Over the last year or so i’ve given my fair share of free promotion to thesixtyone.com. a site that used to be one of my favorite music websites. that is until they broke it.

well they did more than just break it. they also managed to alienate their most fervent supporters.

t61 was (note past tense) an excellent place to discover new music. and as a musician it was a great place to be able to interact with and talk to people who like my music.

but t61 pretty much killed all of that when they launched their radically changed site last week. they removed just about everything that made it a unique place for listeners and artists to converge. all of the community features, posting comments, the great way you could discover new music. everything gone. in favor of a new design with big pretty pictures. i figured, hey, they’ll probably add some of this stuff back once the work out the kinks. but instead, they’ve taken on this ridiculously arrogant attitude, blocked all communication and ignored thousands of facebook and twitter complaints and suggestions. and pissed off their most passionate users, listeners and artists alike.

sure, you can do whatever you want with your website, even if that includes pissing off every one of your users. but i wouldn’t expect to be around long. it’s a bummer since all of my friends and fans there have left the site. And it makes me look like a schmuck for all of those times I’ve recommended their site.

The day it all went down I wrote and recorded a little protest song called “61 Ways”. I know it sounds ridiculous to write a protest song about a website. But I just couldn’t believe how egotistical and oblivious they were being. It’s sort of like a break up song. And a song about not having to put up with anyone’s arrogance. Fuck that shit.

61 Ways – DOWNLOAD – Lyrics

Are you a company that wants to alienate all of your customers? Read on:
- movement sixtyone
- I used to like thesixtyone
- dear thesixtyone
- an open letter to thesixtyone
- thesixtyone: life and death
- the redesign of T61 and listening to your users

And if you’re looking for a new site to discover music, try out Uvumi.

So what do you make of all this?

So I took a look back at the last 10 years and realized that I’ve only released maybe 30 songs. On one hand I’m happy that I’ve had the opportunity to create this music, collaborate with others and even just have some gear in this small bedroom studio. On the other hand, 30 songs in 10 years is only 3 songs a year. That’s pretty pathetic. Not that it’s necessary to be prolific. But it’s apparent that I’ve only spent a small part of my life working on music in the last 10 years. Or at least finishing it. I have gigabytes of unfinished songs sleeping in the corners of my studio.

I’ve been following a couple artists that have really inspired me over the last few weeks (namely Amanda Palmer and Jack Conte). I’m inspired by the fact that they are creative at every turn and make a career for themselves by being an artist every day. I’m done being an artist every 2 to 3 weeks. I’m sick of this being a hobby. So what do I do? Put music first and stop fucking around.

A song a week. AND a video a week.

Ok I know the song-a-week is not an new idea (Jonathan Coulton did it 5 years ago). But the idea is simple. Create something every day, and get some new music out there every week. The videos may range from simple acoustic performances to gear demos to full-blown music videos, depending on how much sleep I can go without.

At the end of the year I’ll compile them into albums and move the rejects to the dumpster.

Subscribe to my Youtube channel

So with that, here’s an invitation to subscribe to my YouTube channel, where all of these videos will be posted. They’ll also be on my FaceBook page. Come on and join me there as well!

Let me know if you have any suggestions for this project. Video ideas, cover song suggestions, questions about my gear, or anything else. I’d love to hear from you. Please comment below!

Here are the first couple videos from the project: “Crush” and “Frostbite”. Hope you like ‘em.

Over the last year or so I’ve been trying to get rid of stuff. Stuff I never look at, stuff I don’t need, stuff that’s just sitting in a box. After a while it just starts to feel like extra weight, like a burden. Maybe with the exception of the instruments in my studio, I don’t really want to own much of anything at all. I’ve had weird dreams that on the day I die I won’t own anything. Just lying on an old wooden floor of an empty 2nd story apartment. Would certainly make it easier for whoever needs to take care of the situation after I’m gone, all you’d need to deal with is a body.

I have hundreds of these old cassettes just sitting in milk crates and plastic tubs, most of them contain songs I’ve finished, songs I didn’t finish, songs that my friends an I worked on, guitar ideas, horrible synth ideas, live jams, spoken words, songs I love, songs I hate, skits I did with my sister and brothers when I was a kid.

They contain a lot of memories. But they just sit in the closet. Taking up space. Taking up mental space.

I must have spend thousands of hours recording stuff to cassettes. Started with a portable Panasonic recorder, recording what I thought were awesome piano ideas, and incredibly retarded 7-second improvised a cappella songs. I moved up to my mom’s boom-box, and did some crude multi-tracking by playing one tape recorder while recording to another. Sounded amazing, as you may have guessed.

Then finally the day came and I bought a Yamaha MT120 4-track. Came straight home from school every day and sat in front of this machine for 12 hours straight. I must have at least a thousand songs in various states of completion, just sitting there as magnetic particles encased in plastic. From the looks of it, I have at least 100 tapes that I recorded on my Yamaha 4-track, and another 100 tapes that I recorded on a newer Yamaha MT8X 8-track. And at least 60 in my series of “Tune Tapes”, where I’d just record skeleton ideas, musical sketches, guitar parts, keyboard ideas.

What the hell should I do with all of this music?

Let it sit and slowly degrade and demagnetize? Or spend months and months listening through all of this stuff to find the gems? Import the cassettes to my computer? And then do what with it? Now they’ll be sitting on a hard drive instead of in a milk crate.

I could upload unfinished stuff to ccMixter and see if anyone wants to remix it. I could do some sort of strange performance art piece where I do perform the music of one tape per week in various locations around the US. I could actually finish some of these songs I never finished when I was sixteen. Or I could just throw everything away.

After all, they are just memories. Like the photos of my childhood that sit in a shoebox. I look at them every few years, and it refreshes my memory. But it’s also a time that has passed, a time that is getting less and less significant with each passing second.

So, on my last day on this earth, do I really want to still have a crate of cassettes by my side, just to remind me of my past?

Untitled Instrumental
An instrumental I wrote when I was 17 or 18

Q
Wrote this for my friend Scott in ’97

Wrong Planet
My idea of a song, in 1984-ish?

Midnight Cowboy
My friend Adam and I did a cover of Midnight Cowboy (in the style of Faith No More), sometime in high school…

Weggy Wah Solar Neutrino
I like this one. Not sure how to explain it though.

2008 is almost over, finally.

2008 sucked.

2008 was the year of relationship and family bullshit.

2008 is the year of narcissistic fuckups.

2008 is yet another year of wanting to get the fuck out of LA.

2008 was a year of severing some ties, burning some bridges and building a few new ones.

2008 was the year of asbestos removal.

2008 was the year of rescuing and rehabilitating a dog that almost got killed by by a car.

(photo by phil hilfiker)

2008 rocked.

2008 was my year to actually touch a California gray whale, in the wild.

2008 was the year of road trips across the US to Massachusetts and NYC.

2008 was a year to be proud of my country yet extremely disappointed in my state.

2008 was a year of being fortunate enough to legally drive as fast as I want.

2008 was redemption for pissing away the last few years musically, and finally getting my new album released.

2008 was the year of shooting my first music video.

2008 was a year that I wouldn’t really want to repeat, but I will strangely miss it.

So this year has started off to a bit of a mess musically. New album is still not quite finished! The guy I was hoping would mix the album needed to back out. And I’ve been trying to work with an indie label over the last couple years and we just never seemed to get anything going. But I really have no one to blame but myself. It’s just taken me forever to finish writing and recording. I should have pushed myself harder to get it finished sooner but it’s a real pain for me to rush anything creative.

So how do I go about getting everything finished up? Take a 3 week road trip! Hmm, ok so maybe not the best way to finish the album, but at least the time away has started to give me a few ideas on how to get it finished up and released by late summer. I’m going to get back into SongFight a bit more and should have a few songs popping up here and there. Also the details are sketchy but there may be a couple remix releases coming out this summer. I’ll keep you posted.

After spending the last two days in Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park, I’m not sure I will want to return to L.A. I think I’m just bring my laptop, a guitar and a microphone and record here.

So I’m ramping up to get my new album finished and out into the world. The thing is I’m not sure exactly how I should do it. I really like the idea of a CD and album artwork and something that you tangible that you can hold onto, and the full-length album experience. Maybe I’m just nostalgic. Ever since the first time I heard OK Computer, I had to listen all the way through. And remembering back to high school driving around in my Ford Econoline listening to Helmet Meantime album on infinite repeat. I love the idea of the album, but I’m not sure anyone else does anymore.

Should I even release a CD at all? Does anyone buy CDs anymore? Or are you happy buying tracks as digital downloads from artist websites, iTunes, eMusic, etc? Should music just be free? Or would you feel bad taking music without paying for it? Should I offer the album on a USB thumb drive? Or put together a book of art, photos and illustration that goes along with the music?

I read a good blog post by Scott Andrew, who had some similar questions last year when he was getting his new album together. It does kinda suck to have so many songs just sitting there, waiting for me to get the whole album done. I could just release them one by one on my site– as I spend random evenings working on new music. So, should I dump the whole album idea? Or really find a new and interesting way to make it work?

I can’t believe that Don’t Die came out nearly 4 years ago. I have been working on new songs and writing and recording but sometimes the shit in my life piles up and I can’t quite get everything finished. But I’m finally there, 10 songs recorded and almost ready to go. Still putting the final touches on some vocals, and then it’s off to meet with producer Chris Fudurich (Nada Surf, Jimmy Eat World) to provide his expertise with mixing and production. I like the sound I get in my little 8′x8′ bedroom studio but it’s nice to have someone that I trust stick their ears to it.

I’ll be playing some of the new songs at Crane’s Tavern in Hollywood, CA on Sunday March 16. I think I’ve finally worked the glitches out of my gear setup. Two digital Echoplexes and a bunch of pedals. No more acoustic guitar, I’ll be kicking it with my $150 Fender Toronado. Come on out and see some live loop versions of the songs and have a $3 Pabst Blue Ribbon.

ok, so i’m sitting here at work, and i should probably be working. but instead of in addition to working i am making a list of some of the 5-star songs on my itunes. so if I were stuck on a desert island, would i want a disc of all these songs? Well i looked at the play counts of some of these songs, and they are less than many of the lower rated songs. I guess I just don’t want to wear them out.

Neurosis – “Cold Ascending” – Enemy of the Sun
Drive Like Jehu – “Caress” – Drive Like Jehu
Sebadoh – “Careful” – Bakesale
Drive Like Jehu – “Do You Compute” – Drive Like Jehu
Genesis – “Blood on The Rooftops” – Wind & Wuthering
Hayden – “Dynamite Walls” – Skyscraper National Park
The Helio Sequence – “Nothing’s Ok : Everything’s Fine” – Young Effectuals
Helmet – “FBLA II” – Meantime
Initial State – “Abort The Soul” – Abort the Soul
Jason Falkner – “I Already Know” – Can You Still Feel
Josh Clayton-Felt – “Too Cool For This World” – Spirit Touches Ground
Maximillian Colby – “What’s The Matter River?” – Discography 2002
Neil Young – “Old Man” – Harvest
Nick Drake – “Things Behind The Sun” – Way To Blue
R.E.M. – “Walk Unafraid” – Up
Radiohead – “Let Down” – OK Computer
Toad The Wet Sprocket – “Always Changing Probably” – Bread and Circus
Crowded House – “Fall At Your Feet” – Recurring Dream
Elliott Smith – “Wouldn’t Mama Be Proud” – Figure 8
Fugazi – “Instrument” – In On the Kill Taker
Heroin – “Meaning Less” – Discography
Neil Finn – “Human Kindness” – One All
Sigur Ros – “Gotti Teiknadi” – Agaetis Byrjun
Slint – “Good Morning, Captain” – Spiderland
Smashing Pumpkins – “Silverfuck” – Siamese Dream
They Might Be Giants – “Please Pass The Milk” – Apollo 18
U.N.K.L.E. – “Rabbit In Your Headlights” – Psyence Fiction

And as it turns out, the lowest rated tracks on my itunes are usually ‘skits’, ‘interludes’, and ‘segues’… maybe i’ll add a bunch of skits on my next album…