Seven tracks. One mediocre musician. And a leaky, phallic tap. Turns out that if you can somehow throw together enough pieces of music, you've got an album -- no matter how odd, dissonant or confusing those pieces are. So as with 90% of the things I do, what started out as a joke has flourished into a reality, as I bring you the audaciously titled 'Eponymous', available to download for FREE right now. That's likely a blessing, as when you hear a couple of these, I reckon "Let's give this guy money!" will be the last thing on your mind.
Take it seriously and you're wasting your time. But allow yourself to laugh at the dodgy vocals, painful melodies and idiosyncratic lyrics, and maybe you'll have some fun. The official description reads:
"A collection of odd pieces I've managed to collate over the last few years, ranging from the bizarre to the eloquent, from the witty to the shitty, from the hippy to the hoppy. Enjoy and/or hate it."
Tracks include:
Nothing But The Sky(feat Tobias)-- A tour de force of electro sampling, greatly aided by the freestyle lyrics and screams of DJ Arnie and Tobias, aged 12.
Through The Gentle Black -- A relaxed journey along the black keys of my USB keyboard. Such a sophisticated instrument...
Writer's Block -- My first foray into actual song writing, with this musical-inspired piece about the notorious process of writer's block (part of previous GCSE coursework).
8-Bits of You -- The other GCSE piece of work, commonly referred to as 'Digitised Nonsense'.
Mama Do'a What'a She Like Today -- This is what happens when you learn very basic mixing and have a very boring afternoon.
Ode to The Credits -- Everyone's favourite ditty from the YouTube smash hit dramedy, 'Don't Shoot!'.
Super Secret Bonus Track! -- Only available by downloading (it's a tense one).
Now go ahead and dance away to my irritatingly limited vocal range while riding bum notes across the vast, vast ocean of generic chord sequences. For a split second amongst it all you may experience something good, and for me, that's enough. It is merely a joke album, after all.
Thanks to Nick Townsend for allowing me to use his brilliantly absurd photograph as the poignantly irrelevant cover art. PLUG!
Well here we are, one week later to officially reveal who has one their desired Boxset, with the DMb One Year Anniversary Giveaway. First off, a massive thanks to everyone that entered, whether it be via Facebook or Blogger - Yep, all 28 of you! So without further a do, watch this here video I recorded (just so you know there was no foul play) and find out whether you were the lucky winner!
So congratulations to you, and commiserations to the rest. But don't fret, this (relatively small, but huge in context) level of buzz that was created by the giveaway has convinced me to most definitely do it again in the future. So if you didn't get lucky this time, stick around for more great chances at more great prizes. And why not stick around just for my humbling foray of words for you to read on all manner of awesome stuff? C'mon, you know you want to.
Thanks again, all.
ATR
And yes, I am aware of the slips in the video. Voted = Entered...
Yes indeed my friends, after successfully completing a whole year with Dude Meister Blogs, I'm celebrating with a giveaway. And the best part? You get to choose which one out of these 4 incredible DVD boxsets you'd like if you win:
Then just post a comment on the status containing this post with which Boxset you'd like to win.
And you'll be entered into the prize draw next week. Competition closes 5pm (UK Time) on the 16th January, only one comment per person please, and this is for UK residents only. Sorry, rest of the world! The winner will be notified by email (or Facebook) shortly after the competition closes and asked to provide an address to receive the prize through.
So get those comments in quick for your chance to win, and feel free to follow me on Twitter (@DMeisterTweets) for all the latest here and for more future giveaways.
EDIT: Just to clarify, this will be a brand new boxset the winner receives, not one taken from my own collection and passed on. Hope that prevents any confusion.
Because I'm a true believer in structure, I've decided to break Supdates up into relevant sections. Nothing major, just helps with the flow of transitioning into new topics and what not. So dive in!
Worst Summer Ever?
As school begins to leer its head once more, further devouring the fading light that was the Summer break, you can't help but reflect on what you've done these past 6 weeks. Maybe you went on holiday, somewhere grand and beautiful and relaxing, maybe you did an amazing thing or met amazing people, doing things you wanted and needed to do, or maybe you just spent 3 fortnights sitting on your arse doing naff all.
Unfortunately, I fall into this latter category. Yep, almost 42 days and nothing to show for it. In fact, I could probably teach a crash course in procrastinating and laziness after this. I wanted to blog a lot this Summer, but instead only pushed a mere 3 pieces in August, a laughable amount considered to the previous month. Distractions take over and before you know, I'm here. Oh and a tip: don't make big "To-Do" lists, it just makes you more depressed when you look back and see NOTHING crossed off. But I digress. Besides that wasn't the only reason that this has been a somewhat lacklustre Summer, because as usual the Great British weather decided to be a douche and treat us like a soggy slice of towel roll... It's not a perfect simile...
Writer's Block and A Little Inspiration
Thanks Felicia!
Like I've said, articles (and my writing in general) have become... constipated, to put it into context. They just don't want to shift out of my head and onto the page/screen. So after 5-ish weeks of that I read this: http://feliciaday.com/blog/how-i-started-writing - a great piece from The Guild (an awesome webshow) creator, Felicia Day. Turns out, she too used to just sit on her bum and think about writing things, rather than getting up and doing them. She even used to be a World Of Warcraft addict, spending hours of her time a day on the game (which actually gave her inspiration for The Guild). Anyway, the short article gives her tips on how she embraced her creativity and took hold of her writing prospects, through various books, websites and exercises. Definitely check it out if your having trouble with any creative projects, because it really inspired me and gave a lot of hope to a shrivelled dream. Also try ZenHabits.net, another great blog full of helpful hints on how to prioritize, organize and get through life that little bit better. It really is shame I didn't discover all this cool stuff at the start of the holidays.
The Awesomeness of The Guild So while we're still on the topic of Felicia here, I'd like to talk to y'all about her aforementioned web series, The Guild: focusing around a group of MMO players as they try to juggle their totally unimportant real lives around their much loved (and addictive) RPG. Funny as hell, and littered with awesome references to video game culture, The Guild's an incredibly satisfying series, chock-full of laugh out loud moments and a rich, varied cast of hilarious characters.
You can catch up with it from the very beginning now, for free, over at watchtheguild.com, or on their YouTube channel! Also, if you happen to have Xbox Live you can find seasons 3-5 all in great quality on the Zune marketplace for free too, and episodes appear there first exclusively, every Tuesday (the latest was insane, due a very awesome special guest cameo). So long live The Guild: The show about gamers, for gamers, by gamers! Here's the crazy-hilarious Bollywood style music video from the "Guildies" themselves:
