Scott Andrew - lo-fi acoustic pop superhero!

Here’s another compter-nerd post for you artists who use both Wordpress and iLike. If those words make no sense to you, you probably have a life, and have actually been outdoors in the past few days, and would never spend countless hours hunched over a laptop working on something called a “Wordpress plugin.” You are excused. The rest of you, follow me.

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Time to stick a fork in 2009 and call it a decade. Just think, this time ten years ago we were all bracing for the Y2K bug to destroy civilization and send us spiraling into barbarism.

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:

The Wikipedia entry on Christmas is really facinating. Did you know the Puritans hated Christmas? Or that Christmas celebrations were once banned in England and in Boston? Or that Christmas was frowned upon in the States for years following the Revolutionary War, only to have its popularity resurrected by Charles Dickens and Washington Irving? I did not know these things.

Happy Holidays!

Anthony Skelton’s short film submission to the Nikon Festival includes the instrumental version of my tune Not The One. There are some very cool editing moments I really like. Check it:

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.

Warning: nerd talk ahead.

UPDATE: nuts, MySpace has discontinued the “Post To MySpace” feature in favor of their dumb “activity streams,” so this plug-in doesn’t work anymore. FRAK. Check back later to see if I’ve coded up a solution.

If you use Wordpress and are looking for a way to publish your WP content to your MySpace account, I’ve written a dead simple plugin that makes it pretty easy. Read on for the gory details. Otherwise, just back away nice and slow-like. Or watch the nice video in the post below this one.

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Watch it at YouTube

“Note To Self” is the only new song I’d call completed this year. I actually wrote most of it in August 2008, but it got stuck with a less-than-stellar vocal melody that was no fun to sing. I was pretty much resigned to abandoning the song when I caught a new melody driving home from rehearsal with Explone a few weeks back. That inspired me to bang out the rest of the lyrics. Consider this video a first draft.

Hope to post an audio demo soon, and more video stuff in general for 2010.

My old buddy Ed Stenger (who runs this popular Rush fansite) snapped this photo of Laurie and I performing as the Walkingbirds in Cleveland OH. Wow. I’m guessing this was probably taken around 1996. There are very, very few photos of us from that time.

That’s the same drum I use to record demos today. That smug lost-in-the-rhythm look makes wonder what I was thinking at the moment this was taken. 2009 me kind of wants to smack 1996 me upside the head.

If you’re new here and haven’t heard the Walkingbirds stuff, you can find it about halfway down this page right heeyah.

My bandmate Patrick from Explone is opening solo for former Hüsker Dü drummer Grant Hart (shown above) tonight at the High Dive. Go Pat!

In other news, I’ll be playing a short 30-minute set at the KISS Cafe in Ballard on 11/28. It’s only my second (and probably last) solo gig of 2009, and I’m thinking about playing nothing but covers, using a pseudonym, and possibly wearing a disguise. I’m opening for Kyle Stevens, who’ll be dipping into his vast catalog of Collider, Kirby Krackle and eponymous tunage.

(Grant Hart photo courtesy of Bill Wilcox.)

1. Getting over the mountains in winter is deadly serious business. Traction tires required.
2. 3G service is spotty on the Eastern side of the Cascades, which, as your van skids on black ice and plummets into a snowy crevasse, makes it much harder to Twitter sarcastically about your predicament.
3. Suspicion confirmed: AMC’s Mad Men is the number one rated show among viewers who “don’t even OWN a TV.”
4. In the distant future, after the peak oil problem is solved, global warming reversed and we’re all wearing silver jumpsuits and driving space-cars on our way to our space-jobs, fart jokes will still be hi-larious so you might as well accept it.
5. Music critics are full of shit.
6. Ryan Adams’ Rock N Roll is a brilliant, brilliant album. (See #5)
7. Cartwheels and backflips during our set only encourage us!
8. Ragged, dirty Chuck Taylors may look “indie” onstage but modest leather boots provide ankle support and project James Hetfield-like confidence.
9. In the distant future, after the peak oil problem is solved, global warming reversed and we’re all wearing silver jumpsuits and driving space-cars on our way to our space-jobs, lots of people will still hate Creed.
10. It’s wise to know at least one recognizable Slayer riff, so when the scary guy in the back yells “SOUTH OF HEAVEN!” you can at least earn his respect. Do not, however, create the impression that you can play the whole song. Ditto any Pantera/Metallica/Sepultura.