Work & Dreams II

Posted on June 27, 2010 by Brian John Mitchell

Working on press releases & the digital download files for the new releases.  The Remora (with 32 page comic & 10 page booklet!), Lotte Kestner, & The Wet Teens are done except uploading & making them available on the site.  Still a little work to do on the Irata & Rivulets on the press releases & art.  Then a couple of free releases to work on.  Then the promo for everything

I was looking at the release numbers & I’m getting dangerously close to Silber 100.  Kinda crazy.

Last Nights Dreams:
I’m playing guitar for a hip hop band in a stadium.  My rig is essentially my normal rig except that I have two noise gate pedals.  One is at the front of my rig & is an old Digitech one & the other is at the end of the rig & I don’t recognize it, but it looks like a Rocktron or an Ashdown or maybe even a ProCo (I’m not even sure if any of those companies make noise gates).

I’m with my wife (who I don’t recognize as ever having seen before in my life (she’s 5’5″ & about 105 pounds with blond hair in a Peter Pan haircut)) in a grocery store that we don’t normally go to & I can’t find anything that I’m looking for & I feel incredibly lost & hate that I keep running into the meat section & it seems like half the store is decorated with dried/cured pieces of pig in the plastic sacks that oranges used to cut in.  We finally make it home & my wife is telling me she only plans to go back to the United States twice before she dies – once when her band is booked to play Disney World & once to get her toes repaired.  I look at her toes & two of the toes on her right foot (two of the three I still have no feeling in) are permanently curved under her other toes.  What fucking country am I in?

I’m traveling through time, but always in the context of landing in my own body (Slaughterhouse 5 style) & I have a tattoo on my right shoulder that functions as a calendar that I’m constantly updating so I can know when I am at any time.  It occurs to me it might be a better idea to invest in a good watch & wear it at all times.

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1980s Cartoons/silberspies/Jakarta/Irata/Rivulets/Mecha/AUTOreverse

Posted on June 25, 2010 by Brian John Mitchell

Today opens with a bit of a sad news, so I’ll close the blog with something incredibly uplifting.

The two bands from Jakarta (Echolight & Slylab) that were supposed to have digital releases with Silber have decided to seek release elsewhere because they want physical releases.  Which I can totally understand & respect.  Two years ago I would’ve said the same thing.  In fact I’m pretty sure I literally did say the same thing.  So best of luck to them, especially as I don’t really know much about the market in the country where they live.  It does make me a little sad as I did like the idea that a modest profit from a release could significantly effect their lives & I was hoping for an in to get some Remora shows in Jakarta because the city fascinates me.

So the Irata album I’m working on is a re-issue of their self-released record.  I spent most of the day yesterday re-tooling the artwork.  It ends up that the copy of the record I have has an alternate copy of the album artwork that they only used for the first batch & that’s not what they want to be using.  Ooooops.

The Rivulets – Demos record is going to be released exclusively through the Silber download shop & not be available at other download outlets.  It’ll be an interesting prospect to see if it makes a difference sales wise.

Did some paperwork for getting the Remora: Mecha disc so it will be available through other download outlets.  I’m pretty stoked about that the record will be a success or debacle & that there isn’t much space in between.

Ian Stewart contacted me today & it made me re-read the little interview he did with me back in 1999 in AUTOreverse which was a big deal to me at the time.  It’s interesting flipping through it & seeing a lot of things from people I’m still in touch with as both Drekka & Electric Bird Noise are reviewed in that issue.  Wow.  It’s incredible how many of us are still the exact same place 11 years later.

I got in a little sketch from Dave Sim that I commissioned of Cerebus in a plague doctor mask.  I guess I need to ask if I can have it in the rotating images on the Silber website.  If anyone does a sketch or painting of the Silber logo, send it to me & I’ll put it in rotation.

I found a Starriors comic (one of the mini-ones that came with the robots) in the attic yesterday & so today I was looking around for more of the comics online & came across a blog about 1980s cartoons & toys.  & there was a big entry on Jayce & the Wheeled Warriors, which led me to stumbling across this:

So now I’m thinking Remora should do some covers.  I think I could get behind any of these with the exception of Jem, Defenders of the Earth, & The Dinosaucers (mainly because the lyrical content doesn’t grab me).  All the others are practically Remora songs in lyrical content.  Which ones would you most like to hear?  Please comment below.

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Irata, Rivulets, Mini-Comics, Ads, Magnetic Brains

Posted on June 24, 2010 by Brian John Mitchell

Recreated the artwork for Irata’s album.  The original art files were lost so I had to scan it in, run some filters to get rid of printing dots, erase the text & then put the text back in so it would be legible.  Took longer than I expected, but I am pretty pleased with the final result.

I sent new mastered versions of the Rivulets stuff for approval.  I think it’s getting really close to ready & done.

Did another wave of follow-up for the mini-comics.

I got a letter from Dave Sim where he pitched an interesting idea for trying to get advertisers.  He said I should design the ads for the companies & send them a copy of the ad & ask for the money so I can place it, because people are too lazy to make their own ads.  An interesting idea.  I’m not sure that I really want to do that, but is probably a way to increase the number of ads.  In fact there were a couple ads last time that did work that way, with people on tour asking me to just dummy up something from their logo & they’d send me a replacement in a month’s time.  I haven’t received any replacement ad spots however.  So maybe he’s right.

I hear that putting magnets on one side of your head can cause hallucinations & feelings of calm & being close to God.  I think I need to try it out….  I also should figure out which side of the head….

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Gearing Up for the Future

Posted on June 23, 2010 by Brian John Mitchell

I got some work done towards the new releases today.  Did the layout for the press releases for Lotte Kestner & The Wet Teens, encoded the Irata songs, made The Wet Teens digital booklet.  So I’m feeling good.  Did a little work towards their websites on Silber as well.

Talked to Brian McKenzie a bit more about the state of the music industry & his upcoming albums on Silber.

Talked to Nic Slaton a bit about what he’s been up to lately & if the future of music is playing shit your embarrassed to be associated with (meaning, in part, me trying out hacking it as a straight singer-songwriter type doing covers of Jimmy Buffet & the Beatles & other things I don’t know about or possibly just doing Leadbelly covers (which I think I would enjoy & not be embarassed by)).

I’ve been thinking about doing a series of people responding to topics for QRD.  I’ve been wanting to get some people’s take on how long copyrights should last (currently life plus 100 years or evidently forever if it’s done work for hire for a corporation) given that patents (which I’d say are a reasonably similar form of intellectual property) generally last fifteen years.

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Pluses & Minuses

Posted on June 22, 2010 by Brian John Mitchell

Got my nephew’s comic printed out for him & he loved it.  Makes me feel like I did something right in my life.

Some problem seems to have developed with my digital download shop.  Trying to get it fixed.  Kind of annoying.  Just when I was about to launch the new releases.

The recordings with Ted Johnson well.   I’ll let you know if/when they become available.

Did a bunch of research in adding new contacts to the Silber promo list.

Just booked a Remora show in Roanoke for July 3!

More soon….

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Mecha, ATC, PRs, Summer Solstice, Father’s Day

Posted on June 20, 2010 by Brian John Mitchell

Put together the first batch of Remora: Mecha.  I’ll get it up for sale on the site soon.  I still need to assemble a bunch more.

Finished the layout for my nephew’s comic & I’ll print them out for him tomorrow.

Got the go ahead on the press releases I wrote for The Wet Teens & Lotte Kestner.  Have to design them next.

I just filled out an application for a grant for the ATC project so I’ll be able to pay contributors.  I’m hoping it comes through.  But who wouldn’t hope that?

Doing some recording with Ted Johnson tomorrow for his Summer Solstice jam series.

It just flipped over to Father’s Day & it makes me think about why me & my father have such a not-so-good relationship.  I think the real answer is that I am not satisfied with where I am in my life & I’m projecting that on to him as disapproval.  I know that when he hears things about me going on tour or appearing at a comic convention or having paintings in a gallery or getting a grant from the government that he thinks I must be doing something right even if he doesn’t personally get it.

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Inserts, Press Releases, Pow Wow, Comics, Lyrics

Posted on June 19, 2010 by Brian John Mitchell

Got some things worked on today.

Wrote up the first & second drafts of the Lotte Kestner press release.  Tried to make it pretty minimal to fit the music.

Cut up & folded a bunch of stuff for the Remora: Mecha inserts.

Did some layout for Extreme Lost Kisses to give Nick Marino an easier time drawing it.

Did some layout for the collaborative comic between my nephew & Jason Young (Veggie Dog Saturn, Cops & Crooks).  I’m always excited about the idea of doing something for someone that essentially no one else in the world would do.

I tried to talk to my grandmother about Pow Wow (it’s a folk magic from eastern Pennsylvania) because I know that her husband was somehow tangentially involved with it & she went into a tirade about how that it was something no one my age should know about & no one since her grandmother’s day believed in it & I should never mention it again.  Wow.  Seems like some sorta story that no one knows is lurking there.

I recorded some demo stuff last night.  It’s interesting how at one point I was really comfortable writing lyrics & had trouble writing guitar parts & now it’s the other way around.  I really have trouble finding a lyric I can hold on to as worth my breath lately.  & a lot of the songs I’ve done with lyrics lately are just a repetitive hook (hip hop style).  I think part of it is before I was writing so many comics (& blogging so much for that matter) the lyrics were the only way to get story & emotional ideas out of my head.  & I have come to the conclusion over the years I should tell a story in the way to best share the ideas of it & I think the lyrics just aren’t the spot right now.  Or maybe I’m just out of the 1000 bad songs that they say everyone has to write & writing the good ones is much more difficult.  It’s a nice idea, but I hardly think I’m done writing horrible songs….

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Research, Just A Man, Contact Forms, Recording, Shows Across the Country

Posted on June 18, 2010 by Brian John Mitchell

I spent a lot of the day doing some more research on blogs to service.  I also figured out how to use Alexa to find webzines I should service & went through a bunch of those.  About eight hours working on it for about 10 new possible contacts.  I think it’s definitely getting to the point where my research time would be better spent just working on creating more music/comics/etc.

Just A Man got excepted for distro on a digital comic site.  Kinda excited about it.  We’ll see how it works out.  It seems there’s a lot of these digital distro places popping up (much like there is in music) & it’s hard to tell the useless ones with good web design from the ones that actually have clients who buy the content they provide.

Entered Just A Man & the Vlor video into a film festival.

I was listening to an interview that said that social networking is responsible for generating less than 10% of music purchases & 30% of direct music sales are generated from emails from labels/bands.  So I’m wanting to do some more things with getting more email addresses from fans to send out the 4 or 5 emails I do a year about new releases.  So I wanted to add a little contest page for free downloads or whatever in exchange for entering their email & such.  Unfortunately I’ve tried about a dozen free scripts that are supposed to do this, but none of them worked.  I know someone is going to tell me to use FanBridge or something, but I’m really dumb about wanting something where I have absolute control over things & not going third party.  So if anyone has any suggestions for what to do for getting a submission form that would work that doesn’t use a computer’s email program (not a “mailto” command), please let me know.  Also does anybody know if I do something with a mailto command on MySpace do they rearrange the code so it doesn’t work on pages of my popularity (they do that for Paypal links which is lame)?

I did some more recording on my “secret project.”  Did a first mix down as well.  So we’ll see what I think about it.  I probably won’t do a final mix of it until August.  I think it might be released as “Brian John Mitchell” instead of Remora or Small Life Form.  Even compared to Small Life Form it is very “this is about sound & the way it works & effects human beings” & maybe makes sense to have my name on it.  But then again putting my name on my music makes the “real” version of “me” exist even a little less than it already does.

Tonight kicks off PD Wilder‘s tour with a San Francisco show with Sarah June & Carta & Summer of Glaciers.  Seems like what I should be doing.  Or at least I should be able to fly across the country to see a show with three bands on my label.  Maybe one day….

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short & sweet.

Posted on June 17, 2010 by Brian John Mitchell

Laundry list style of things done:

Got some images done for some QRD adswaps.

Recorded another track for my top secret recording project.

Worked some more on mastering the Rivulets Demos.

Worked on booking some shows.

Talked with Brian McKenzie about preparing some things for the recordings this August.

Tried to work on a comic script with a result of epic fail.

Last night’s dream:
I wake up & try to pull the cover off.  I forgot about my right arm.  That it doesn’t function.  I just keep it for aesthetic purposes to make myself look symmetrical.

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Working on Getting Some Work Done

Posted on June 16, 2010 by Brian John Mitchell

Spent a few hours trying to make a little form for running contests where people would join the Silber mailing list in exchange for a chance to win some Silber items.  It didn’t work out for me.

Wrote the first & second drafts for the Wet Teens press release.  So I feel like I got something done today.

So I finally got my web stats to be able to be read since switching servers.  I think something is up as they seem to say my stats are below what they’ve traditionally been for QRD.  Maybe the new server is doing more stuff with caching.  Which is fine I guess, but it makes me have a hard time knowing what to tell people about stats for selling ads.  It was interesting to see that the most viewed guitarist in the new QRD is Darren Hayman (Hefner).  Also their didn’t appear to be a significant spike of visitors since the new QRD went up, which is a little strange to me.

Last night I had a dream that Jamie Barnes had been working out & his body looked like Lou Ferigno (sp?) which is a funny idea.

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