I’m not sure why (and I’m hard pressed to think about it too much) but my last two Magnatune project, “Riding the Faders 2″ and “Chronic Dreams 2″ have flatlined in sales - and at a very low place at that. Chronic 1 and La Vie Chill still pop a sale occasionally and along with RTF 1 I can’t complain, which is to say I’m really grateful that plenty of people think they are worth paying for.

I seriously doubt this is a reflection on Magnatune or even tip-jar-fatigue because the music on the follow-ups is different than the first editions and it might just be that the newer ones don’t connect with people like the first ones did. There is the possibility that Magnatune’s new subscription mode which debuted a week after CD 2 went on sale has absorbed my album sales. (Album sales are posted nightly to Magnatune artists, but the accumulation of royalties from subscription streaming is only calculated a few times a year so it’s possible I’ll see big numbers for my music then - but I’m assuming not.)

Whatever the reason, I’m using the dead sales figures as a rationale for seriously focusing my music on a relatively narrow target. I recently compiled a playlist on ccMixter of the “Undiscovered fourstones” and especially when held up against artists who have actually mastered many genres (I’m thinking now of Loveshadow) I couldn’t help noticing that my attempts at the various styles seem less convincing than ever, even to me. I can only imagine what potential customers might be hearing. I’m definitely over that.

So while it may all sound very contrived from an artistic perspective, the fact is I’ve been leaning toward this kind of thing anyway (note the drastic and consistent increase in ccMixter uploads using my Cry Baby wha-wha pedal).

For better or worse, this is all you’re going to get out of me a while. Maybe, you know, forever.

I’ve lost count of how many singers I’ve remixed from raw a cappellas, the number is probably in the dozens. There are some, like Frank Carter (who I recently interviewed for ccMixter) that are obviously brilliant singers but for some reason I can’t remix. Frank could be particularly frustrating because I claim to have some cred in R&B and funk, yet, I have never remixed him to my (or anyone else’s) satisfaction. I have no idea what’s going on there. If I were touchy it about I’d be freaked that as a musician I should be able do a competent production on any singer, especially as good as Frank, in any genre. In school we used to call that ‘8 bars of anything’, as in: “play me 8 bars of anything and I’ll be able to re-create it and make it my own.” But as I get older and (god help me) mellower about these things I’m starting to feel totally comfortable being the loungy-elector-70s-porno-soundtrack-chill guy. So in that sense, I am not flogging myself over a case like Frank because, I guess, there’s just something in the harmonics and timing (for you kids: “flow”) that isn’t lining up to the type of mixes I’m doing nowadays.

On the other hand, it feels like I have an affinity for other singers like c. layne or Colin Mutchler. Those mixes “just work.” I hear the pell, I get it, the options are endless.

But nothing in my music experience can match what I feel when I get my hands on a pell by Kristin Hersh who started uploading pells to ccMixter a few months ago. Basically, if I could sing I would want to sound 100% like her. She cuts me deep.

Kristin is the lead singer of Throwing Muses a band I was aware of as I was bar hopping around Los Angeles in the record biz in the 80’s but never latched on to. In those days I was seeing between 5-10 bands a week so it’s more than possible that I saw them perform but I never owned one of their records.

All I know is that now, with the separated pells I’ve lost my mind with pleasure. Do my mixes of Kristin connect with anybody else? (or even her?) I don’t really know. They tend to be warmly, received by the other mixers at ccM but really, I know what’s there and I’ve said everything I need about it here and in the music. Here’s the latest:

When I was an active fan of the Beatles I liked all their music. Not just the cool, heavy stuff. And I’ll admit it right now: I was huge Wings fan - er, kill me know but I was a member of the fan club. So you can assume I carry some serious cred on the corny tip.

So it should come as no surprise that I bought and love the new album “The Simple Life” by Josh Woodward. Sure he’s sings about fluttering butterflies and “little birds” but if it’s done well then I eat it up. The album is produced really well (DIY I think) and sounds great as I drive around town. Just for the guys he throws in a fantastic guitar rock instrumental (stream “Flypaper”)

It helps that Josh has some cool things to say about licensing as open as possible.

Maybe with some arm twisting we can lobby him to post some pells to ccMixter ;)

First off, special thanks to narva9 for this very furry and cool alternative cover to Ridin the Faders 2.

Speaking of which: The album is doing well at #16 on the Magnatune charts (not that I notice, er more often than every 8 minutes anyway) — c’mon buds! It’s GOT to crack the Top 10 and make the front page. Won’t you help a few dozen starving musicians get their 15 seconds of faux glory??

[UPDATE 1/18] OH MAN, we’re at #11 — just a couple more sales will do it… do it… lol

[UPDATE (2) 1/19] Bingo — outrageous, thanks everyone… now, we start the climb to #1 ;)

I’m not a particularly energetic digger. I’ve been playing acoustic instruments and analog electric instruments from when the instruments were bigger than I was (parents: don’t let your 2nd grader talk you into dragging a cello around school) and at a certain point I stop scraping my sampling resources and pick up the bass or guitar and just play the damn part as I hear it in my head. Such was the process three years ago when I put together Magnatune Remixed: Riding the Faders (1) mainly because, while deep, the Magnatune catalog was a fraction of what it is today.

Flash forward to last summer: while starting to work on RTF 2 I got so overwhelmed with digging and cutting samples and a cappellas I had to accept that I wasn’t going to get to the whole catalog. It was hard. The samples were so cool I just knew an even better one was sitting around the corner… a few clicks away… but I finally jumped in and started mixing, and the first cut I made was a statement about one the self-imposed imperatives of the album called “There is No Brad Sucks.”

The other embarrassment of riches were the list of potential collaborators. I don’t want to over hype this, let me just say it was exactly as cool as you can imagine to work with Pat Chilla, lo tag blanco and Clarance Boddyker. We had a couple of logistical bumps (NEVER about the music) but I want to publicly thank these guys for hanging in there with me while I go through my various flip outs.

So under the cover of darkness, late last night Magnatune Remixed: Ridin the Faders 2 went online for download, streaming, purchase or license. About %5 of the proceeds for RTF2 album will go to me, the rest goes to Magnatune, the artists I sampled and my collaborators. This is how I want it and why I’m involved in the Magnatune Remixed project: to help support the business folks and artists who have acknowledged the new fundamental truth of the music industry that “giving away your music is good for your career.” That’s my agenda and I’m sticking to it.

In my mind The Kleptones have always been in a class by themselves and the new EP is just another nail in the proof. Ah, there I go, mashing up metaphors.

Jimmy Page with the Yardbirds doing “Train Kept a Rollin” (what else?) and “Dazed and Confused” (oh that). All of a sudden I get YouTube.

This and all things Zepplin Video via Dave (where else?).

In a post called Creative Hipermarket in Action Cezary and Marco of deliciously cool DiSfish say:

We need AMBIENT, CHILL, LOUNGE and CLUB music. Hard for you to do? I believe not.

The results are to be produced and sold through Hipermarket service.

I hope it’s not hard to do. Hopefully some of us can produce something in a half a year?

Vintage Radio is broadcasting boomerific (the good stuff) concerts taped by Bill Graham at concerts he promoted in the late 60’s/early 70’s at the Fillmores and elsewhere. (I’m currently listening to Clapton scream a ‘Sunshine of Your Love’ solo from October 1968 show at Oakland Coliseum that’s ripping my heart to bits.

The playlist for the last hour:

[via]

Ben, a cool guy with a new podcast aimed at folks looking at getting a foothold in bedroom music making has just released his first podcast: Spectrum Analysis Podcast » Episode 1: Where do I start?

We did a Skype interview and yes, that’s my babbling throughout it.