Independence Day: Release Announcements

Meta: this is me,
telling you what I'm saying here. 

Happy blowing shit up day, folks!

We are very busy lately. By "we" I mean myself, and the people involved in the projects I'm about to tell you about. I can only imagine that it is difficult to keep track, so I thought I might help out:

• Citizen Y: Blueprint of a Ritual Experience was published a month or two ago by Weaponized. It is a script, but moreover, the blueprint for an initiation ceremony relevant to post-history. Check it out. ($15)
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• The Immanence of Myth will be published by August by Weaponized. It uses a deep but also conversational, honest and even subversive approach towards looking at the issue of mythology in our lives, especially as this almost 500 pg. oversize book moves towards personal mythology and conversations with current mythic artists. ($25)
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• The Best Of Modern Mythology 2011. I have decided. Mythos Media will be releasing an eBook featuring polished versions of some of what I consider to be the best articles that we've run on this site in 2011. The eBook will sell for $.99 through Smashwords, and will go towards the costs of running and maintaining the site, and promoting our mutual work. If it does well we may release it as paperback and/or hardcover. I expect to release this in September or October. 
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• Fallen Nation: Party At The World's End - I will be releasing the full and final version of this book either through Mythos Media or a publishing partner - if we find a suitable partner. This release will come in late 2011 or early 2012. I intend for it to remain the opening volley for a post-history, transmedia narrative that I've been planning these past few years. Listen: don't worry. It's got tits and machine guns, too. 
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• Hoodoo Engine's Murder The World, after almost 3 years of work, is nearly ready for the final mix and master through some very nice analog outboard gear. This album is a machine-metal tour through a terrain of conspiracy theories and cult leaders. We don't have a release date yet. I expect a September release through Bandcamp and iTunes, making it one year after the release of our debut, EgoWhore. ($.99 / track or $10 for the CD.) 
• Here's a track from the album, "In The Flesh": 
• InTheFlesh 150bpm by agent139

Looking towards 2012: 

• I am talking with Pearry Teo about working with him and the rest of the Bedlam Stories production team, including Chad Michael Ward and P. Emerson Williams. I can't say more than that at this time, but it looks like it will be a really exciting project to be involved in. 
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• I am still talking with S Jenx from The Fall Studios about the production of Nyssa, which is the illustrated prequel / sequel to Fallen Nation: Party At The World's End. 

I hope you are as excited about this material as we are. Please support the work, so there can be more of it. If you write reviews or have other involvement with the media/press, please contact me, as there is a lot of need to spread the word about all this work.

Citizen Y and Independent Media Production From The Trenches

There’s always a side of the creative process that remains in shadow. We used to call it “behind the scenes,” but the angle shot from behind the scenes has become the new normal. The actor playing the character is, if anything, more at the forefront of the viewers consciousness.

As an example of this, here is me playing the actor JC, who played the character JC in Clark:




Maybe we can see “behind the scenes” if the project has not yet been produced. I want to share a bit of a project with all of you that, so far, has not seen the light of day.

(Read full article on Weaponized.net)

Pre-order a copy of The Immanence of Myth, published by Weaponized in July 2011.

Apropos of nothing...

I updated my resume & portfolio today after getting home from work.

Yes. On a Friday.

Someone send help.

(Or freelance contracts.)

Podcasting Audio Production 101

The following is a sort of quick and dirty guide to audio post-production for podcasts.

I’m trying to provide a fair view of the playing field, but can’t possibly cover everything. To begin with, there is no comprehensive list that is “everything there is to know” about audio production. The process simply doesn’t work that way. Not only is audio production an ongoing process, it is a process that should adapt itself to the specific material that you’re dealing with. What you must learn to do as a producer, more than anything else, is to listen. Everything else is just figuring out what to do when you hear something you don’t like, or how to create the sound that you have in your head.

Thus, there is no one “right” way to produce an album or a podcast. The project itself defines its needs, and the more flexible you are, and the more expansive your “toolbox,” the better. At the same time, each producer inevitably develops their own signature sound which somehow winds up a part of the final material, even if they were made with the same exact tools as another.

For most podcasting tasks I use Adobe Audition (which is essentially the same as Syntrillium’s Cool Edit Pro 2.) I’m not saying that this is the best software to use - chances are if I was working on a Mac I’d be using Digital Performer. However, it is more than sufficient for the task at hand, especially when coupled with a robust array of Direct-X plug-ins. For this I will refer to plug-ins in the Waves Platinum Bundle. I have and use many others myself, but many of the FX in this bundle are invaluable.

Full article on Alterati.com.

The Drek Wars

I wanted to briefly rant about a serious crisis in the media world: an unconsidered result of the proliferation of DIY drek. Podcasts! Videocasts! Video comments! Independent, low budget digital movies! Band self-produced albums! All of these are potentially good things: I heralded them as much as anyone else, and am in fact a product of the media production boom that began in the late 90s with the availability of consumer applications such as Photoshop and Premiere, and hardware such as DV cameras, dedicated digital recording hard drives, and the like. Suddenly you didn’t need a $100,000 budget to record an album. However, I didn’t initially see the danger in all of these things: the tools do not, in themselves, provide the capability.

The well-intentioned beginners can be forgiven, they should in fact probably be condoned for their bravery. Experimenting in a new medium is scary. You face the expectation of greatness, when really you should just be tinkering and tossing your results in the closet for the first five to ten years. The Internet has become that closet however, and we are beset on all sides by so much crap that it can be hard to find the good stuff. (Also, we all have to start out here. Those who stick it out for long enough, with enough determination, ultimately get somewhere.)

But even that isn’t my actual gripe, the railroad spike in my side, the ipecac in my stomach. I don’t need to wade through mountains of user created crap on YouTube because I don’t go wading in the morass to begin with. This explosion pushed everything a step further: clients and employers think that - rather than hire a professional designer, or sound producer - just have one of your employees do it. It’s easy, right? Just a couple clicks in Photoshop. Podcast? Just plug in a mic and hit record. Why take on all that excess cost? The fact is: there are probably only six or seven ingredients in that dinner you had at that expensive 3 star restaurant. Put those ingredients in the wrong hands, and you get inedible mush. Have the crack addicted hobo on the corner wire your house, and expect a house fire.

Yet everywhere I turn I see clients and employers cutting corners by either overloading a single professional with the tasks of three people- it doesn’t matter if the person has the skills to do all those tasks, they simply don’t have the focus to pull them all off well- or worse, pawning off the work of media professionals on already overburdened employees who don’t have the background. I nearly got myself out of the freelance design industry a couple years ago for this reason, along with the fact that design clients have notoriously bad taste. (My all time favorite remains the mattress company that wanted me to develop a series of animations of flames dancing on top of images of their mattresses because their prices were “ON FIRE.” I tried to explain to them that juxtaposing the images of fire and mattresses was an abysmal idea, not to mention the fact that animated fire GIFs almost destroyed teh Internets in the 90s. I firmly believe that some sliver of the $50/hour rate that goes along with design services is a buffer against the potential of gastrointestinal damage that results from simply gritting your teeth, saying “at least he’s paying me,” and turning your carefully considered color scheme into taupe, orange, and pink.)





Having mentioned this, I’m not entirely certain there is a simple solution. We’re on a river that only flows one way, (DMT visions notwithstanding), and in many cases the immediate bottom line matters a lot more to a business than the long term gains, especially if they are qualitative rather than quantitative. Quality? This is America. Who cares about quality, I want it cheap and I want it now!

This is likely one of those instances where a cliche serves best: you get what you pay for.

(From Alterati.com.)

Different day, same grindstone.

Up all night doing some early production on the soon-to-be-released Veil of Thorns album, Cognitive Dissonance. I only vaguely recall laying down the majority of the drums for this peculiar creature. (I refer to the project, in this case, not it's creator.)

Here's a sneak peek of one of those tracks... the Enigmatic Rarely Atone.

I'll soon be passing all those tracks on to Ken S to puzzle over, and I'm sure, clean up.

I had Peter re-do the pencil on page 19 of Fas Ferox episode one. Somewhere between 8+ hour sessions editing Fallen Nation, and the crunch time I did this last "night" on the VOT stuff, I re-colored the page. It's now in a similar state to the rest-- somewhere between 70-90% done.

If you haven't noticed-- come spring, there is going to be a lot of content available through Mythos Media. Even if ordering has to start on internet only, it'll be there. Start the whisper down the lane, I don't have the resources for a PR agent just yet.

Production for 2007

First off, I know there are quite a few of you who have been wondering about this for well on a year now... Though it requires another pass through on the colors (24-48 hours or so of work), and then more text formatting, layout, all that good stuff with some assistance... the rough draft of Fas Ferox episode one is done.

You can probably look for a print on demand version, at the very least, by April. We have bigger plans for it than that, but we want to make all this content available as soon as it is ready for print. It will grow from there.

Rumor has it that, despite the distraction posed by his newfound beard, (and I'm sure an incredibly hectic production schedule, but mostly the beard), Neil will have some comments and hopefully an intro for us before we're ready to roll that out. I'm waiting on those comments for the final post production, as his advice on these matters is scripture exactly but... let's just say he's been at it a lot longer than any of us have.

Look for those print on demand releases in April, maybe May. The same thing goes for the final version of subQtaneous, and Fallen Nation.

The former will likely be done before, the final version containing a new track, and some tightened mixes on several others, and no more anime bonus track. I know that may make some of you want to slit your wrists, but don't fear, you can still get the early release version for at least a couple weeks yet, before I pull it so ungraciously and it is never heard from again. Fallen Nation... aside from a couple stray contributors, the content itself is done. I'm just tightening up the language, and then will be passing it on for editing and layout.

The pilot episode of the Gspot is done. Over 60 minutes of original content, including pieces by Joseph Matheny, Jason Stackhouse, Endymion St. Cyr, and an interview with Tara Vanflower (Lycia), all set to some of the craziest soundtrack music we've cooked up yet. We'll be launching that very soon on Greylodge, and then it will be up-up-and-away with Alterati... More on all that soon.

Personally... I've been struggling from some pretty severe mood swings. This living on the edge shit is getting old. But, I believe, the tides will turn shortly. Soon there will be content available for you; enjoy it, and pass it on. Then, just maybe, we can get those things out of the POD ghettos and into the stores and conventions where they belong. It's been a long road, and I have no delusions about how long the road may yet be before I can sit back and give a resounding "dayum."

To myself, and to everyone who has been working with me on these recent projects-- I really believe we've surpassed ourselves.

Of course, this only means we have to work even harder the next time around.