Hm, my day sure started swell! Tax returns back, another refund I’ve been waiting on is in, and another unexpected cash bonus! The bills are paid, 0 balance on all the cards, and loot left in the bank! Nice!

As seen on Rev. Voodoo right here: Great Start to a Day!!

It’s time for another tasty local mix from a friend of The Voodoo Empire. Lord Livingston has just picked up some new sounds, and needed to take them for a little test drive. Why not join him on this test run and see what’s up!

As seen on Rev. Voodoo right here: Lord Livingston – I Heart Tuesdays!

Back near the end of December or beginning of January, when I was getting ready to post up some new mixes, I mentioned that it might be a fun idea to post up our stats after a month, and see where these mixes are going. So I’ve had mixes from The Empire’s own DJ Odawa and DJ Hydroxide up for about a month. I’ve also had a mix up from our good friend Goodwill! Let’s take a look at the numbers! You guys let me know if you like seeing these, I’m happy to keep posting info. Click through to the full post for all the tasty deets!

Here’s our first mix. DJ Odawa’s Dancing Ovation mix. This mix went up on January 3rd, so not quite a month. It’s got 122 downloads total, with 89 uniques. What’s that mean? Well it doesn’t necessaril mean that we’ve had 23 repeat downloaders. When the mix is actually downloaded it will usually come up as a unique, unless the same person DLs it multiple times, then that is a repeat download. But when it’s played on the actual site using the built in player, that always seems like it’s being downloaded from the same place so it’ll register as a repeat. So most likely, we’ve just had 20 odd folks listen on the site. Odawa’s mix is doing quite well on itunes, with 48 downloads, and the majority of the listeners are in the USA, with 16 folks bringing his sounds to the UK.

Next up we have the UK Garage coming at ya from DJ Hydroxide. This one went up on January 7, so really this is only about 3 weeks in. Hydroxide has 208 downloads with 188 uniques, not too shabby at all! The iTunes folks must love Hydroxide, as he is coming in at 145 downloads through there. No surprise that he’s bringing in the UK crowd, nearly evenly splitting the USA and UK with 58 and 41 downloads respectively.

Finally, let’s see how Goodwill Capricorn mix is stacking up! This mix went up on January 4th, so it’s been nearly a month. Goodwill has brought in 134 downloads with 115 uniques. 78 of his downloads came from iTunes. And we’re looking at a pretty even USA/UK split for Goodwill too, with 38 and 29 downloads.

All in all, not a bad month for downloads! iTunes is a big help it seems in getting the music to the masses! How are we doing overall? Well, This site has been live now for 4 years. We’ve hosted a couple hundred mixes at best guess, and so far we have 77,237 downloads. That ain’t bad at all, but man… that’s chewing up some bandwidth eh! iTunes accounts for about 10% of our overall music distribution, so it’s definitely a valuable asset! What’s our number one mix up on the Empire? Well, that’d have to be DJ Odawa’s Crankshaft mix which went up on March 10, 2011. In 11 months that mix is about to break 4000 downloads.

So waddaya think? Are these kinds of stats posts helpful or interesting to you at all? I like numbers, so I find looking at this stuff to be pretty fun. Let me know your thoughts!

As seen on Rev. Voodoo right here: Hosted Mixes: Monthly Stats!

I’m giving away some VoodooPress shirts, check out the contest posts here!

As seen on Rev. Voodoo right here: VoodooPress T-shirt Giveaway!

It’s time for another Mix of the Moment. I’m going to have to be honest with you here, even I have not listened to this mix yet! I will be listening on the drive home today. This one came in as a request, and since I trust my Empirelings, I assume this must be worth posting! So give it a listen, and I’ll do the same, and we can compare results! Tracklist follows.

01 – Pub – Summer (Pt. 1)
02 – Super Flu feat. B.O.R. – Jasch
03 – Just – La Pena
04 – Super Flu & Monkey Safari – Hallo Halle
05 – Franck Valat – H.U.R.T.S. (Saccobros Day Remix)
06 – Super Flu – Euterpeh
07 – Deep’a & Biri – Aha
08 – Super Flu – Takk Pony
09 – Keith Kemp – Sorcery Rituals (Lee Curtiss Remix)
10 – Adam Port feat. Ruede Hagelstein – Corrosive Love (Alex Dolby & Santos Remix)>
11 – Darius Syrossian – Stay Up Dancin Get In Monday
12 – Super Flu feat. Ole Biege – Ueber
13 – Jurgen Paape – Welcome To Belleville (Gadgets Remix)
14 – James Blake – To Care

As seen on Rev. Voodoo right here: Super Flu – Euterpeh Mix!

Last week I was asked if I’d like to write an article for Smashing Magazine. I was pretty flattered, as that has been one of the websites I’ve relied on for years for inspiration and knowledge. I struggled a bit to come up with a topic I could be pretty thorough about. I finally decided to keep my first article written anywhere besides a Voodoo Empire site pretty basic. It’s going to be about getting started with WordPress customization, the right way. I discuss child themes, and functionality plugins, and when to use each for maximum benefit. I could have gone a bit more advanced with a topic, but I continually see people editing core themes, or crashing their sites. I thought it would be good to try to get a real solid basics type tutorial online, and hopefully help out a lot of folks just starting out. If everyone could get started the right way, it would save a lot of heartache.

My article passes muster on the first look. It’s with the editors now, so hopefully they will enjoy it as well! If so, it may find its way online very soon. I’ll let ya know!

As seen on Rev. Voodoo right here: Hope to Have My Article on Smashing Magazine Soon!!

So I’ve had the ManageWP ad running on my site recently as part of the PressedAds network. I like to knmow what I’m advertising, so I gave it a whirl. If this post works, it will appear on all of my sites simultaneously. If that works, I’ll be writing up a quick review shortly of the product. It’s definitely got some neat features.

As seen on Rev. Voodoo right here: Test Bulk Post Using ManageWP!

Got a sweet new Voodoo Tactical T-shirt from a co-worker today! Nice!

As seen on Rev. Voodoo right here: Voodoo Tactical!

As seen on Rev. Voodoo right here: Painting is Nearly Done!

As seen on Rev. Voodoo right here: Think You Gangsa? Prince is MORE Gangsta!!