Out of the Unknown

Posted on August 23, 2012 by Brian John Mitchell

So today I worked on the puzzle boxes & Bottle Comics.  I’m not going to be able to get them all out before I leave town on Saturday.  It’s just the way it is unfortunately.

Anyway, I’ll probably be mostly missing from the internet most of the next couple of weeks while I go hiking in the high deserts of New Mexico & Utah.

I practiced for the minimalist Small Life Form set for in Taos next week.  Just three pedals & a microphone & I could pull it off pretty easily actually.  I probably have way too much going on in my pedal set-up normally as far as having pedals that I need for different projects all there at all times.

Here’s an episode of Out of the Unknown about totalitarian government & the end of the world. This isn’t written by Huxley, but it has his vibe….  I even might have a song about it in the near future.

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jam, mwvm, Dream

Posted on August 22, 2012 by Brian John Mitchell

So today me & Brian McKenzie (Electric Bird Noise) went to Ted Johnson’s house to do some recording.  Did some jams & they will eventually be a release here on Silber.  One piece had vocals inspired by this old sci-fi thing:

New demo video from mwvm:

Last Night’s Dream:
I’m watching the wind on the water on a lake at night.  I’m distracted by two women walking on a dock.  One pushes the other in the water & I think they’re just horsing around when the woman on the dock lies down & grabs the other woman’s head & holds her under.  I’m just in shock.  The body doesn’t float up & the murderer gets up & walks away.  A few nights later the murderer comes back.  I see her staring at her reflection in the rippled water.  I start to walk towards the dock.  By the time I get there she’s already jumped in trying to kill herself.  I dive in after her & she’s splashing & screaming while I’m trying to save her.  She’s screaming out, “Just let me die!”  I’m managing to keep her head above water, but it’s exhausting.  Eventually she’s taken in enough water that she isn’t thrashing around anymore.  Some people have gathered on the dock & one guy who says he’s a high school football coach pulls her body out of the water & starts CPR.  I wander back to my campsite before the ambulance arrives.  I don’t know how many years later it is, but there’s a drought so that the dock is just in the meadow of the lakes edge instead of even touching the lake.  I’m sitting under the dock looking at the reflection on the water of the sun setting below the tree line listening to the conversations drifting down from those on the dock.  A hand’s placed on my left shoulder & I turn & look up & it’s the murderer.  She says she’s going to town to buy some wine & asks if I need anything.  I tell her however much wine she gets I’ll split with her.  I don’t even like wine.

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Dreams

Posted on August 21, 2012 by Brian John Mitchell

Just building boxes & packing up some comics & getting stuff shipped out.

Last Night’s Dream:
It’s 2002 & instead of moving my grandmother down to North Carolina I give up music & move up to Pennsylvania.  I probably made the right decision.

I’m at what I assume is the Silber 20 Year Anniversary show.  Small Life Form is supposed to play first & I forgot to bring the proper equipment.  I think I can swing it with just an XLR to quarter inch adapter so I can plug my SM57 into the Remora rig.  Nobody has an adapter & I’m not sure what I’m going to do as the night’s running late before the first act.

I’m wandering around the barracks looking for some place to sleep.  All of the rooms are filled with people laying down sleeping on towels (pre-school nap time style).  One of the rooms has bats in it that start screeching when I look in for a place to sleep.  I end up sleeping outside on the railing of the deck.  I can’t take my boots off for fear someone might steal them.  I’m woken up told that I have to go on a mission.  My left leg has fallen asleep & I need help getting off the rail.  I’m sure whatever the mission is I won’t make it back alive from

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Dreams

Posted on August 18, 2012 by Brian John Mitchell

Just been working on puzzle boxes & the bottle comics the past couple of days.

Last Night’s Dreams:
I jump out of the back of the airplane with the hood of a car to use as a glider.  I’m not sure this is going to work out.

I’m at some big western biker bar complete with mechanical bull.  A bar brawl breaks out & I’m taking notes on it on a yellow legal pad.  When I’m leaving the guy at the register sees my notepad & says I’m responsible for $2500 in damages.  I tell him I’m not & steal the calculator he was using to calculate the bill & walk out.  In the parking lot I see a golf cart go by & John McCain is a passenger in it.

I’m in one of those New York apartments that is smaller than a dorm room with Brian McKenzie & his sister.  We’re eating Eggo waffles for breakfast, but the toaster only has the heating element on one side working so one side is burned & the other is still frozen.

I’m at my sister’s wedding.  I think it’s in a basilica somewhere.  She’s re-marrying her ex-husband.  After the service everyone lines up offering congratulations.  When I get to her husband & we shake hands I pull him close in a half hug & say in his ear, “If you fuck up doing stupid shit again, there’s not going to be any conversation; you’re going to disappear & no one will ever know what happened to you.”

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Demo, Small Life Form, Interview

Posted on August 16, 2012 by Brian John Mitchell

I got emailed a demo blast today sent to me & 20 other labels.  Don’t worry, I didn’t listen to it.  Anyway I decided to look up some of the labels to see about interviewing them for the label owner interview series for QRD.  Out of 20 labels only 5 had updated their website in the past year.  I can’t figure out if I’m more depressed by that many labels closing or somebody doing that poor of research to shop their record.

Here’s a video from the Small Life Form gig the other night.

An interview I did recently about my mini-comics just went up at Buy Indie Comics.

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3 Responses to Demo, Small Life Form, Interview

  1. GoddakkAttack says:
    August 16, 2012 at 7:46 am

    possibly they all went strictly facebook. I’m finding this to be the case with many biz/bands/etc. . . which is shitty to me since that’s blocked at work so i have a smaller window of time to look into things.

    • Brian John Mitchell says:
      August 16, 2012 at 8:03 am

      That is pretty retarded since I don’t think Facebook lets you sell stuff on their pages & to me is really not very pleasing to try to navigate on for band pages. It seems like either most bands don’t have music up or don’t have it up so it’s easily found. I read an article about how bands can increase their audience interaction on Facebook & their solution was funny cat pictures….

      • GoddakkAttack says:
        August 16, 2012 at 9:21 am

        yeah but i think these companies use other methods to sell ie bandcamp, amazon, reverbnation, cdbaby, etc. . . . frees them up from putting the work into web development and all they have to do is palce a widget.

        i’m under the impression people don’t go to fb to find new music, just to share and like what they already know.

Drones, Dreams, & lots of other stuff

Posted on August 14, 2012 by Brian John Mitchell

So in the ten second favor category, vote for the Brian John Mitchell 4.5 hour drone or the Small Life Form 45 minute drone nominated as singles on Top Choons. It’ll be interesting to see if they really play them or cut out excerpts if one makes the charts….

There’ve been a half dozen reviews of the Northern Valentine album the past couple of weeks.  I’m not sure what to make of it.  I sent out the promos 5 months ago & gave up on follow-up two months ago & now there are a bunch of reviews.

I sent out about twenty of the Bottle Comics into the ocean & one has already been found.  I’ll update stuff about it being found soon.  Still trying to get all the stuff ready for shipping out the stuff for fulfilling the Kickstarter.

I bought the paint for fixing up the puzzle boxes.  Hoping to get some work done on that soon.  I feel like I have so much work to do that I’m spending time freaking out that should be spent working.

There’s an exclusive Remora track on the Caffeine Poisoned Soundtrack.  The release is part radio play & part compilation.

Here’s a new video from mwvm:

& this is the Electric Bird Noise set from last Friday:

Last Night’s Dream:
I’m writing about a dream in the memo pad I write my dreams in when I wake up.  I’m cramming the dream description in the blank spaces between lines & words of previous entries & the ink is smearing, turning all of my dreams into an incomprehensible mess.

I’m taking part in a triathalon where at different stations you have to stop & draw a page of comics to end up with a completed book at the end of the race.  Afterwards I try to take a shower at the building at the end of the course, but the water doesn’t turn on.

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2 Responses to Drones, Dreams, & lots of other stuff

  1. GoddakkAttack says:
    August 14, 2012 at 11:47 am

    why do all you droney characters look the same?

Videos, Work, Dream

Posted on August 10, 2012 by Brian John Mitchell

So I spent the whole day working on the puzzle boxes & bottle comics.  But at least I feel like it’s rounding the bend as far as getting actual work done & things shipped instead of just behind the scenes work

Here’s a stop-motion animation with Batman action figures that Martin Newman sent me.  It’s pretty incredible.

& Peter Aldich sent me this video of some Russian synchronized swimmers performing to Goblin.

Last Night’s Dream:
I’m back in high school.  On the way to school I’m dropping my father off to serve a 9 month prison term for committing perjury trying to protect my grandfather.  My dad seems relatively upbeat about the situation & I hope his smart mouth doesn’t end up getting him killed.  After dropping him off I drive to school, but I don’t pull into the parking lot.  I just can’t deal with people today.  I can’t go home because my mother is their & dealing with her would be even worse.  I don’t have anywhere to go.  I just don’t want to deal with things.

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Frustrations & Dream

Posted on August 8, 2012 by Brian John Mitchell

So as some of you may know, I’ve been working on making this big spread thing for music placements.  So I finally got that completed & then I was told the place I was doing it for needed an individual email from a songwriter for each song.  Now it’s upgraded to an email confirming my ability to represent the catalog from each composer that didn’t use Amerse (my publishing company) to register their catalog.  Kinda crazy.  I wonder if it’s going to happen at all in the end.

Trying to get work done towards filling the Kickstarter stuff.  It seems to be raining every single day & it makes it hard to do the finish on the puzzle boxes.  Non-stop headaches sometimes.

Last Night’s Dream:
My nephew got a butterfly knife from somewhere (I think it might actually be mine & he swiped it, but whatever) & I’m trying to show him how to play with it in such a way that you can only mash your fingers instead of actually seriously cut them.

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Puzzles, Bottles, Collaborations, Philip K Dick, & a Dream

Posted on August 6, 2012 by Brian John Mitchell

Mainly going to spending the week working on the Bottle Comics & Puzzle Boxes, so there probably won’t be too many updates coming in.

I am working tomorrow with Ted Johnson on some recordings for the collaborative project between me, him, & Brian McKenzie (Electric Bird Noise).

I am in talks with Joe Badon (Built) about doing a comic book version of one of Philip K Dick’s public domain works.  It’ll be a long term thing to work on for sure.  We’ve got it narrowed down to three stories right now.  Of course success would lead towards all three things happening.

Shaun Sandor (Promute) is talking to me about doing a massive collaboration involving most of the cast of Silber artists.  Should be interesting.  Of course large projects tend to take a year to complete.

Last Night’s Dream:
I’m wandering around town looking for green bottles for my bottle comic project.  I see some at this spot under a bridge while I’m walking on a trail next to a creek.   But there’s a man sleeping a few feet away from them so I decide to leave them be.  I keep walking & I hear a sound from behind me that I can’t describe as anything more than full of dread.  I turn around & there’s a man hanging from the bridge ten feet off the ground suspended by a rope around his neck.  He’s trying to reach his hands up to the rope, but his arms aren’t responding properly & his body is starting to shake in seizures.  He’s looking right at me.  I just say “I’m sorry.”  I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.  Then I notice there’s a second man holding on to the man hanging by the waist.  Weighing him down to make sure he dies.  This wasn’t a suicide; it’s just supposed to luck that way.  Fuck.  I better get out of here.

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Promotions, Silber Monthly Charts

Posted on August 4, 2012 by Brian John Mitchell

I got an email today from a Japanese label asking about my promo services.  I’d forgotten I even offer those as I haven’t done it for anyone in about two years now.  I told them the straight scoop on how bad things are promo wise now (& that anyone saying otherwise was a hopeless optimist or a liar) & then told them I’d be happy to do any work they wanted.  I suppose I do need to fix the page a bit.  Postal rates have certainly gone up & all the MySpace stuff is 100% useless I’m sure.  When I got a new machine I didn’t even re-install the software for that stuff!

Below are the monthly charts I got from the Silber website.  The way the stats come in I don’t get info about MP3s streamed unfortunately, but it still gives a general idea of popularity.  It is pretty exciting to get three of the non-free releases in the charts for the top ten downloads (though it does include downloads from press & radio folks just so you don’t think it means I’m rolling in cash).  I will admit to a fear of the amount of times my music appears in the top ten making me feel like Silber is in danger of becoming a vanity label.

Top Five Most Read Silber Digital Comics in June
1. REH #1
2. Just A Man #1
3. Bottle Comics – Mermaid
4. Lost Kisses #4
5. Poit – La Jetee

Top Five Most Read About Silber Releases in June
1. Brian John Mitchell & Andrew Weathers – Drone is in the Blood
2. Promute – Drone of the Norns
3. Brian John Mitchell – four and a half
4. Northern Valentine – Fin de Siecle
5. mwvm – Had Yr Pash

Top Ten Silber Album Downloads
1. Brian John Mitchell & Andrew Weathers – Drone is in the Blood
2. Promute – Drone of the Norns
3. mwvm – Had Yr Pash
4. Unspeakable Forces – Butterfly Corpse
5. Small Life Form – Voice in the Sky
6. Plumerai – Marco Polo
7. Panthan – Five Pointed Swords
8. Electric Bird Noise – Live at The Basement
9. Northern Valentine – Fin de Siecle
10. Brian John Mitchell – four and a half

Top Five Most Read QRD Interviews
1. Sophia Johnson (issue 55 – Guitarist Interviews VI (2012))
2. Erin O’Brien (issue 29 (2005))
3. Brian Elyo (issue 43 – Guitarist Interviews III (2010))
4. Mick Barr (issue 55 – Guitarist Interviews VI (2012))
5. Jonas Munk (issue 55 – Guitarist Interviews VI (2012))

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One Response to Promotions, Silber Monthly Charts

  1. Brian John Mitchell says:
    August 4, 2012 at 12:46 pm

    Congrats to Ben Link Collins for winning a free download for properly predicting the number one album of July.