(Feed reader? You may have to visit the post to see these pics and videos.)

I love this photo! MOAR AMPS PLZ.

Explone is at Studio Litho this weekend to cut one final song for the new record and finish any overdubbed parts. Mixing starts in March. Yes, we’re already writing tunes for the next one. So?

My sources tell me we’re also going to record some sort of performance video thingy that weekend. Also, a website redesign (confidential: ASP makes me weep).

Kirby Krackle just finished up a new CD titled E For Everyone and it drops just in time for the 2010 con season. The new record — it sounds huge. No nerdcore act rocks harder than KK. Unless maybe you count Blöödhag. I’ll be playing some live shows with them this year starting with the Emerald City Comic Con in March. There are also shows scheduled for Chicago, Phoenix and possibly elsewhere.

Also: it’s time for RPM and FAWM! Good luck to everyone participating this year. I’ve never done so myself, but there always seems to be residual creative energy crackling across the tubes that makes February one of my more fruitful months for songwriting. Shame-based productivity: it’s the best!

Remember Pat DiNizio: ass in chair. And stay the hell away from the internet.

Coming soon: a long-belated recap of Explone’s show at the Crocodile last month.

[See post to listen and download song]

One guitar, one shaker, a few overdubs, some flurbled chords and the roughest of rough vocals. And a hippie guitar solo I spent all of five minutes composing. Also, my first recording done with REAPER.

Read on for lyrics…

Note To Self

To whom it may concern:
it’s time to call your bluff
the hardest thing to learn
is you don’t want it bad enough

so lay the pen to rest
and commit to saner things
leave those strings to rust
another busted set of wings

and you fall behind
waiting for some planets to align
so what are you gonna do with your time?
tell me what are you gonna do with your time?

daylight slips away
and you feel it creeping in
in the faces and the names
of every place you’ve never been

and conscience is a curse
that you’ve never understood
but it won’t add up to much
and always nothing good

but there’s no crime
deciding where you want to draw that line
so what are you gonna do with your time?
tell me what are you gonna do with your time?

cutting corners
to find a shortcut to some truth
part the curtain
put this daylight
put this daylight to some use

[ instr. ]

and I think it’s fine
deciding you don’t want to change your mind
so what are you gonna do with your time?
yeah what are you gonna do with your time?
tell me what are you gonna do with your time?

The Croc has long been on my list of A-list Seattle clubs to play before I die (score so far: Neumo’s (done, solo), the Showbox (done, w/ Kirby Krackle). I thought I missed my chance when it closed down a few years back, but new ownership and a sweet remodel have restored it to first-class status. The stage has been redesigned, sight-line-blocking support beams removed, a Via Tribunali pizzeria installed in the former back bar area.

Can. Not. Wait.

• Cut The Wire: DADGAD, capo 5th fret
• In Harm’s Way: DADGAD, capo 3rd fret
• Happy For Me, album version: DADGAD, capo 2nd fret (the alternate take is in standard tuning).
• 2 A.M.: DADGAD open D (I think, it’s been awhile)

If you haven’t tried DADGAD, you should. It’s fun. Especially if you get bored with standard chord voicings as I sometimes do. Tons of video tutorials on YouTube.

Here’s a video draft of “Blood Of Eden” by Peter Gabriel, in DADGAD tuning. I kinda want to record this song for a future EP, maybe later this year. The spot where I start grinning and my eyes pop out of my head is where I start running out of breath. That’s what I get for trying a five-minute-long tune after months of no singing.

Watch this video on YouTube.

I’ve been neglecting my iLike page because it’s such a hassle, but now that iLike is being favored by Google in search results, it seems like a good time to get that house in order. So I wrote a Wordpress plugin that re-publishes blog posts to my iLike account.

Unlike the plugin I made for MySpace, this plugin will send your WP content to iLike automatically once it’s published. So you don’t have to remember to push a button.

Once the plugin is installed and activated, you can configure the plugin with your iLike info and options:

Once configured, post edit pages will display a status box:

That’s basically it.

Installation

1. Download the plugin here
2. Unzip it and toss the post-to-ilike.php file into your /wordpress/wp-content/plugins/ directory
3. Log into Wordpress, go to Plugins > Installed, find the “Post To iLike” plugin in the list and activate it.
4. Now go to Settings > Post To iLike and configure your iLike login info and options.

Notes

1. Not yet tested in WP 2.9
2. iLike blogs support only a few HTML tags and no embedded media, so this plugin will strip out images, video embeds, etc. before posting. (a future version may convert these to optional off-site links.)
3. This plugin version does no error checking on the iLike side. If your login info is wrong, or the attempt to publish fails, the plugin will simply quit silently. Your post may still be marked as published even if the attempt failed, so it’s a good idea to check your first few posts.
4. Use at your own risk. No warranties, including those of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose, are given or implied.

Wuz gonna write a bunch of stuff here about resolutions, but I think we all know that’s a bunch of horseshoes. My motto for 2010 is: Keep Trying.

Happy new year everyone :)

Here’s a blast from the past:

Happy Holidays!

UPDATE: looks like the film was removed from the festival site. So never mind, I guess. Anthony? You out there? What happened?

Working on a video? You can download free instrumental versions of all the songs from Save You From Yourself for your own multimedia projects right here.