Again, heh.

DIY Hell has been put on a back burner for a while, due to both the lack of funds and the need to turn that bad boy around. We’ll see if I can bring down some great white whale(s) and get back on track, yo.

Don’t really have a song of the day, just found out Scott H. Biram’s coming to Portland in February, so I’ve been glutting myself at his site in anticipation of the happy day… errr… night.

On the Whoregasm front, we’re playing at the Ash Street Saloon in downtown Portland Thursday the 28th, along with Caguama (awesome!) and The Rawlies. Come on down and have a good time with us, why don’tcha?

Yeah, a deadline, that’ll help.

Stop laughing. What, me first? Oh, okay.

Yeah… I know about arbitrary deadlines, too.

So howsabout the Ides of November? Have a little multipurpose party, make some noises, &c., &c. Y’all wanna come?

Still procrastinating a little, so it’s off to the river for some field recording (and to let the four legged demon get a little exercise before I lock myself in the studio for the day).

Well, coffee first.

See ya’ll in seven,

-rg

I even cut my fucking hair, which ain’t that big a chore, as many of you undoubtedly know. Grab clippers, hack & slash, and that’s it.

—

It’s strangely relaxing watching the EQ meters bounce up and down on well mixed/mastered music… and not-so-strangely depressing when you start watching your own anemic meter action, heh.

—

And now the remixing (which takes care of the “learning new software” step too, heh) has begun. My band Whoregasm is approaching a level of tightness I didn’t think possible, and the other side project glows with potential.

If I could just win the lottery or something to enable the quitting of my shit-ass job, well, things would be extra-super peachy. As it is, aside from the 9% pay cut, the pending move to a new location due to the company’s landlord issues…

…more on that. The company used to own the building. They sold it to another guy, with grandfather clauses in place that are only hinted at in the most oblique ways, and are paying rent to said guy. For the building they used to own…

…if someone could make that make sense to me, I’d spend my workdays just a little less stressed out.

—

Fuck it. That there’s a sideshow, nothing more. The play’s the thing, y’all. And in a couple of weeks (3Oct2009) Stan fucking Ridgway’s coming to town for a show. At a new(ish) venue that just popped up in my own neighborhood! The place (The Woods) used to be a mortuary, even. Eighty years with the dead, and now it’s a venue. Sometimes I really love this place.

See y’all in another seven.

-rg

P.S. I’m out of paid plays at Jango.com, but you can still click in a little love by checking out the page. And even if’n you’ve clicked the “like” before, every click still counts. Molto messy grazies, yo!

Hey… Jack Zero, there’s a good name. Gots to write that down somewhere, it’d be a good character for one of the rewrite songs.

See? It’s still happening. Guess there’s nothing like working to create the feeling of getting something done, heh. If you can’t laugh at yourself, &c., &c., ad nauseam.

Here’s hoping Week Three will be productive, as in PRODUCT.

In the meantime, have you visited Jango.com lately? Every “thumbs up” is like a sharp poke in the ribs, saying “Hey, quit fucking off and get down to fucking work already!” So please, abuse me… it’s a public service you can feel good about.

I really wonder why the songs are going over so well in Slovenia. And thank you, guy in Portugal, too!

Catch y’all in seven.

Which is not a very reassuring sign for the creation of this album, Corruption Recycles.

But the list is down to 19 candidates, some needing very little work, while others will be hewn down and completely redone. Nineteen out of thirty-nine… I must think a hell of a lot of myself, eh? Attrition will undoubtedly occur as these weeks go on. Hopefully not a lot of stillborn deliveries, but that’s still ahead of me.

Luckily, thematically the candidates sit together pretty well. One thing I’ve learned in this dredging up of the past, is that I’m one fucked up individual. Death, murder, mayhem, perversion… these are the binds that tie it all up.

Speaking of binding… have you been to my Jango.com page lately?

Big freaky, creepy heaps o’ sticky love to y’all who went and clicked that little thumbs up for me. But it ain’t a one shot deal, every click (even if you’ve done it before) gets me that much closer to general rotation (and free plays).

Fuck, I sound like I’m selling magazine subscriptions to take a summer trip to Bangladesh or Des Moines or somewhere. Sorry. Jango.com’s free, you don’t have to sign up, though if you did, then you’d have a ‘net radio compliment/replacement to pandora.com (y’know, when your 40 free hours a month are used up and it’s only the fucking 17th).

And besides, you’d get to make a Rabid Garfunkel channel. How cool is that?

Antarctic, man, penguin-style in anchovy sauce.

/scarlet_pimpery (for this installment, heh)

Picked up the Wave Arts Power Suite 5 set of audio plugins to help out with the remix/remaster fun. Bona-fide software, at a heavy, heavy discount. Which is good, as I’m still eating what few shoestrings I’ve got left. It’s a world of difference compared to the EQs, compressors, &c. that came with the DAWs I’m been using. Shit that works, gots to love it!

I’ll finally get to experience spectral analysis and parametric EQs and such. And the manual’s actually readable & comprehendable! Go figure…

There’s a taste up, the instrumental demo of Let Me In, which has got a pretty spiffy cinematic vibe to it. Breakin’ rocks in a work gang. The old lyrics are dead and gone, fuck ‘em ’til they glow. The new ones… a bit o’ story from recent (mis)adventures, heh. Muuuuch better, yeah.

That’s the updates for this week, I’ll see ya’ll in seven.

-rg

Which brings me to the point of borrowing your eyeballs for this brief moment. Young Rabid wants to make an album. And he’s got next to no money to spend. But he’s got a plan.

Please point out just how much crack I’m smoking here, yes? That’s what friends are for, heh.

Sweet, enthusiastic Kimi jumped the gun a little by pushing the Jango.com link on y’all while I was still feeling out the free angles of it. But no matter, no matter, it’s done and done now. And the statistics/metrics are rather fascinating.

If you’re making music, I think you can still wangle some free intro plays on there… and if you’re patient, they’ll give you more plays for free if you take a survey.

I digress.

THE GOAL:

Make an album. Something that could conceivably be bought by someone, somewhere, someday. On a budget where the shoestrings are being used to make soup, and thus, not available. Bringing new meaning to the word “Solo.”

I think it’s no accident “DIY” can be alt-pronounced “DIE.”

THE PLAN:

Step 1: Register every damned thing I’ve got recorded and out there with one of those agencies.

Y’know, ASCAP… BMI… uhhh, that other one.

BMI wins, because, well, it’s free for writer/composers like li’l ol’ me.

Not knowing what I’m doing, I registered a coupla-few songs, to see how I screwed up the process, heh. There’s 39 tracks (that I’ve got the rights to, or took care of getting the okays for already) so far, out there in limbo. I’d like to make sure I’ve got it right before spending a lot of time unfucking a lot of registrations.

And while I’m waiting on that…

Step 2: Remix/retrack/remaster the candidates for the album, Corruption Recycles.

Yes, the title’s a multilayered joke… on myself. I’m like that.

But I’ve got the art to repurpose for my own selfish needs, and I like it, so… yeah. I’m recycling it from art I made elsewhere, changing what needs to be changed, &c. Here’s a taste of the look & feel.

This is the hardest step, and will be the most time consuming. And also the most fun.

Break out the clipboard, slap on the headphones, and thin the herd into a cohesive, thematic grouping of 10-20 songs. Then dupe the source audio and dig in, unfucking and desucking, ’til there’s something there, slouching its punk-ass toward Bethlehem.

Step 3: Physical product (and pricing and “distribution”).

This is where I’ve got to spend some fucking money, damnit. This is where things move out of my hands. This is where I’ve got to wait, and the immediacy drug of DIY leaves the ol’ bloodstream, sweaty and chilled.

Fucking withdrawls.

Fucking (lack of) budget.

Fucking fuck.

I think I can get through this for under $100.

I’ll wait ’til you’re done laughing.

Feel better now? Okay then.

Amazon’s on demand, self-publishing system. And the proof disc’s free. The first one’s always free, ain’t it? That’s the hairy, scary part of all this… what am I gonna get back? Will it have four wobbly little chubchubchubby limbs all waving up at daddy?

Or flippers, permanently crossed eyes, and an underbite that reaches up past its one-nostriled nose?

If the baby bounces, then it’s time to spend some cash (but still, as little as possible). Order ten copies to be delivered to Casa de Entropy ($49.95…ish) and get the Amazon/CreateSpace store(s) going. There’s distribution channels, both physical and digital. Entity #1. Production.

Receive the ten copies and send five to cdbaby (go local, y’all!). Fees, &c., $35-ish. (Hell, if I can hand deliver ‘em to the cdbaby warehouse, that’ll save on postage, too.)

Immediately remove Amazon from cdbaby’s physical and digital distribution chains. Crossing the streams & double fisting is frowned upon, it turns out.

Since I’m not playing out (as Rabid Garfunkel), I can keep the merch virtual, Schröedinger-like, for the time being.

Step 4: Pimp it!

Well, yeah, this step should be interwoven with all the other steps. Ever pimping, always out front.

—–

That was a long-ass read. Thanks for sticking with it. And if you’ve got any suggestions / observations / experience / abuse to share, by all means, shout it out.

‘Cause I’m making this up as I go along, heh.