That last design, the MT one, was pretty tweaked out and hand-written and sucked to write, but it lasted six years. Actually, I still like it. But I was never going to migrate it; it was stuck with that specific version of MT.

While I was gutting things, I jettisoned about 90% of my blog archive, which dated back to 1999(!). Nothing anybody will miss.

RSS will probably hiccup, but hopefully redirects are working such that my thousands of readers will continue to never miss a post.

Right. Hello.

[mandelbrot set] Hotel Magnolia – Croatian noise rock with a psych bend. These guys tracked everything in Croatia and shipped me a pile of DVDs to mix. Great record and the package is beautiful too — 12″ clear vinyl with an included CD. I’m not quite sure how to get a copy in the US — ask the band. myspace

The Scrams – Four-song 7″. Good times garage rock, a la The Oh Sees or King Khan. Tracked in an Albuquerque garage, mixed by me. Buy it here, download free mp3’s here.

1. Kowloon Walled City has a new record coming out at the end of the month. We posted two songs for your listening pleasure, and you can pre-order a copy (12″ LP with included CD) here.

2. I’m speaking at Adobe MAX next month. My talk is “Flash Builder 4 Advanced Tips and Tricks”. It should be a hoot.

3. And though I’m not blogging much, I’m on the Twitter. I’m @gscottevans, the band is @kowloonwalled, and the Adobe me is @gseadobe. FOLLOW ME.

In order to make the entire link cells clickable, the original version used a technique that caused “Save As” and “Copy Link Location” to break in most browsers. This has annoyed me for almost two years but I just found time to fix it.

The original version surrounded the cell content with a div, and put the link on that. I changed it to use CSS to expand the link:

td a, th a {
  display: block;
  height: 100%;
}

Seems to work much better.

You can download the new version (1.1) here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

2. Every time I watch a video on Chasing The Moon, I want to tell all of my friends to carve out an hour and watch every episode on the site. CTM is a video series of San Francisco bands/artists performing at Hyde Street Studio C. Beautiful photography, beautiful recordings, and great performances. I watched the Sonya Cotton episode last night, and it’s gorgeous. Also, 421 as vocal mic!

3. I recorded 4 songs for Farticus a few months ago, and Aquarius just gave their CD a great review (between a serious beating about the band name, heh):

…holy shit, these four songs are intense and brutal, tons of low end, the guitars chugging and churning, occasionally getting all twisted and warped, evoking prime era Butthole Surfers, the drums pounding and chaotic, and the vocals, shit, a wild banshee screech, sounding like a Riot Grrl all grown up ready to kick your ass. Reminds us a bit of classic SF weirdo rockers, Tragic Mulatto, in fact, if you can imagine the Buttholes, Tragic Mulatto, but with Unsane guitars, that’s what this is all about.

This year it was SNAILFACE. Here’s the back story, and here’s where you go to download the record.

Also, Pace somehow found the time to do his own RPM record, as The Talls. It’s a concept album. About beer. It is fucking great. Go, journey to Trappisttown.

Bradee and I are working on another Big Red Boots record too, but it’ll be a few months. KWC is recording in a few weeks so we’re hustling to get our act together for that.

• Helms Alee – Night Terrors. A few years ago my favorite record was Autolux Future Perfect. This is like that. Burly, but hooky and pretty. Like Autolux it’s all there: tones, production, songs. Really nice.
• Young Widows – Old Wounds. Mathy noise rock. Cool production, great record.
• 2 Foot Yard – Borrowed Arms. Smart and musical, as expected.
• Akimbo – Jersey Shores. I love a good side project. Which this record isn’t, technically, but it feels like one given how it was made and how it came out. Total ass kickage.
• Torche – Meanderthal. Yeah, this record is on pretty much every other top 10 list this year. I prefer the In Return EP, but this one’s pretty great too. Heavy / hooky.
• Baroness – Red Album. Yeah, 2007. But I listened to it like crazy this year. Riffs, followed by additional riffs, interspersed by jams.
• KEN Mode – Mennonite. I just found out that this record exists. The band released it themselves with little fanfare. It’s not as consistent as Reprisal (which blew my mind) but it still rules.
• Made Out of Babies – The Ruiner. Spastic, heavy, weird, good.
• Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid. I love these guys. They’re like a British Radiohead. No, wait. Anyway, they made another really nice record. And they produce themselves. Respect.
• Leatherback – H is for Hospital. My friend Sean made this record in February. I admit that my take on it is colored by knowing Sean, but so what? Like I said a few months ago, “it’s a mostly instrumental wide-eyed take on King Crimson and lo-fi pop, and I really love it”. It’s free, go get it.
• Cursed – III: Architects Of Troubled Sleep. Distorted distortion. Yes.

Honorable mentions:

• Black Elk – Always A Six, Never A Nine
• Clouds – We Are Above You
• Kaki King – Dreaming of Revenge
• Portishead – Third
• Black Ships – Omens
• Wetnurse – Invisible City
• Meshuggah – ObZen

When we blew the original deadline, we just put the project away. But it’s been driving me nuts that we didn’t finish it. So we wrapped it up last week (it really was almost done).

If I had to describe the result, I’d say “half-ass pop songs”. Bradee and I wrote most of it, and friends chipped in on a lot of songs.

Download it here.

And no recording project is complete without photos.

Ah, relief.

When we recorded the first few Kowloon Walled City songs late last year, that recording was supposed to be a demo of sorts, to book shows and tide us over until we finished a full-length. But over the next few months, we realized: why record these songs again? They came out great. And why wait to release something until we have 10 songs written and recorded?

Instead, we decided to release an EP, and then another when we finish another batch of songs, and so on. We would put out vinyl, and give mp3’s away for free. This makes great sense: we get to release music more often; we get our music into as many hands as possible; and people can support the band by buying vinyl, which will be in a beautiful package. More releases means more work, but the work is part of the hobby, really. I like making stuff. (We also decided to do some merch, which is also more work, but fun.)

That decision was at the end of June. In the month that followed: I mixed the remaining two songs from that session; we found a designer and he created a fantastic package design; I researched vinyl pressing companies (we chose Pirate’s Press here in SF); we had two good friends master the album (Ben did the vinyl, Greg did the CD/mp3); we designed a new website; Jason wrote a bio and Ian hunted down press and blogs to contact about reviews; I updated my homegrown store software to handle t-shirts and “zoom” images. And we were in business! DIY FOR THE WIN.

After all that, we’ll release Turk Street, a 5-song EP, this month. It’ll be available on 10″ translucent red vinyl, CD (a limited run in a handmade package), and yes, for free on the interweb.

Over at the store, we’re taking preorders on the vinyl and CD. The official release date is Sept 30, but we’ll ship out vinyl as soon as it arrives. Go buy something and tell me if the store is working.