Monthly Archives: March 2007

NEW Monsters are not Myths song

Hey folks,

In case you missed our podcast (for which I wouldn’t blame you), check out the new Monsters are not Myths demo, “She”.  It’s available on our MySpace page, thanks to a rather clever marketing move (you get 5 songs on MySpace if you add what is, essentially, an advertising platform as a friend).

It’s a bit rough but I’m rather excited about the new direction.

Also, don’t miss us at The Catalyst Atrium for the 2007 Battle of the Bands in Santa Cruz, CA on April 6th at 9pm.  Show us your ticket with a vote for us and get a free, recently re-designed bumper sticker.  Nifty!

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Confessions of a Lost addict

I’m a Lost addict.  I’ll be the first to admit it.  No need to have an intervention where my friends and family sit me down and say, in low voices, “Evan, you have a problem”.  It’s true.  Claire and I stay up hours past when we should be sleeping to find out what will happen next with the hatch, the others, the island.

Part of the problem is that we’re still catching up; I saw Season 1 of Lost and then got too busy to watch it weekly.  Claire only recently got interested, and so we’ve been sprinting towards the third season.  We just finished the second season (three words: what the hell!?!?), and now we’re in a pickle: Netflix, our Lost dealer, does not have the yet-to-be-completed season 3 on DVD.  When we realized this, we broke out into a cold sweat.  I started to itch and Claire began to convulse and tear apart the apartment looking for a forgotten disc.  There had to be more, had to be!

We tried the next line of attack (bearing in mind that I have not the time, will, or bandwidth to use bittorrent or the like): iTunes.  I bought an episode and we watched it on my 15-inch screen.  Small size aside, there were slowdowns during the large pans and some audio/video syncing problems.  Not to mention it cost me $2 an episode.

Luckily, a friend let us know that you can watch episode of Lost for free (!) on ABC.com.  Awesome, good move ABC.  Unfortunately, they’re smarter than I expected: you can only get the most recent 10 episodes.  The season is probably 20 episodes in, so we’ve been reduced to buying the episodes on the iTunes store.  I’m trying to not be bitter, but I feel like Netflix has let me down.

With that in mind, here’s what Netflix should do:

In addition to the collected season discs, Netflix should release “singles” of Lost: single episodes on a disc.  As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t even need to have a unique menu (as classy as the Lost DVD menus are).  It just needs to work.  I’d be perfectly willing to use one of my Netflix slots for this.  Sure, some money would be spent creating these discs (which I suppose would have to eventually be sold for very cheap on the Netflix store), but I think fellow Lost addicts will agree with me: we will have incredible loyalty to Netflix if they support our addiction.

I’m off to rob my best friend so I can buy more Lost on Netflix and smoke it.

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Money and music

I guess I thought I was a smart marketer/musician, but (as always) I still have more to learn.

From this point on I vow never to take money to support my music unless it is officially a gift (which means no-strings-attached) or a loan with a contract.  It’s impossible to deal with ambiguities amongst friends, fans, or even companies.  Until your band becomes incredibly successful, bartering, haggling and negotiating every dollar at the merch table (or at your office, or at the record store) is the name of the game.  Without it, your merch sales will plummet (not that ours are very high).

The guy at your show who only loved the last song but only has $4 isn’t going to go down the street to the ATM for the extra dollar, but if you give it to him for $4 he will wear that shirt everywhere and talk about how cool the guys in your band were.  He will evangelize you and generate more fans/sales than the $5 you would have charged for the shirt.

Bottom line is, when I’m dealing with merch and money I either need to know that I answer only to myself/my band or that I have a specific dollar amount I need to reach to not get my knees broken.

If that means I have to write “Monsters are not Myths” in sharpie on a thrift-shore shirt, so be it.

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Lack of innovation in the petroleum industry

I heard the ED of Shell on NPR this morning talking about how Shell is going to start supporting cleaner fuels.  The NPR host made the mistake of asking if Shell might become a petroleum free company anytime soon.  His answer was not surprising:  “I don’t see Shell becoming a non-petroleum company for a long time”.  That’s because, as much as they say they want to help, they don’t.  That and they’re unwilling or incapable of thinking outside of the barrel.

Why not accept the fact that in a few years the earth will either be submerged in melted ice caps and fire or will be using cars that are primarily electric?  Start the marketing now!  Think of how far ahead of the competition you’ll be.  Here’s a couple freebies.

“Charge your car here and get a free coffee and donut!”
With all the money you’re saving on expensive offshore drilling and hiring lawyers to sicc against the environmentalists, throw in some freebies that consumers will never get at the locations with gas for $5/gallon.

“Pet the seals you’re saving!”
Instead of worrying about which environmental disaster you’ll cause next, have a petting zoo where consumers can pet the animals that aren’t’ being killed by oil tankers.

“Celebrate Iraq pullout day!”
Enjoy yourselves on the anniversary of the U.S. getting their dirty, oil-covered hands out of the middle east.  Take a sip of clean, cold water and pat yourself on the back for stopping your destruction of the world as we know it.

Either that or I’ll see you on the day that electric cars collectively destroy your gas stations in an adult version of bumper cars.  I’ll buy you some cotton candy, because you will be poor and bitter.

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MANMcast

I spent last Saturday at Nick’s house recording vocals for our demos and jamming on new music.  Additionally, in an attempt to catch up to the internet zeitgeist, Monsters are not Myths has recorded a podcast.

I have to warn you: it’s completely ridiculous.  We’re pretty ridiculous.  And mildly offensive..  Please keep this in mind.

If you’d just like to hear the new track we were working on, skip to the last fourth of the podcast.  I’m really excited about where the song is going and I hope you’ll enjoy it.

As mentioned in the podcast, we’ll be playing in the Your Music Magazine Battle of the Bands on April 6th at The Catalyst in Santa Cruz, CA.  Doors open at 8, the show starts at 9pm.  Admission is $7 and the show is open to those 21 and older.

Please come out and support us: we promise a thoroughly rocking show with Nate Brown of Windham Flat and some new songs.  And if you tell me that you read about the show on my blog, I will buy you a Pabst Blue Ribbon.

If you haven’t heard Monsters are not Myths and would like to give us a chance you can hear some of our songs on our MySpace page.  If you really like them, they’re available at the iTunes store or at a discounted price at our shows.


 

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