Regular Blog

New stuff on the way

It's a new year, so I'm working on a new round of design tweaks for the site. Oh yeah - new music on the way, also. Stay tuned...

Social notworking, round 2

Now you can check out Regular on Tagworld, a site that's supposed to be the new MySpace, whatever that means...

New Review For Regular

Jim Santo's Demo Universe is an odd type of place. You send him a disc, and a couple years later, he reviews it. This is exactly what has happened with Regular. Better late than never, right? Thanks, Jim, for the kind words...

Streamin' like a fool

The Mindreader video is now streaming. Enjoy!

The pod people are at it again

Thanks to the new Heavy Syrup Podcast, based in Vermont, for playing Regular. Lots of great music to hear over there....

So long, Splendid

There aren't many places for the independent musician to get some good feedback about their stuff. Splendid is one of those places. They review everything they get, and they do a fair job of it. Sadly, they're hanging it up at the end of the year. Thanks guys, for a job well done.

Heading to New York City?

Here's a fun idea. Get on a plane and go to New York City. Then, on Sunday, September 11, head on over to Otto's Shrunken Head, a rock and roll tiki bar in the East Village.

There you will see, starting at 4:30 PM, A whole bunch of different music videos, all a part of the first annual E.Vil City Film Festival. Included will be the Regular video for Mindreader, directed by New Yorker Nick Catania of Redshift Pictures.

Billed as "A diverse collection of films taken from all facets of city life, from NYC and beyond", This festival will take place over several days in several venues. Enjoy.

Meanwhile, across the pond...

I'm pleased to announce the presence of Regular on ExtraPlay, a British web site for unsigned bands. Hop on over and give a listen.

More space junk for us all!

You know those social network web sites that come and go like boy bands? Well, I guess I've finally gone soft. So, if you'd like to be my "friend" head on over to MySpace and hook me up! I've also submitted the Mindreader video. Not quite sure how that works. In any event, thanks for any support you want to show.

No news is good news. Really.

It's been a while since the last update. Work on songs for the new album continues. More on that later.

Meanwhile, please enjoy this song from the Regular archive. It's called Mudbound.

Attack of the pod people

It looks like podcasting superhero Ken Clark has earned himself another big fat plug over here at Regular Central. He's gotten his Seattle and Beyond podcast played on KYOU Radio, a San Francisco-based "podcast portal". That means that Regular was played some more, which is just swell by me. Thanks again, Ken!

Bloggity Blog Blog

Thanks to Insomnia Radio for playing Regular, and special thanks to Ken Clark of Seattle and Beyond for producing the segment in which I'm heard. Give it a listen.

Gotta Be In It To Win It

Looks like Regular has found some traction in the world of podcasting. Seattle and Beyond has named me "Artist of the Week". If you'd like to hear the award-winning broadcast, go here. Apparently, Regular will also be played on the Insomnia Radio podcast. More on that later.

All this as Apple announces the inclusion of podcasting support for its iTunes software. I smell the fear of record executives. I see the death of AM/FM radio. I hear the voices of deserving independent artists being played worldwide, untethered by corporate expectations. Count me in...

Harmonies for Homebodies

I stay home a lot. I'm not a big fan of crowds. They make me nervous. Massive crowds, though, are somehow comforting. Walking around in a big city can make you anonymous. Go figure. Also ironic is that I don't mind performing in front of people. I just don't see it as a primary concern in the continuum of music making.

So, how does this square with pursuing an ostensibly public career like music? I don't know that it has to. At least, not as much as it used to. I think of two groups of people, both voracious consumers of music:

The first group lives for the live show, as it were. They want to see the band, get up close, contribute to the energy of the performance, feel some kind of personal connection. This sensation becomes their reference point for a band's recorded material, whether or not the CD was bought before or after the live show. Oh yeah, and paying 8 dollars for a beer rocks. Woooooooo!.....

The second group are production consumers. By this I mean that the primary kick in music, for them, comes from the unique space created by a studio recording. The EQ, the panning, the backing vocals, etc. This is what interests them most about music, and they rarely go to live shows. If they're not careful, they become fastidious esthetes who appreciate the garden variety sarcasm found in any alternative weekly, in any city.

Of course, there is a little bit of each group in everybody. These are less-than-perfect distinctions. Each paradigm has its benefits - A good show is a good show, and a good album is a good album.

How does all this square from the musician's point of view?

David Berman of The Silver Jews, in an interview for ReadyMade Magazine entitled How to Become a Rock Star Without Leaving the House, makes the distinction thusly: �Rock music has a double life as art and entertainment. I�ve chosen to treat it strictly as art. Live shows are a device to sell records, and I�m not a salesman.�

Still Plugging Away

Last Sunday we practiced again, and everything went smoothly enough. I hadn't worked all the songs into as finished a state as I wanted to, so we worked on the one I did. That proved to be time well spent, as we finished it up. One down.

The plan is for me to keep writing, and for us to keep practicing, until everything is ready to record. Then it's my hope that we can bang out an album's worth of basic tracks here in the Diller Hotel in about a week's time, if not less.

From there, various overdubs will be added until the voices in my head tell me to stop.

Meanwhile, a guy named Ken Clark got a hold of me, and has offered to play some Regular on Monday's edition of his podcast, Seattle And Beyond. I gave a listen to his latest installment, and I like the way he presents stuff.