 pm

    this pedal could cure me of headaches.

Silber Newsletter – October 2012

Posted on October 29, 2012 by Brian John Mitchell

Hello,

I hope all is going well.  Turning into fall here & winter before you know it & then I guess we all get to see if the world really comes to an end on December 21, 2012.

So a while ago I started making puzzle boxes as you may know.  Anyway, there’s four new designs up on the website.  They take me a while to make, so if you want some to give out for Christmas time, please order them within the next week or so.  I figured out a better method for staining them than what I was initially using & I think the results on the newest boxes are a bit better than the original batches.  So I’m pretty happy with them these days.  Check them out if you get a chance.

I think I had the best Small Life Form show I’ve had in years the other day.  Here it is on YouTube if you are interested in checking it out.  Small Life Form – October 919 Noise Showcase

There’s a new album out now by Plumerai called Mondegreen.  It reminds me of some of the bands that went on to be called goth &/or shoegaze, but were really just doing their own things in the 1980s.  You can stream the whole thing at the link above.

We also have the new EP Vultures by Irata available.  They’re back to sludge it out & this time they’ve replaced the horns with vocals.  Irata will be touring up & down the east coast in November, you can check out their tour schedule here.

A few weeks ago I did a Remora album recorded in 24 hours for the Greek label Somehow Ecstatic.  I might eventually do a little remixing of it, but I’m really excited & exhilarated by what I could accomplish in hust one day.  You can listen to a stream or buy it at this link.

The big news for Silber coming up is a string of EPs we’re going to be releasing over the next couple of months.  It’s a challenge series of five songs completed in five minutes.  We’re planning on putting up a new one each week, so check back often.  It’s starting out with Remora’s I Came To Party for the first week of November (though it’s already live now).  All the releases will be free to stream or $1 to download.

The big news for me personally is I got a residency in Pittsburgh to work on my comics for the month of November.  It’s a pretty great opportunity to try to get better at my craft.  Of course it doesn’t pay all the expenses for travel & food & art supplies, so I’m running a Kickstarter to pre-sell some of the work I’ll be doing when I’m up there.  Spread the word on it if you can.

I don’t know if you’re a fan of Silber on Facebook or not, but lately we have a contest each month to guess the most popular download & if you guess it right, you get a free download of any album in our catalog.  So just keep an eye out at the beginning of each month for your opportunity to win.

So that’s it for the month of October, but hopefully it’s enough.  There should be more news come November (new QRD, new comics, & more music).  It’s 18 years now since everything started with the first issue of QRD & I never could have made it through without your interest & support & as always just let me know if you want off this list or to change the email you get it sent to.

Hrt
Brian John Mitchell
Silber Records
www.silbermedia.com

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Irata & Dreams

Posted on October 26, 2012 by Brian John Mitchell

I got the press release done for Irata & the new EP is available to purchase.

Sent out the newsletter (if you didn’t get it, put your email in on the right).  I’ll get it posted up in the blog & on the website in the next couple of days.  A lot going on trying to get ready for this trip.  We’ll see how things end up.

So I don’t know how many of you have heard about it, but there’s a big thing with the dude from The Church saying that they were getting screwed by this indie label they were on because the label made $40,000 & they got paid $800 in royalties.  Based on my experience in the record industry I tend to think both numbers are right.  The label financed a new album, repressing of a bunch of old albums, paid off old labels to be able to license the back catalog, paid to fly the band from Australia to the US, & paid to have a real video made.  I think that’s a really suave move for an indie label to get all that done for around $40,000.  But I also understand that all the band sees is actually total numbers.  They want to believe that the guy is totally screwing them, because it’s easier to believe than the alternative that they can no longer work on music in the way they are used to.  There’s all these threats of an independent audit, which I think should be done.  Just because it should be apparent what’s going on.  It’s sad to me because I’ve had a handful of conversations with the label owner & I know that he only wanted to work with The Church because he’s a huge fan.  I’m sure he’s as depressed as I am that royalty checks are getting smaller each quarter, especially with a band he loves & admires.  Maybe music fans should never start labels because they’ll get jaded.  I know it happened to me.

Last Night’s Dreams:
It’s 4pm.  I go into my grandmother’s room & she tells me she’s ready to change into her pajamas & go home & watch tv.

I’m fighting some girl with super powers that only allow her to control white things so she has a bucket of white paint she’s slopping around.  In the middle of the fight she asks me to hold on a second & she calls somebody up & leaves a message that her meiospore powers seem to be a little weaker than she expected.  A few minutes later the phone rings I can here the dude at the help desk on the line telling her that meiospore powers are only temporary.

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2 Responses to Irata & Dreams

  1. GoddakkAttack says:
    October 26, 2012 at 9:21 am

    music fans shouldn’t play music. everyone i know that does this winds up not liking/listening to music by their 30′s.

Plumerai, The Saddest Bastard in the World, Dave Sim, Pittsburgh, Etc.

Posted on October 25, 2012 by Brian John Mitchell

So the new Plumerai album is up.  We went with the free to stream, $5 to download, & $12 to buy a physical business model.  In a month’s time I guess I’ll figure out whether I should go with new releases starting out as $1 for the first month (that’s what I did for the Small Life Form & Brian John Mitchell releases last month) or not.  It’s all just a numbers thing as I feel $5 is really the fair price to have on a digital album, but if the $1 price generates more than five times the downloads, then that’s the way I’ll roll.

I sent out a comic script I’m unsure about to Melissa Spence Gardner for review.  It’s meant to be a parody of sad bastard comics & how self-absorbed some folks are.  But I think it might come across as actually being the sad bastard thing.  It’s title is “The Saddest Bastard in the World.”

Dave Sim answered some questions I posted for him over on Bleeding Cool.  His answer about having people work for him I got a real kick out of, basically it boiled down to it seems like too much work to find work for your assistant to do.  Which is sometimes what I find for my interns.  Though actually there’s plenty of work here at Silber & the stuff I handout is stuff that literally would not get done otherwise.

I’ve been trying to book a bunch of stuff for my Pittsburgh residency.  We’ll see how much of it comes to fruition.  Kid Comics workshop, a couple readings, convention appearances, & some music stuff with friends.  Should be good fun & action packed.

The place was just done and inspected by Indoor Air Quality Testing in Santa Rosa CA we want to thank them for their great service when it comes to quality indoor air quality testing no one else can really compare especially for the prices they offer.

I’ve been trying to get a bunch of stuff done the past couple of days & been unable to focus.  As some of you know it was just the anniversary of my grandmother dying & while I’m trying to throw myself into work to not notice that, I’m just ending up with some sub-standard quality work.

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Puzzle Boxes & Dreams

Posted on October 23, 2012 by Brian John Mitchell

So I got the 4 new puzzle box designs up on the website ready to order.  I had a lot of luck with the puzzle boxes on Kickstarter earlier this year, but right now Kickstarter says only one campaign at a time & based on the seeming stall out of my current campaign, I’m not sure what to make of things on their anyway, so I just contacted the folks who previously ordered directly telling them about the new stuff on the website.  We’ll see if it generates orders.  I greatly prefer having the Silber site as the main generator of revenue over something third party.  It makes me feel like I have at least a tiny bit of control.  We’ll see what happens here down the line.  In other Kickstarter news, I added a few “stretch rewards” to try & boost the income on the Pittsburgh Residency Project as well as adding some higher ticket rewards.  We’ll see what happens on that.

Got some work done on the press releases & some general updating of the website & I sent out the newsletters to the folks who aren’t interested in the record label end of Silber, I’m waiting to send the rest of the promo out until the rest of the press releases are done.  Hoping to get all of that done before ducking out of town.

Last Night’s Dreams:
I’m reading a book by Stan Lee of anecdotes about the secret inspirations for various comic book characters.  I realize the whole thing is probably just stories Stan made up when the one about Aquaman says he was originally created as a sales cartoon for Tropicana orange juice.

I’m staying a couple blocks from the beach when I hear a roar that sounds like the ripping of the earth when trees are being pulled out of the ground.  It’s a tidal wave; but instead of coming from the ocean in the east, it’s coming from the west.  This is how the world ends in a flood.  I wonder if solid state hard drives data will survive this kind of thing….

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One Response to Puzzle Boxes & Dreams

  1. GoddakkAttack says:
    October 26, 2012 at 1:20 pm

    recently in the news some guy found a digital camera in the bottom of the pond and recovered the photos from the memory stick. hope this means your drives are safe from future hypothetical floods.

    For the record i have a similar dream of the end of the world except the flood comes as a result of the moon falling into the sea

Puzzle Boxes, Small Life Form, Aidan 5

Posted on October 22, 2012 by Brian John Mitchell

So I finally got to work on designing some new puzzle boxes.  A new small box design (3x3x3), two new large box designs (4x4x4), & one mixed large & small block design (I guess it’s still a 3x3x3).  I’ll hopefully have stuff up about selling them in the next couple of days.

So I got up the better quality video of the Small Life Form set from the other day.  I hope you dig it.

While I’m at it, here’s a video from this sci-fi internet series Aidan 5.  The weird paper cutout background animations you will either find cool or super annoying.  I kinda like it.  The whole thing is a Philip K. Dick meats Sin City type of vibe, which I guess puts me as the target audience. About two hours in total run time. I even liked it enough to back the Kickstarter for them to do another season.

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Labels, Compilations, Minor Work

Posted on October 19, 2012 by Brian John Mitchell

So as you may have pieced together by now, Silber is predominantly a record label.  Though at times I do think Silber has little to offer artists in modern times I know that I’m wrong about it.  Sometimes it takes something like Trent Reznor admitting the need of a record label to realize that I do provide a valuable service to bands, even though they can’t always see it.

I was just chatting with a friend of mine about the recent explosion in upstart labels throwing comps together on Bandcamp (or whatever) & then immediately collapsing & what the place is of a label owner advising bands on the label.  Now I like to think everyone on Silber is grown up enough that I don’t need to even tell them this, but here’s the take I have on comps in general.
(1) Pay to play is bullshit.  Are people still doing this?  Yeah, they are at least trying to.
(2) It’s valid to ask who else is going to be on the comp.
(3) It’s valid to ask how profits will be split & what rights if any they want.  Rights in exchange for money might be acceptable.  Rights in exchange for exposure is generally a lie.  I wouldn’t think about giving my royalties away to someone in exchange for exposure unless the comp was in a series that had a track record of over 10,000 sales/downloads.  A lot of people have some stupid contract for all rights they copied out of a book & have no problem changing it.
(4) If you need to spend money going into a studio, you need to ask for that money upfront.  If they say no, then say you can’t do it.
(5) Given almost no one will listen to the average compilation, make your track strong enough that you will be the one band on there that people might check out later.  Comp appearances are part of building your legacy of songs & a clunker might keep people from ever checking out your catalog.  A chud that got cut from an album is only for a hardcore fan, not a first experience on a comp.
(6) If the label doing the comp is unprofessional, associating with them may make you appear unprofessional.  Which totally sucks, but is true.
(7) It’s your musical career & reputation do what is right for you.

Spent most of the day landscaping again.  Did some chatting with Jason about the upcoming Irata.  It will be available on November 1.  Did the layout for the digital booklets for Irata & Plumerai.  Hoping to get the press releases knocked out by Monday so I can get the Silber Newsletter out next week.  Oh, & I did the interview with Kickstarter about my experiences using Kickstarter, I’ll let you know when the interview goes up.

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