i was inspired by jack conte’s video songs and wanted to put together one of my own. i’m following his rules that he uses for his videos:

“1. What you see is what you hear (no lip-syncing for instruments or voice).
2. If you hear it, at some point you see it (no hidden sounds).”

hope you like it. the song is also on songfight right now. head on over to listen to all of the songs in the fight.

The third Collaboration Song is done! So many thanks for the amazing samples from Wyatt, Marc & Alec Nuckols, James Santiago, Dave Patrikios, Yumenomado, Chris Fudurich, Brielle Zbub, and Brian Page.

Beth’s On Fire – DOWNLOAD – Lyrics

I just finished the song “Driving Forever”, the newest song on my upcoming collaboration album. Hope you like it.

Driving Forever – DOWNLOAD – Lyrics

Thanks to the great audio samples from Chris Fudurich, Brian Page, Jeremy Quinn, Tim Godwin, Terry Burton, Daniel Pisciotta, Dave Patrikios, and Jeremy Starpoli.

 
I’ve created a replica of my life in my mind.
A place where we can sleep with the lights off.
I’m no longer angry all of the time,
Lie down in the snow, I know i can die.

 
Follow me home. We are so alone.
We both want a simple life, but it’s not ours to know
Only a matter of time before you go
Love me or not, you still leave me low.

 
Summer is over, autumn leaves blow
My love for you is part regret and part sorrow
You’re crying at the rest stop again
In a foggy haze, this road it never ends
We’ll be driving forever.

 
Driving forever. This road has no end.
We can never be together again.
Only a matter of time before you go
Love me or not you still leave me low.

 
If you’re interested in getting involved in this Creative Commons music collaboration project, check out my Sounds Like You page.

Thanks to everyone that came out to the show at Hotel Cafe. This was the first time that State Shirt songs were realized by a full band. And I was lucky to have recruited some amazing musicians.

Dave Patrikios, formerly of the popular NYC rock band The Realistics has been praised as “a fucking excellent drummer” and I was lucky enough to enlist him. Chris Candelaria, bassist with LA band Twinstar also joined on and stepped in with rock solid backing vocals. Michael Ashton joined us on keys and pretty much learned the songs overnight. And Jaime Kime, probably best known as the Grammy award-winning guitarist from Zappa Plays Zappa, stepped in as our official guitar wizard.

Here are some photos from the show… Hope to see you at the next one.

And here are a few pics of Song and Wager, featuring Dave Patrikios on drums. And his wife Mary O’Reilly made a guest appearance for an awesome cover of Iggy Pop and Kate Pierson’s “Candy”…

Recorded this one a few months back. Set up four cheapo digital cameras and recorded a rehearsal of the song “Time to Go”. All sounds created live, nothing prerecorded.

I love derivative works! And here are some derivative works that have been created recently that are very good. All of these remixes of State Shirt songs are courtesy of the remixers on ccMixter.

Solid from first note to last. “This is on the Stairs” by Neurowaxx is chosen as ccMixter Editor’s Pick. A mashup of my song “This is Old” and “Passing on the Stairs” by The Starry Tides.
Neurowaxx – This is on the Stairs

DoKashiteru delivers yet another great remix with this lush version of Computer:
DoKashiteru – Computer

Here’s a very cool progressive house remix of This is Old by nero.
nero – This is Old (Nero mix)

Minimal and simple electronica, yet very nice remix of my song “Life Isn’t Everything”.
metallius – One of These Days

Ok, one more! Artemis Strong kicks your ears in the ass with this unconventional and challenging mix. Very cool.
Artemis Strong – Conway Station Road (North Conway Mix)

Any other new remixes that should be posted up here? Comment below and let me know!

I just finished recording a cover of Electronic’s “Disappointed”. I had never even heard the original song until about a month ago. Hell I had never even heard of the band. But there was something really good at the core of this song and I wanted to try a version of my own.

In case you also didn’t know, Electronic were an “alternative dance group formed by New Order singer and guitarist Bernard Sumner and ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr.” Thanks Wikipedia. I’m a fan of both New Order and Johnny Marr. Not sure how I missed this band? The track “Disappointed” is from 1992 and made a dent on US charts, and even features Neil Tennant of Pet Shop Boys on vocals. Though I guess I can see how I missed this song–terrible early 90′s bands like UB40, Snow and Color Me Badd really soured me on pop music at the time. But this Electronic song was fun to dig into.

Here’s my version of Electronic’s “Disappointed”. Click below to play. Hope you like it:

Disappointed – Lyrics

If you could cover a song, what would it be? What other songs should I cover?

And just for fun, here’s the original (and strange) video from 1992. Primitive computer graphics, Neil Tennant looking bored, some dude holding a giant gold sphere. Enjoy

So, the day has finally come. Today is officially Mustache Monday. Though I may keep it for the entire month.

EDIT: Here are the other members of the Mustachathon providing their own personal brand of mustachitude.

Thanks to all the mustache pioneers for making this day possible, here are just a few of the greats: Tom Selleck, Burt Reynolds, Weird Al Yankovick, John Oates, Ned Flanders, Mario, Freddie Mercury, Wilford Brimley, Cap’n Crunch, The Nuge, Frank Zappa, Gene Shalit, Sam Elliott, Salvador Dali and Yosemite Sam.

The first song on my still yet to be titled Collaboration Album has been finished, and is posted below!

Thanks to the amazing audio provided by Orchestral Movement of 1932, Dave Patrikios, James Santiago and Yumenomado, I was able to cut, remix and shape their samples into the song “Cassettes” this evening. Hope you like it.

Cassettes – DOWNLOAD – Lyrics

More songs will follow in the coming weeks.

You send me audio. I remix and sing. Together we make an album.

Even though 40 people were nice enough to get involved with this collaboration project, I still don’t have enough audio samples to create an entire album of music. How about you get involved in this super-fantastic open source music project and submit some samples of your own? That would be great!

Join the likes of Tim Godwin (he played in Air Supply, for chrissakes), Dan Friel (Parts & Labor), Dave Patrikios (of the kick-ass yet now-defunct band The Realistics), Chris Fudurich (producer for Nada Surf, Sophie B Hawkins, Rx Bandits), and a bunch more talented and creative people who you don’t know but absolutely should:

* Bill Belina (a bunch of guitar parts)
* Brian Page (a ton of phat drum beats)
* DJ12XU (super noise)
* Chris Fudurich (piano, drums, loops, wurlitzer!)
* Dan Cohen (geetah)
* Dave Patrikios (guitar, piano, synths)
* Eric Pokorny (guitar, vocals, screaming kids)
* James Santiago (supah guitar parts, samples)
* Jeremy Starpoli (a ton of trombone)
* Terry Burton (guitar)
* Fluffy (synth, bass)
* Jon Eric (noises)
* Nate Quinn (drums, djembe, conga, sax)
* Jeremy Quinn (ebow guitar, noise)
* Tim Godwin (guitar)
* Brent Stansfield (songs, guitar, vocals)
* Matt Larsen (piano)
* Dan Friel (noises)
* Orchestral Movement of 1932 (drums, bass, gtr)
* Artemis Strong (noises)
* Yumenomado (synths)
* Wyatt (synths)
* Bartley Hinson (guitars)
* Steve Rydz (guitars)
* … and more

Send me drumbeats, noises, guitar parts, a cappella vocals, accordion, part of a song you never finished, spoken words, screaming, your cat. Whatever you’re inspired to send. I will merge, tweak, remix and piece together all of your samples and make an album. Be a part of open source music. Your audio submission will get used. Everything you send will be incorporated in to the album. Do it now.

Thanks and good evening.

There were a ton of very well done remixes for the State Shirt “Fell Out Of The Sky” AcidPlanet.com remix contest. Thanks to everyone that entered. It was very difficult to choose a winner, but one song did bubble it’s way to the top. Jasinski gets the honors with the 1st place remix, and goes home with brand-spanking new Acid Pro software and five loop libraries.

Here is his winning remix:

Jasinski – Fell Out Of The Sky

And here are the runner up remixes:

S:t Vital – Fell Out Of The Sky (Analog Overdose Remix)
Yumenomado – Coming Down
Vynil Rob – Out Of State
700P3D – Fell Out Of The Sky (700P3D.de Remix)
Silenx – Fell Out Of The Sky (Silenx Renaissance Mix)

And, here are a couple more really sweet remixes that have been added to ccMixter.

Here’s a crazy mashup of This is Old — DJ Vadim vs. State Shirt:
Caujito Ben – Saturday Is Old

And a kick ass trance-y version of Fell Out Of the Sky by Khaustic:
Khaustic – Fell Out Of The Sky

StrangerOnEarth put together a nice flowing Don’t Die remix:
StangerOnEarth – Don’t Die

Cool 1980′s/DrumNBass/Synth Pop version of This Is Old:
Sloan – This Is Old (Hartkern Reassembly)

And you can find a ton more here… I’ll be updating the remix page soon with all of the new remixes that have been made.

Which one is your favorite? Is there a State Shirt remix you’ve found that isn’t posted on my site? Comment here!

Long story short:
- I was inspired by Steve Porter’s Slap Chop infomercial remix featuring Vince Offer of ShamWow! fame.
- Decided it was necessary to create a State Shirt Slap Chop remix. And submit it to SongFight. And create a music video. In 7 days. Here are the results.

MP3 of the song “I Am A Target”

Here’s the music video/remix video. Click here to watch in HD!

Long story long:

The last week was a unique learning experience for me. I had just heard Steve Porter’s remix of the Slap Chop infomercial. It’s pretty great. That got me thinking, how do you even create a youtube video remix? It took a few minutes playing around to realize that Ableton Live is a great place to start.

So I just kinda started piecing together parts of the original Slap Chop commercial, and found that some of the voice samples were downright somber when taken out of context. Started to write a song around the samples and quickly realized that this track could work out well as a SongFight entry. After some guitar, piano, synths, drums and vocals, the song was finished in a few hours.

Then some weird-ass crazy shit happened. I must have gone to sleep and had a crazy dream about being an infomercial salesman or something, because I woke up knowing that I needed to buy a blue apron and a shitty 13″ television in order to build a music video for the song. Total budget = $26! I borrowed a sweet Panasonic HVX200 and started shooting. Angela Heine shot some of the outdoor footage. Editing was done in Final Cut.

Overall it was a pretty fun experience to put together a song and accompanying video in just one week. Weird thing is I didn’t set out to do any of this, it just sorta happened. I need a beer (or four) now.

Check it, an interview with me over on jemsite.com, as part of their “Guitar Hero” series. The site is generally dedicated to Ibanez guitars (of which I have none) but they do a lot of interesting interviews with artists and musicians. Usually people that play guitar much better than I do. Head on over there and read the interview!

Hey, FrostClick posted a rather sweet review of This Is Old. “…it has quickly become one of my favorites this year with heavy rotation on my iPod”. head on over there to check it out. Thanks to Gabriel for posting a link to my store… yes I have some nice t-shirts, you want one.

So I’m really blown away by the quality of the remixes that were created for the AcidPlanet “Fell Out Of The Sky” remix contest. Contest winner will be chosen shortly!

:: Listen to the AcidPlanet remixes!

And a bunch more great remixes have come in through ccMixter.

:: Check out all State Shirt ccMixter remixes!

Remix my song “Fell Out Of The Sky” and get entered to win a bunch of stuff! Grand prize winner will receive: Sony ACID Pro (MSRP $499), Five Loop Libraries (MSRP $499) and a bunch of merchandise from me. Contest ends Friday April 17!

Create a remix and enter the contest!

This Is Old continues to weave it’s way through thar interwebs:
- Read an interview, with, uh, me at masslive.com
- Holy crap, almost 1000 hearts for my song “Computer” on thesixtyone.com
- Nice writeup over at buzzbands.la
- A nice piece all the way from Tel Aviv, courtesy of Laughing Evergreens

Over 100 stations playing State Shirt
This Is Old continues to get played on college and independent radio across the US. Over 100 stations are playing new State Shirt music. The album hit #7 at KSLU St Louis, #26 at WAIH Postdam NY, #12 at WTTU Cookeville, TN, #28 at WFCS New Britain CT, #22 at WNHU West Haven CT, #13 at URH Hilo Hawaii, #18 WMXM at Lake Forest IL, #24 at Naperville IL, #15 at WCYT Fort Wayne IN, #24 at KSCL Shreveport LA, #27 at WMLN Milton MA, #27 at WUSB Stony Brook Ny, #10 at WBGU Bowling Green Oh, #13 at WPPJ Pittsburgh PA, and #18 WXJM Harrisonburg VA!

New Song
A few days ago I recorded a new song in my kitchen. Video is here. Song is below. Hope you like it.
State Shirt – Suffer Someday (Live)

Remixes
A bunch of new remixes have come in. Here are just a few. Remix contest winner will be announced shortly!
Diode (Terry Burton) – Computer (Analog Mix by Diode)
The Orchestral Movement of 1932 – Conway Station Road (The Next Train Mix)
Show Your Shoe – Fell Out Of The Sky (Show Your Shoe remix)
Teru – Enter…
Decaying_Machine – Chemma Chi [dark times machine rmx]
Ballzac – Fell Out Of The Sky (commercial dance remix)
Christof Barber – Computer (Christof Barber remix)

I remixed myself
Is it a faux pas to remix yourself? A couple days ago I created a mashup of several Vidian songs with my song “Life Isn’t Everything”. It also features vocals from c.layne, Brad Sucks and Kristen Hersh for good measure. Definitely doesn’t sound like State Shirt– has more of a Daft Punk feel.
State Shirt – Almost Alive (mash-up)

More songs to remix
A few more songs are available for remixing. Source files for Life Isn’t Everything, Don’t Die and Edison’s Medicine are available for downloading here.

I’ve been playing around with a new live setup that includes a couple drums and keyboards, as well as guitar and my usual effects and looper pedals. I just wrote this song yesterday, still not 100% sure on the song title yet. I set up all of my crap in the kitchen and recorded a little live performance. Hope you like it.

Over the last couple months, there have been over 70 remixes of State Shirt songs that have been made by people all over the world, and it’s been really cool to hear everyone’s take on the music. Since it’s been going so well, I figured hey why not have another remix contest? Well here it is.

Create a tasty remix of a State Shirt song between January 19 and February 26 and enter to win Propellerhead Reason 4 music production software, State Shirt t-shirt and other yet-to-be-announced goodies. Source files for my songs are available here. All you need to do is:

1. Create a super badass remix of one of my songs (or several remixes, there is no limit).

2. Submit the remix by emailing me with an MP3 attachment or link to the MP3.

Me and my team of remix experts will pick the most super-est fantastic remix of the month. And give you the prize. Contest rules are here. Bonus points go to people who also upload their remix to ccMixter.org!

Thanks!