Irata, ST, Distro

Posted on July 10, 2010 by Brian John Mitchell

Got the Irata digital booklet & press release done.  Uploading the download for the shop right now.  Still have to update the website about it.

Did an interview for Sequential Tart, I’ll let you know when it’s up.  Strangely I got the question “where do you get your ideas?” & I normally give some glib remark, but I took it as opportunity to figure out some things about how my mind & art actually work together.

Got some stuff back from some distros that I hadn’t heard from in a while about settling accounts.  Which is good & bad.  On the one hand there should be some money, on the other hand less physical distribution.  Less distribution & the return of QRD, feels like 1997….

I’ve been having problems with some emails not coming through & others not going out lately.  Trying to get my webhost to figure out what the issue is.  Quite irksome though.

I just found out the cartoon Generator Rex is based on a comic book (M Rex).  Sometimes my level of comic book geek seems a little low.

More tomorrow….

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QRD, Irata, Mecha, Intern, YouTube, Invoices, Demos

Posted on July 9, 2010 by Brian John Mitchell

I got in the last couple of interviews for QRD today.  So the issue should go live next week.  Which is putting me on a five week schedule instead of a monthly schedule.  Which I think is pretty good.  First time in maybe 14 years the issues have been this close together.  I think  it was nearly every six weeks or so for about the first six issues.

The Irata with the new artwork came in.  Have to fix it up for the digital booklet tomorrow.

Still working on getting things ready for the Myspace promo on the new releases.  I know a lot of you haven’t heard the Remora: Mecha record yet, but I’m curious what bands you think I should have as “recommended if you like” – you can hear/download three tracks at GimmeSound to give you an idea.

I got a new intern that actually applied for the job (I posted it on a music job site) who’ll be starting this fall (right around the time to update all the college radio contacts).  So I’m pretty excited about that idea.

I wrote a little piece about the YouTube advertising I did for the Vlor video at Music Think Tank.

I got out all of my quarterly invoices to my distros today (laid out a new way to do it which took longer this time, but should make things faster every quarter from here on out).  So that feels pretty good, but unfortunately I have gotten a few emails back saying “no sales this quarter.”  Which isn’t too surprising given the state of things, but still disconcerting.  I like to think that the music is still selling but somehow not through direct channels.  Well, we’ll see what happens.  If the options are to complain all day or make more music/art/etc, I say stop complaining.

Recorded a couple little vocal demo ideas.  When the day comes to start transcribing all these ideas into songs, I’m going to be worn out.  I should just leave them around for future generations like Tupac.

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Digital Booklets & Twitter

Posted on July 8, 2010 by Brian John Mitchell

A rough day today in things associated with my life, so not as much done today as I’d hoped.

Got out the next round of follow up for my mini-comics.  I think a lot of the comic book reviewers seem a little less fascinated with my minis for each group of them they receive & less likely to give them coverage. On the one hand that makes sense, but they review each issue of Green Lantern….

In the digital downloads there were thirteen releases that didn’t have as good of digital booklets as I’d like, so today I remade two of them.  One day I’ll get them all done.

Looking into Pay with a Tweet for when the next Silber sampler is ready.  That people will have the option of “paying” by posting about it on Twitter or actually paying $1.  What do you think of the idea?

Also planning to add some Twitter stuff onto the QRD pages for the new issue.

Since I seem to be talking a lot about Twitter, it was released today that Twitter is now the second most popular search engine (below Google, above Yahoo & Bing).  According to Alexa Twitter is currently the 11th most popular site worldwide & 9th in the USA (just FYI, MySpace is still #13 in the USA).

Also according to Alexa Silber lost its popularity in The Philippines, now the country where we’re the most popular is the UK.  Maybe because of the interviews with Darren Hayman, Colin Newman, & Chris Olley in QRD?

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End of Quarter Work, QRD Work, New Release Work, Work, Work, Work, Work

Posted on July 7, 2010 by Brian John Mitchell

So I got out the last of the royalty checks today which is always good.  Of course right afterwords I got my bank statement that showed me that CD Baby had sent me two payments for a total of $150 that they didn’t email me about so the royalty checks would have been a little higher if I’d known that before hand.

Filed my tax paperwork for the end of the quarter with the state.

Got a check from some of the corporate link stuff that is currently on QRD.

Did some work towards getting the next QRD ready.  Sadly less external pre-paid ads this time out instead of more, but that’s fine.  I know it takes a while to get things to happen & I have plans to help change that around in the not too distant future.  Basically I’m going to try to get some promotions companies & people who do advertisement bundles to sell the ads for me.  They would get half the money, so the debate is, do I double the price & give them half the money?  Have the standard rate doubled what I offer & when I solicit sales people feel like they’re getting a deal?  Seems like it is what I should do.

Still working on things for the next MySpace promo wave.  With the five releases at once I want to get them all done before I start anything so I don’t multi-mail people.

The Irata disc I need to scan the artwork of to get that release ready seems to have been lost in the mail between Raleigh & Greensboro, which is retarded.

I need to try to re-work my Google ad campaigns so that it includes about the past 20 releases.  I’ll keep it at spending $30 a month, just spread out even thinner.  I still haven’t really ever figured out how to track sales versus traffic (which I know is kind of important) to see if the ads are worth it at all.  But it seems like they could do something for people seeing the name around.

A lot more end of quarter & end of month work to do.  I might go to bed early for a long day tomorrow.

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iTunes Help, Interns, Life Value, A Couple Other Things

Posted on July 6, 2010 by Brian John Mitchell

Well, the Remora show in Roanoke went well, but I haven’t listened to the recording.  A little less well than the Raleigh show, but probably because I was a little more uptight at the venue (an art gallery with things in the $1000 price range instead of the $50 price range).  It is where I should be playing though if I want to make money, a higher profile crowd with more disposable income.

Lately it seems like a lot of people are catching up with the blog & calling me on the phone about my health problems (the numbness in my right side).  & I’m hearing myself saying fucked up things like: “Right now my life isn’t worth $20,000 to me.”  Which is just a nuts thing to hear out of anyone’s mouth.  I totally need to shift some things around so I have more things I’m looking forward to in the short term & long term of my life.

Posted up on this professional music job site about the Silber intern program.  Hopefully it’ll get me some more help running things & give some hungry young people some experience with what the music industry is like.  At least I envision that I impart people with knowledge & experience in exchange for free labor.

I read an article by Ariel Hyatt about how to make more money on iTunes.  Basically it’s about iMixes.  So I’d like to make a formal request to any of you that use iTunes to make an iMix or two that contains a Silber track or two (& since most of you readers are musicians, put in one of your own songs as well).  Thanks.

I’m going to be trying to do some remixes in the next couple of days.  Which seems exciting.  We’ll see if I actually do it.

I wrote another Casual Bombs (newish project with Katy Otto (Exotic Fever Records)) song today.  It’s funny because it’s turning into a bit of a Low rip-off band, but not ripping off the aspect most people do with Low.  Ripping off the way the boy-girl harmonies work together…..

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Last Night

Posted on July 3, 2010 by Brian John Mitchell

Based on my practice on Thursday I was ready to give up playing guitar.  But the show last night went really well sonically in general.  I think there’s something about Remora in its current incarnation where things work better way too loud.  Plus it’s hard to be aggressive sitting in a chair in the living room compared to standing on a stage.  So I’m feeling better about things.  About to go to Roanoke for tonight’s show.  Smell you all later.

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Blogs, Robots, Comics

Posted on July 2, 2010 by Brian John Mitchell

Spent a lot of the day reading this really long set of posts from bloggers about what they want in an email from a label or promo company.  It was interesting how a lot of it was people complaining that they get bulk mailed instead of personal mails.  Which is funny to me.  Do they really think people can read 2000 different blogs even if it is for their job?  But the best post was a blogger complaining that they want to be informed before any other media outlets.  Ummm okay….

I have started getting emails recently trying to sell me Facebook spamming robots.  Which seems a little bit sad since I’ve been getting plenty of spam without it seeming robot oriented.  In a couple months maybe Facebook will be like Friendster.  & MySpace will still get most of it’s traffic from people reading the Silber blog.  Smiley Face.

I feel like I’m about to have a bunch of comic scripts fall out of my head.  Which is a good idea since I’m really behind in that department.  One of the reviewers of my stuff has been encouraging me to do some golden age fan fiction stuff & I think it might be something that happens.  Retelling stories from Marvel Comics #1 sounds like fun & I’m under the impression they currently look fairly favorably on fan fiction books (meaning they don’t sue or issue return & destroy orders).

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QRD, Drop D, End of Quarter, Recording

Posted on July 1, 2010 by Brian John Mitchell

Sent out the emails soliciting advertisers for the upcoming QRD for July.  Anybody that might want to advertise or know any advertisers most of the ads – http://silbermedia.com/qrd/advertise.html – prices are from $5-$30 which is super reasonable compared to anywhere.

It’s the end of the fiscal quarter & I spent most of the day doing paperwork associated with that.  Trying to get things ready for sending out invoices for distributors & of course paying the artists (the one part of the job worth doing, though I always wish it was more money going out to the artists).

I did practice a bit today for the shows coming up.  Wrote a new riff that is pretty definitely an eventual Vlor song doing “drop D” tuning which I really never do, but I thought it would sound a bit better & maybe I’ll move more into alternate tunings after the recordings this August of my current catalog.  Because I have been in a bit of a funk lately with having trouble getting new songs to shoot out like they used to.

I was working on recording today & evidently when a song already has around 40 hours of music recorded into it my computer can’t handle it.  I found that muting some of the channels allowed me to record.  I’m not sure what’s going to happen when time for mixing comes around though.  I might need to do sub mixes.  It’s nice to know that I’m pushing my hardware to its limit, makes me feel like I’m doing something right.  I know some people would say it means I need new hardware, but I always feel like that’s like saying, “No good music was made on a computer before 2005,” which I guess could be argued by some, but I think is a pretty invalid statement.

Sent out a copy of Remora: Mecha for trying to get a grant for performing in France.  We’ll see if anything comes of it.

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New Stuff & Practice

Posted on June 30, 2010 by Brian John Mitchell

So a few people ordered some of the new releases, which makes me feel useful as a human being.  Also got a distro order for a few hundred bucks (which is never quite as nice as an actual check) so it feels like a good day.

I entered Remora on http://www.gimmethegig.com to do a thing with Don Was.  It seems like a fun idea.  To vote for me you click on “R” then on the Remora video & then click “Like” as it’s playing.

Did some research on some bloggers to service.  One day maybe I’ll give up on the idea.

Starting to do some of the stuff for putting the legs on the promo work for these new releases.  Trying to get things happening while I’m still excited enough to do them.

I played some bass recording some demos for who knows what project (a Remora or Vlor album or just something that will never happen).  Good to have an instrument in my hands a bit as I have some shows coming.  I need to practice some of my own songs so I’ll be able to play them.  Plus preparing to record an album in six weeks, I need to get my technical prowess back up to its standard primitive level instead of being at a point where my left hand doesn’t know what it’s doing even when I’m looking at it.

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Now Available – Remora, Rivulets, Lotte Kestner, The Wet Teens – Plus Broken Mind Bonus

Posted on June 29, 2010 by Brian John Mitchell

I got some work done.  The Remora, Rivulets, Lotte Kestner, & The Wet Teens releases are all up & available now (well, technically two hours from now, but who’s reading this at 1 in the morning?) on the main Silber page.  Still have to update the catalog pages.  It’s good to have things ready & set & accomplished.  Just some work to do for the Irata (waiting for something to arrive in the mail to finish that one up) & then the work on some of the free release series & then the promo.

I’ve been having some dreams lately about veils of reality or whatever.  It seems like there’s foreshadowing in my life about life not being real sometimes.  It starts with when I was six & saw on TV a show based on that Mark Twain story that reveals the story is a dream & it ends with a phrase something like, “Go on to dream better dreams.”  So from there on it seems to be repeating.  Obviously there was the whole thing with Dallas that spawned a million TV dream plots a couple years after that (the one episode of Growing Pains where Ben finds out he is Jeremy Miller comes to mind in a pretty bizarre for mainstream television plotline). & all the various things based on An Incident at Owl Creek Bridge (including Last Temptation of Christ & Jacob’s Ladder (which of course I watched on acid because I was dumb in high school when it came out & I have to say it’s probably not a great film to watch in that situation)).  Then The Matrix & Donnie Darko & Existenz in the relatively recent era.  & for me the Cerebus book Minds & of course The Maxx.  But then the other day I was watching a documentary on the Science Channel & they had this professor who was saying (either as a devil’s advocate or as a genuine nut) that the fastest computers finally have the same processing power as the human brain, which means we could enter a system right now with computers processing being able to run models of entire human lives & within the near future we could develop cultures that live entirely in the computer system that would be evolving & developing & discovering things & where his idea gets screwy is he says the reason that we can’t figure out how to link all of physics together into a simple rile & all these other various glitches their seem to be in exactly how reality works on the massive universe scale & the tiny atom scale is because we’re in a system that was poorly developed with some bad data.  Is he a guy who watched the Matrix too many times or just running crazy ideas because they sound good for getting you on TV?  I think the same day I saw that I saw an episode of the Outer Limits where Ralph Macchio was running experiments to effect coma patients’ brains & dreams & of course they don’t know that they’re dreaming.  Which brings things around to post-modern philosophy & it ending with the truth being subjective & self-contained in each brain & therefore their not even being anything true or real enough to bother having conversations about (the potential solves for this argument that I am familiar with are the ideas of certain universals (varying from dream language archetypes (Jung)  to universal aesthetics (Goddamer (sp?)) to DNA & biological driven universals (deaf babies coo-ing (Noam Chomsky in his not political work))).  It makes my world/mind feel like it’s going to crack & think about all the various times I could be stuck in a dying moment or that I really am just a minor character in a novel.  All of this is exactly why I can’t do real drugs anymore.  Because lately my dreams seem as valid as my waking life & so do my little comics for that matter.  Maybe I’ll get stuck somewhere other than “here” & “now” soon enough.  But then again, don’t we all want that?

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