SLF@Squidco, Ultimate Lost Kisses, Dreams

Posted on February 17, 2011 by Brian John Mitchell

So the show last night at Squidco went really great.  I had some minor technical issues in the Small Life Form set where it seemed I was trying to drain too much juice form one outlet in an older building & things started to glitch.  I haven’t listened to the recording to see if I made it sound alright in the end or not.  But of course the music isn’t the most important part of a show.  It was a good vibe, there were about 40 people on a Wednesday night, I sold all my cupcakes, & just generally had a good time.

I just realized I haven’t put any digital comics up for you kidz to read in a while, so here’s the third place award winning Ultimate Lost Kisses #11.  I finally made the PDF of it tonight.  Which leaves me a mere 8 or so back issues away from getting digital versions of all the comics up.

Last Night’s Dreams:
A friend calls me on the phone waking me up.  She tells me that she is not going to go to church any more & she thinks the secret to transcendence lies in having sex with as many men as possible.  She asks me if I want to come over & I tell her no.

My mom is looking for her dead pets.  Is time travel involved or has she just lost a bit of her mind?

I give a friend of mine a ride home to a townhouse.  As she gets out of the car she says, “I guess I gotta go fuck a ghost.”  I don’t know what these youngsters mean when they talk.

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Small Life Form show

Posted on February 16, 2011 by Brian John Mitchell

So I got in the cheap projector today.  For reasons that are mysterious to me, I can’t get it to feedback on itself.  Maybe the resolution isn’t high enough or something.  So I guess I’m going to have to make a video of optical feedback rather than have it in real time.  Which kinda sucks & goes away from one of the things I try to do with Small Life Form, which is have everything be improvised to the moment & place where it happens.  But I do think it’s better to have some crazy visuals going than no crazy visuals going.

One of the other bands playing tonight made a video flyer/ad/whatever you  would call it.  I probably should start doing something like this.  I like that it stars kitty cats.

I did practice a little for the show.  Which basically means figuring out which piece of gear isn’t working properly.  Today it was the little four channel mixer I use (which looked like it might have had beer spilled on it at some point) & I opened it up & sprayed it with electronic cleaner.  Hopefully that’ll do it.

I need to start getting more work done, today was a bit of a bust.

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Silbeer, Small Life Form, Twitter, Dreams

Posted on February 15, 2011 by Brian John Mitchell

So the big news for the day to me is that I got in my little beer maker & started the first batch of Silbeer.  We’ll see what it’s like in a few weeks.

I went & practiced with The Pointless Forest as a duo tonight (just me & Jesse).  We’re playing that way on Wednesday opening for me doing a solo Small Life Form thing.  Kinda weird to me playing in two projects on the same bill.

For some reason Facebook & Twitter no longer seem to work together.  Meaning my Twitter feed isn’t automatically going to Facebook.  I really like the idea of only posting one place (that place being Twitter) & it going to all of my social medias.  At the same time I like the idea of people making comments on the posts & Facebook seems the place where that happens.  I’m kinda really tired of trying to manage the public barrage on the social media sites.  Maybe I should just avoid them for a few weeks.

It looks like there are going to be a couple new bands on the label in the next month.  More news on that in a few days.

Last Night’s (Tour) Dreams:
I’m on tour & I guess I’m in Arizona because I’m hanging out with Mike VanPortfleet in my hotel room after the show.  I’m telling him that I am tired of working music & no one caring & he says he understands & I should just walk away for a while.

I’m on tour & I’m with Sarah June in Los Angeles & she’s gotten us invited to some big party up in the hills after the show.  When the party is ending at 4 in the morning we’re trying to get a cab back to my car at the club & it looks like it’s going to cost $100.  $100 I don’t have.

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2 Responses to Silbeer, Small Life Form, Twitter, Dreams

  1. GoddakkAttack says:
    February 15, 2011 at 9:24 am

    not sure if it was deleted or i only thought i posted it here but when you update your reverbnation status, it’s cross posted to Mspace,FB & Twitter. if you enabled it to do so. Free of charge.

  2. Brian John Mitchell says:
    February 15, 2011 at 11:19 am

    See, I go the other way. My Twitter feed automagically goes into the Silber Site, Reverbnation, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc. Reverbnation I think I have logged into about four times since I joined it who knows how long ago. But I just saw this morning the first time in just about a week that anything on Facebook was posted via a platform other than FB, so maybe things are fixed. The Twitter feed was still going into everything except Facebook, which is suspect at best.

Crappy Camera, Remora Mastering, QRD, Dream

Posted on February 14, 2011 by Brian John Mitchell

So I got this free camera that looks like a flip a couple days ago.  I haven’t messed with it too much, but man does it look like crap in low light!  Glad it was free.  Still probably should be able to help me get some interesting optical feedback alternatives to the other two cameras.  Anyone with an old crappy camera with an AV out, feel free to mail it to me for my collection.

I sent a Remora track from the new album (current working title is now Scars Bring Hope) out to a few different folks for possible mastering of the whole album.  We’ll see what happens.

I answered the questions for the comic issue of QRD (coming after the current brand new issue with label owners) & I’ll be editing the other interviews soon.  I’m scared it might not be the best issue as I didn’t personally have that fun of a time doing my answers, but maybe I just was in not so great of a mood in general when I was doing it.  I guess you’ll all have to wait a few weeks to let me know on it.

Last Night’s Dream:
I go to my grandmother’s old house to get something that was left there.  I park in the garage & I walk up a staircase, but the staircase isn’t where it’s supposed to be?  I end up in another part of the house.  A part that doesn’t exist.  The walls are made out of blackness & their presence is defined by the flowers on the wallpaper.  Everything is coated in dust like it hasn’t been entered since 1950.  This must be where the ghosts live.  I can’t remember what I need to find.

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2 Responses to Crappy Camera, Remora Mastering, QRD, Dream

  1. Nick Marino says:
    February 16, 2011 at 12:06 pm

    those QRD questions were definitely hard to answer here and there. i still have to edit mine. there were so many questions!!!!

    • Brian John Mitchell says:
      February 16, 2011 at 3:26 pm

      I don’t think it was the quantity of questions as much as the quality. I feel like if someone reads my interview, they walk away having no more of an idea of what my comics are about than before they read it. I think I haven’t had any indepth conversations about comics other than marketing ones & it shows compared to the guitarist or label owner series. But I suppose part of it to is that this series is going after a lot of different folks (some write, some draw, some do it all) & it makes it a bit harder than if it was all artists or authors. You can’t really ask writers about what kind of ink they use….

QRD & Honey Badger

Posted on February 12, 2011 by Brian John Mitchell

I think the new QRD is done.  Meaning it’s up & I’m just waiting for the people interviewed to check things before big announcements about it.  But if you are into it, I suppose go ahead & start posting about it on Facebook/Twitter whatever else people use these days.

A bit of a rough day today on some fronts, but I just got emailed this from Peter Aldrich & it made my day seem a little bit better.

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Silent Media, Lotte Kestner, Queensryche, The Bangles, Ultimate Lost Kisses, QRD

Posted on February 12, 2011 by Brian John Mitchell

So here’s a Silent Media Projects, the new label Silber intern Ben Collins is starting.  No releases yet, but it seems promising.

Lotte Kestner has an ep of B-sides of China Mountain available through Bandcamp.

I just did a review of Queensryche’s Operation: Mindcrime II on Finally Checking It Out.  I wanted to like it, but I didn’t.

Over on Nostalgia Equals Distortion Martin reviewed The Bangles.

Got the cover done & the template done for the new issue of QRD & the intro & first interview laid out.  So the Monday launch seems even more possible.

I got in the art from Jeremy Johnson for Ultimate Lost Kisses #12.  Be a couple of days before I can get to work on it.

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One Response to Silent Media, Lotte Kestner, Queensryche, The Bangles, Ultimate Lost Kisses, QRD

  1. GoddakkATTACK says:
    February 12, 2011 at 10:09 am

    for the record i have since changed my judgement on that record…..it’s been in heavy rotation. I also changed the video feed to match my opinion and not what i actually wrote.

    carry on.

Small Life Form, SPACE Anthology, Demos, Azalia Snail, Dreams

Posted on February 11, 2011 by Brian John Mitchell

Lest I forget to mention it, there is a Small Life Form live show next Wednesday at Squidco in Wilmington.  I went around trying to buy a clearance video projector (they have one at Bed Bath & Beyond for $65, but the store that had it instock locally it ended up it was in their damaged returns bin) & ended up ordering one online.  I don’t know if it will get here on time, much less if I’ll have enough time to make sure it works.

I ordered a Fender Chorus Pedal from Best Buy for under $10!  I never use a chorus pedal, but at $10 I’m willing to check it out & or tear it apart.  Thanks to James & Martin from Plumerai for the heads up on this.

Here’s the official link to get a PDF of the 2011 SPACE Comic Anthology I edited.   About 85 pages I think.  In related news I hear it is also available for smart phones from Cloud 9 Comix & I am talking to the C9 people about getting some of the Silber minis available.  So maybe how I’ve been talking about getting my comics on phones for six years will finally come to fruition.

I spent a few hours today fixing my dad’s laptop (he’d somehow broken one of the hinges & he has a Thinkpad so the hinges are made of metal, so how do you break that?) & it made me feel useful as a human being.

I listened to a few demos today (it was bound to happen eventually) & I might actually work with one of the acts as they seem like a pretty good fit to Silber.  We’ll see what happens on that.

Talked with Azalia Snail a bit about getting everything going with her record.  It looks like the official street date is going to end up April 4.  I need to contact the distros & figure out where to get it manufactured & get all the art properly laid out & all that jazz.  Also she’s going to be re-working a couple tracks & changing the order around a bit from the New Zealand version.

It looks like the new label owner QRD special should be ready around Monday.

Last Night’s Dreams:
I find out that the woman I’m dating has three other relationships at least as serious as the one I’m in with her.  I’m torn about what to do because on the one hand she’s cheating on me & on the other hand it makes the relationship low maintenance enough I can actually handle being in it.

I’m on tour with After the Panic (Jamie Barnes‘s band from when he was in high school) as an accessory weird noise maker using an optical theremin & super simple synth.  All the band members are bringing their girlfriends/wives on tour with them so the amount of space I have to bring my equipment is the size of a shoe box & they actually give me a shoebox to load into.  I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to get the noises I want with just a shoebox worth of equipment.

I clean my room & with all of the flat surfaces & no clothing sitting on the floor & such there are so strong of sound reflections that I can no longer record in my bedroom.

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QRD, Keyboard, Lost Kisses, Vinyl

Posted on February 9, 2011 by Brian John Mitchell

I spent most of the day working on proofing some more label series interviews.  There’s around 25 this time out & I really need to start getting more up to date on things.  I also have 16 comic interviews to proof so far & a couple more guitarist ones.  It would make a lot more sense how much time I’ve been putting into QRD if it generated more than $10 a month of income.  One day hopefully.

I finally tried to get my keyboard working that I got the new power cable for.  When I powered it up the disc drive for loading sounds in made a noise like a vacuum cleaner.  So I think it’s broken.  But maybe I’ll one day try to open it up & fix it.

So there’s this digital projector that I’m thinking about getting from Bed Bath & Beyond & this friend of mine tells me his sister works there & can get me a discount.  So today he calls me & tells me his sister actually works at Bath & Body Works so the things he can get me a discount on are soap & candles.  Oh well.

So I’m working on the third Lost Kisses story arc & I think I’m going to start the numbering with issue #21 even though issue #12 of the second story arc is coming out.  I feel like it’s confusing in the short term, but it’ll make more sense to my grand children (assuming Andrew doesn’t act too fast on that & I get #13-#20 done before the content is age appropriate).

So every couple of months I get asked by a fan or a band I work with on Silber about releasing vinyl.  I probably should add this to the FAQ page & I suppose I eventually will, but here are the reasons Silber doesn’t get involved in vinyl:
1) It is expensive to manufacture at high quality.
2) The process of transferring sound from a digital media (e.g. a CDR of audio) to vinyl is prone to distortion & sounds with excessive low-end (such as many sound experiments have) have to be EQ’d out to make a record not skip & certain extreme stereo effects (generally in the low end) also have to be lessened to keep a record from skipping.
3) They are more expensive to ship.
4) They are more prone to damage when shipping.  In my experience as a consumer (& vendor) the damaged CD to the point of non-playability or other need of replacement is around 1 in 1000 while with vinyl the number is closer to 1 in 25.
5) If something is recorded digitally & mastered digitally, in what way is putting it on vinyl “preserving the sound”?
6) It is more prone to damage while in storage (both to the owner (which I suppose is a good thing, because I could sell them another copy when it’s damaged?) & in my basement).
7) I’d need to buy different shipping material than I use for compact discs.
8) I can’t listen to it in my car.
9) I can’t listen to it on my DVD player.
10) It is less convenient for many reviewers & radio stations.
11) If a release can’t sell the 300 campact discs it needs to to break even on the first pressing, how can it sell the 400 vinyl records it would need to?
Okay, done with that rant.

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2 Responses to QRD, Keyboard, Lost Kisses, Vinyl

  1. GoddakkAttack says:
    February 9, 2011 at 9:50 am

    you should do picture discs.

  2. Brian John Mitchell says:
    February 11, 2011 at 1:41 am

    Why did it turn the number 8 into a smiley face with glasses? That’s annoying.

Painted Comics, Blog #1, Super Bowl Show, SPACE Anthology

Posted on February 7, 2011 by Brian John Mitchell

I spent a lot of today scanning in some of my paintings to make into comics.  I still need to figure out exactly how I want to do them.  They are currently done as collections of nine paintings with loose stories which doesn’t jive too well for a comic as the number isn’t divisible by four & might be too short to have just one in an issue.  So I might collect four of them together for an issue.

I looked through my webstats & the blog has now passed the front page & QRD as the number one destination on the site.  So I guess I’m doing something right on this thing?

I started sending out the messages to MySpace friends so they can find this blog if they’re interested.  We’ll see if it boosts any interest (or more importantly sales).

So I assume a lot of you ended up seeing The Black Eyed Peas playing at the Super Bowl.  I’m always confused when artists at that level of fame & on that big of stage can have amateur technical problems.  I mean, if you’re volume control on your singing sucks because you can’t keep the mic the proper distance from your mouth, just put the vocals on the tape with the music & lip sync.  I always like to think there’s a chasm in quality of performance between me & someone playing an arena & it should be in the favor of the people with a million dollars behind them.  Or maybe it means it’s time for me to start playing arenas?

I finished up the SPACE Anthology stuff & got it off to Bob Corby.  I’ll send you the link to read it as soon as he puts it up.  Things are starting to creep up on that coming.  Still trying to find out if any of my comic partners are going to be at the show or if I’m manning the table by myself again this year.  Makes a slight difference for how I’ll set up the table.  I’m planning to make some little display things to make the comics higher in the air & have some stuff in color & maybe some video playing (the three things that attract people’s attention).

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2 Responses to Painted Comics, Blog #1, Super Bowl Show, SPACE Anthology

  1. GoddakkAttack says:
    February 7, 2011 at 9:49 am

    one of the women in that band pissed herself on stage once, i’m guessing you’re expecting too much from them.

    • Brian John Mitchell says:
      February 7, 2011 at 12:31 pm

      I thought the only girl in that band was the one from Kids Incorporated? Maybe she had an excuse like she was huffing freon or something, because I’ve seen that make a girl pee her pants before. Didn’t you have a singer pee in the van a little while ago? Maybe it’s a common problem amongst lady singers?

These things have nothing in common: Frank Frazetta, Lenny Kravitz, Irata, SPACE Anthology, & Myspace

Posted on February 5, 2011 by Brian John Mitchell

So I was talking to Melissa (XO) today about a film project she’s working on involving sudden brain damage & it’s effect on artists.  Which reminded me of Frank Frazetta & him having a stroke & then teaching himself to paint/draw left handed.  Anyway, here’s a documentary on him (don’t know if this is legally up on YouTube or not, so it may get taken down at some point):

So when I was driving yesterday I was listening to the classic rock station (my CD player is on the fritz on & off) & Lenny Kravitz’s “Fly Away” played.  Wow, it is interesting because it is so clearly assembled using sampling riffs/drums/vocals/etc rather than being a live performance, I can just see the graph & squares listening to it.  Interesting given that it’s theoretically a rock song rather than a dance/pop song.  I don’t know if this sound is so obvious to non-musicians (do any non-musicians read this blog?) & maybe it felt fresh & interesting at the time (just like autotune did when Cher used it on “Believe” in 1998 & now it’s just annoying) & now it just feels strangely clunky & amateur in the engineering department though still quite adequate as a beer drinking fight anthem.  Anyway, here’s the video which surprisingly has a lot of female nudity….

I’m reworking last year’s SPACE Anthology & putting up the last touches on the current one.  I downloaded a shareware that is supposed to convert PDFs to CBZs, so we’ll see how it works out.  For those of you that aren’t comic geeks, while PDFs are the standard ebook document format, CBZs are basically a zip file containing image files that can be opened without unzipping it & are quite popular amongst the 1% (or less) of the population that enjoy reading comics on the computer or their cellphone.

I talked a bit with Jason Ward today about the new Irata record & recording techniques.  They’re talking about going to Canada to record the next album.  It’ll be interesting to see what happens with it.  They’re going to be adding vocals on the album.  A debut of some of the new material will be at the Silber Showcase on April 2.

I finally got my robot to finish sorting who I should contact on MySpace sending direct messages about the blog moving over here & all that.  Roughly a third of the friends I had on MySpace fit the profile for bothering to send a message to (one of the big parameters was they had to have logged into MySpace in the past 90 days).  Now I just need to write up the message & spend 30 minutes each morning for 20 days getting them sent out.  So some of you may be getting that message.  We’ll see if it regenerates some of the interest that I feel like has been lost in Silber since MySpace’s decline (as MySpace’s decline seems roughly the same as the economy, it’s hard to pin it all directly to that).

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One Response to These things have nothing in common: Frank Frazetta, Lenny Kravitz, Irata, SPACE Anthology, & Myspace

  1. Nick Marino says:
    February 6, 2011 at 2:48 am

    Funny you’d mention the Kravitz thing because I was listening to some of his stuff today and thinking the same thing. The album that Fly Away is on, 5, has a few songs on it that I really like (I Belong to You, Straight Cold Player, Thinking of You). One of them came up when I was listening to my mp3 player, and I had to change it because the loops were just too bland to listen to over and over again. I really do like the bass lines and the overall progressions in those songs, but it’s just too much for me sometimes. From what I understand, he didn’t use loops or ProTools up until 5, so Fly Away and the other tracks are the first time he did it and it’s probably really obvious because he was new to it.

    But I know you were commenting on samples and listeners as opposed to Kravitz. So sorry for the tangent! But anyway, my opinion on it, being a musician that works with loops, is 1. most people don’t notice them or even understand how they work exactly, 2. to take it a step further, they don’t even listen to music wondering how it gets put together, and 3. you’re average non-musician doesn’t care whether it’s a loop or full performance, only how the song feels when they listen to it.