Caleb has a nice thing going at Lost + Taken, and I wanted to return some free resource love, designer-karma style. So I sent him some pics from my flickr set of textures taken around the job site for our new house (under construction).

I plan on taking more every time I visit the new house, so check back often or grab the feed from flickr so you can get word of the latest construction textures. I hope you find them useful in your designs!

One of my very favorite acts that I’ve had the pleasure of producing, Northern Room are calling it quits after 4 years of making some great music together.

As last night’s email from the band explained :

After four years of rehearsing, recording, and performing, Andrew Jonathan (AJ) has decided to resign from Northern Room. With great sadness, therefore, we would like to announce that the November 8th show at Turner Hall Ballroom will be our farewell performance. After that show, Northern Room will be no more.

I’m always sad when bands I admire break up, of course. Being in a band is not unlike being married to mulitple people at the same time, and the challenges that a marriage might face day-to-day are multiplied when you’re trying to be creative and take on the world with four (or more) diverse personalities. Any band who can last longer than a year or two have to be doing something right and making sacrifices behind the scenes that not many of their fans and in the listening public would ever be aware of. It’s those sacrifices that take a toll on the lives of the families involved, and I give the guys credit for having their priorities and sticking to them.

If you’ve never seen Northern Room live, this November 8th will be your last chance. It was already shaping up to be a special show – they put a lot of extra effort into their One Big Hometown Show each year – but now this event obviously carries a little more weight.

Get your tickets here, or stop by the band’s myspace page and show them some love and thanks for sharing their music and writing some great songs.

I’m looking forward to hearing the music that the guys in Northern Room create in their post-NR incarnations… there was a lot of creativity and soul in this band, and I was honored to be part of their recording history by producing their Only Seconds EP. I only hope their music has a life much longer than band itself.

New Music Library Is Coming

The re-branded launch of Burst Labs by Extreme and Sony/ATV is still in the final stages… a late-game development that could be super-cool and über-profitable is extending the timeline, but we are nearing an official announcement (fingers crossed).

Road Rally Panelist

I’ll be a panelist at the Taxi convention in LA this November. If you’re not familiar with Taxi, you can read my post on unsolicited demos and Taxi’s owner, Michael Laskow here. I agreed to be on a panel again because I know Michael and his heart is in the right place. Taxi still gets a bad rap in some circles online, for reasons that boggle my mind, and when he asks for my help or support I’m willing to do what I can.

New Record Project

I’ve started work on a new recording project for a ridiculously talented independent artist from Milwaukee, but until we’ve finalized the plan for moving forward I think I’ll keep the details under wraps. After some initial pre-production here at Burst HQ and basic sessions in LA, I’m stoked to help bring this person’s songs to the world as producer and co-writer. Very exciting. Hope they get off the pot soon and commit. Hint hint.

New Music Tip

Anyone looking for new music this fall should definitely check out Matt Duke’s Kingdom Underground, the latest release produced by my friend Marshall Altman. That’s a pic of Matt below… check him out at myspace, and get the extended version at iTunes, or the physical CD at amazon.

“Block out all your demons
with white noise, pills, and Jesus
and when I get down
I just turn off the lights”
Matt Duke – Sex and Reruns

new projects from Owen Sartori and The Color Truth

It’s pretty rare that a single month sees two collections of music from Burst HQ being released, but here you go : great new music from Owen Sartori (a Burst Records artist) and The Color Truth (an independent band who hired me to produce their EP).

I’ve posted previously on some Before vs. After tracks from Owen’s record, and hope to do so soon with a song or two by The Color Truth, as well.

Check out what Slim Dunlap of The Replacements has to say about Owen’s project :

A well-produced, well-crafted set of songs from a veteran of the trenches of the music recording business… Owen Sartori has earned his chance to be heard.

If you dig what you’re hearing, these artists could sure use your support. You can buy Owen’s music from our label’s website or iTunes… and get in touch with The Color Truth guys through myspace or hit one of their gigs around town to buy an EP and say hi. They’d both appreciate it and love you always.

2008 continues to be full of ridiculous good fortune, as a song I co-wrote with my long time collaborator Mike Standal has been licensed for use in Sex and the City : The Movie.

Our original version of “Fall” features Marcella Mortellaro on vocals, but the music supervisor for the film decided to use the instrumental version for a pivotal scene with Carrie Bradshaw (played by Sarah Jessica Parker).

We’ve decided to offer the two tracks we composed and produced for Marcella as MP3s available at Amie Street in an effort to fund a future complete project with her and her incredible voice. If you jump over there quickly you can grab the tunes for free, as all songs on Amie Street start out as no-charge and get progressively more expensive as the track’s popularity builds.

If you go to the movie, I’ll be curious if you hear the song and where it’s used. This is one movie I won’t be seeing in the theater, even if a song I wrote is playing. Not a real big fan, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m happy for the success of our song!

There’s more in a write-up at The Burst Collective’s site, as well as an article at OnMilwaukee.com.

I just joined forces with one of the world’s largest companies!

It does seem like it’s been forever.

I’ve been alluding to some mysterious business happenings – a Big New Deal – for the better part of three years now.

Had a bit of a distracting detour this past year, brought on by my penchant for dreaming up a rosier scenario than exists in reality and believing in what people promise but ultimately don’t deliver, but no matter… because…

I’ve wrapped up production on the new EP by The Color Truth after a trip to LA last week for mastering with the incomparable Gavin Lurssen, and I have to say that of all the artist projects I’ve been involved in, this set of songs made the greatest leap from expectation to final result.

To start with, we had no history together, and the guys in the band had no real experience in a recording studio working with a producer…

There’s a great post at New Music Strategies by Andrew Dubber about piracy in the music business (hat tip : Derek Sivers).

I share Dubber’s opinion that making copies of songs or records for friends, putting a copy on your hard drive, making your own mixtape-style recordable CDs for a road trip… these things are legally acknowledged as unauthorized duplication, but fall far short of actual piracy.

Quite an amazing time in the music business… those quaint yesteryears of ’selling out’ are but faint memories – not that I have a problem with Groove Armada making this deal. I say grab what you can, good for them.

As I’ve often said… it’s easy to say you’ll never sell out when no one’s making any offers (thanks, Mark!).

Brought up to speed, per usual, via Hypebot.

In between deadlines, paperwork, file conversion, and mix tweaks, we decided to spend Friday afternoon at Burst HQ making our own online mixtapes of our favorite music using the über-fun Web-Tool-Of-The-Moment, Muxtape.com.

Full post at the Burst Labs blog here, and here’s my personal Muxtape.

It’s a tough task to limit my favorite songs to 12 selections… oh well. I’d change my mind by next week anyway.

Too much fun, yet simplicity rules the day. So perfect. I wonder how long til they get hit with a cease-and-desist order…