Ah, Wordpress.
Let’s hear it for upgrading the whole site in like four clicks. Yes, ladies and gentleman, some serious shit goes on behind the scenes here at PSAA.
Congrats to J&J
Our friends Jess and Josh over at Jess and Josh Talk About Stuff just moved into new digs at their own domain name. Be sure to go check them out; they’re both funny, talented writers. Oh, and Jess was recently quoted in an article on CNN online about Twitter, so that’s pretty cool too.
The Hookup: Awesome Mixtape #1
As promised, I am aiding in the piracy of music by giving you some free tunes via a mixtape. Assuming I don’t get lazy I’m expecting to this to be a somewhat occasional feature here at PSAA and I hope that Shawn-John will participate by uploading his own mixtapes as well in the future. I’m going to set the precedent now of having each mixtape henceforth be kept to fifteen tracks – no more, no less – and somewhat diverse (alternatively, perhaps kept with a theme.) The tracks you’ll find in the link below won’t come in any discernable order; here’s the one that I reccommend for playlist purposes:
- Nine Inch Nails – Discipline
- The Mars Volta – Roulette Dares (The Haunt Of)
- Jane’s Addiction – Been Caught Stealing
- Gorillaz – Tomorrow Comes Today
- R. Kelly – Real Talk
- Kanye West – Flashing Lights
- Mos Def – Life in Marvelous Times
- Street Sweeper – Clap for the Killers
- Saul Williams – WTF!
- Radiohead – 15 Step
- Lupe Fiasco – Instrumental
- TV On The Radio – Satellite
- A Perfect Circle – Vanishing
- The Good, The Bad and The Queen – Northern Whale
- Arctic Monkeys – Who The Fuck Are Arctic Monkeys?
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More things that were awesome.
- Wednesday night, I was listening to Dave Navarro (guitarist for Jane’s Addiction and former husband to Carmen Electra) on his radio show, Dark Matter. It was NINJA Wednesdays – meaning, in honor of the upcoming tour, Dave was spinning only Nine Inch Nails and Jane’s Addiction tunes. (This was cool, by the way, because he didn’t stick to singles – he played some lesser known songs from both bands, or live or alternate versions. There was a really great Jane’s cover of “Don’t Call Me Whitey,” but I digress.) Anyways, to be funny, I twittered at Dave one word: “Dicknose.” Woke up in the morning with a direct response from him (”ouch so hurtful.”) Hah.
- Speaking of direct messages on Twitter I also got one from Cary Brothers, whom I had informed will be thanked on the thank-you notes on my EP.
- Got some seriously awesome work done on my record last night. We recorded my next song and it is completely done recording, and I believe almost done mixing – I need to hear it again because by the time we were done last night I was suffering from immense ear fatigue, meaning that I crossed the point where I can distinguish between similar sounds (not good if you’re trying to mix, because there are subtleties involved.) Thus, while the mix sounded great last night, it might or might not sound so hot today. I shall listen and get back to you. I can comfortably say that if it does need more mixing, it won’t need much. I may or not post the track here.
- Definitely did not make that mixtape. Sorry – had no time.
A few notes for today:
- Lost was awesome, as usual. As fucking usual. And also ended with quite the “Holy shit!” moment.
- I realized, through message board threads, that some NIN fans are gonna get to the Charlotte venue even earlier than I will. This is not acceptable.
- Super Dave did some funny stuff tonight. Where do I begin? Perhaps when he thought the song “Personal Jesus” went “Personal Jesus/Suck my cock.” It’s worth noting, he has never heard the song.
- I should be laying out drums for the next track on the album, which if all goes well we’ll be recording tomorrow night. Fuck all.
- I’ve decided that in addition to aiding in the piracy of albums here on Patrick and Shawn Are Awesome, I (we?) am going to start compiling the occasional mixtape. The first of these will probably be posted tomorrow assuming I am not too busy and have the time to decide what should be on it. It will be VERY eclectic. Some of it you will be extremely familiar with. Some of it you may or may not be. Shawn will automatically dismiss it as “music for ‘people like me’ “(something that pisses me off more than most things in the world). Shawn will, as it happens, be wrong.
- I have also elected to slit Shawn’s throat the next time he makes a “people like me” comment.
- Failing that, I may just lock him out of the site for a week.
- I will have to watch House next week because the might Mos Def (whose album I posted for you the other day – go find it; I’m too lazy to link you to it) will be on the show playing the patient. Apparently this is the first episode told almost entirely through the patient’s eyes and Mos’ new song, which actually is pretty hot, will feature.
- That song will probably wind up in the first mixtape, hmmm?
We’ve moved!
We decided to take the plunge. As you can see, we are now located at patrickandshawnareawesome.com.
Things that were awesome about today
1. Put the finishing touches on the song we’ve been working on recently. Spent a mere 20 minutes arranging a whole new introduction for it (which will actually be placed at the end of the previous track and lead abruptly into the song…cool shit.)
In other “my music”-related news, I still haven’t actually gotten to see but have been given a description of the cover that a friend of mine is doing for the record and it sounds like it’s gonna be fucking cool. I don’t need the artwork right away, so I told him not to rush his already busy schedule with it, but at the same time I’m really anxious and excited to see what it looks like. I have a great feeling about it. I probably won’t unveil it until after the record has been submitted to the various online music stores (iTunes, Amazon, RealPlayer Rhapsody, etc.) that it will be available on.
2. Bought tickets for Nine Inch Nails and Jane’s Addiction. Spent a little over $100 on my ticket, but I think it will be well worth it. I bought pre-sale, meaning I’ll be let in early by NIN’s own staff and probably get to be right on the rail.
NIN, Jane’s Addiction, Street Sweeper drop free tunes
Free new music from Nine Inch Nails, Jane’s Addiction and Street Sweeper at NIN/JA tour site!
Studio time!
I’m very excited today. After a night of in-apartment recording at my good friend Chris Barron’s place, we managed to get down most of an entire song. Everything sounded great but when we got to the vocals we realized that for this song we just don’t have a good enough mic. So I crashed there and this morning went with Chris to the School of Communication Arts (conveniently located four fucking seconds away from his apartment) and we talked to his audio production teacher, who told us to have me come in at 2PM this afternoon to do the vocals in a very expensive, professional-grade studio. I’ve never gotten to even set foot in a vocal booth before, let alone record in one, so this is a very exciting day for me. Moreover, the rest of the mix sounds great already and with some well-recorded it’s gonna turn out to sound pretty fucking fantastic.
And bonus – after this song is done (which it should be by this evening; there’s not a lot of mixing left to do) there will only be two songs left to record on my upcoming EP (one of which uh…still needs to be written…but you know, whatever.)
Trent Reznor’s thoughts on ticket re-sellers / scalping
Your feelings for Trent Reznor or Nine Inch Nails itself aside, the man wrote a pretty interesting article on the current state of affairs in the concert ticket industry.
Here’s the rub: TicketMaster has essentially been a monopoly for many years – certainly up until Live Nation’s exclusive deal ran out. They could have (and can right now) stop the secondary market dead in its tracks by doing the following: limit the amount of sales per customer, print names on the tickets and require ID / ticket matches at the venue. We know this works because we do it for our pre-sales. Why don’t THEY do it? It’s obvious – they make a lot of money fueling the secondary market. TicketMaster even bought a re-seller site and often bounces you over to that site to buy tickets (TicketsNow.com)!