So remember when I went EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE RADIO INTERVIEW! last month? The station manager was kind enough to send me the audio! Thanks again to transmissionfm 88.3 Auckland, host Delores La Picho of Is This the Future?, and Daphne Lawless of the darkwave band Vostok Lake for hooking me up. I had a great time, thanks for having me on!

New Trad o’ th’ Month!

For years I’ve had a Republic of Cascadia world that I’ve built and have been using for Norwescon and NASFiC and some of my art and other creative efforts. If you don’t know about it already, it’s a long story, but the Republic broke off from the United States and Canada during the Crisis of ’73, and never looked back.

This song, a variation on “Loch Lomond,” came out of the War for Cascadian Independence – specifically, a rather dirty part of the fight involving Americans from the Idaho side of the border, and Unionist minority from the dry side of Cascadia, and it came during a point when things were looking quite bad for the fledgling Republic.

Enjoy.

I’m working on a new Trad o’ th’ Month on Tuesday. I’m not sayin’ what it is, but you’ll see a post about it soon enough. This’ll be a fun one-day recording. Anna calls it the first version of this song she’s heard that she’d call “rockin’,” which makes me inordinately happy. NO IT’S NOT DANNY BOY don’t step to me ’cause I’ll do it. AGAIN. XD

I forgot to mention in the note about the track art contest (and I hope you’ll enter!): Bandcamp likes it better if the art is square. I can make it effectively square by adding white letterboxing, and will if needed, but if you don’t want that you’ll want to design for square.

All for now. Bedtime for crazy elves! Then: RECORDINGS! YAY!

Show Friday! 6pm(ish), Green Bean, Greenwood, Seattle. C’mon out if you can! I still don’t know whether there’s an act opening for me or whether I just have a realllllly long set. If the latter, I’m ready, I’ll take it! MOAR STAGE FOR ME! XD

And if you’re on LJ, you already saw this:

First CD to a Cascadian radio station

KEXP should have received this today. Hopefully they’ll decide to play something from it!

PS: Portal2 does not disappoint. Just sayin’.

I was doing admin stuff on Bandcamp the other day. Do you know Bandcamp allows you to post separate art for every song? I do! And that means it’s time for an ART CONTEST! Yay!

To play, make some kind of visual art about any individual track on the website, including spoken word. When it’s finished, send it to me, or a link to it, with how you want credited, and a link to your website if you want one. Any kind of visual art that can be posted to the web counts.

I’ll post entries to the blog as they come in, credited and with link. (Assuming they are legally postable, and reasonably copyright-OK. No stealing! It’s not irony; we just don’t want the competition.) The ones the band like most will be put on Bandcamp, again with credit and link, assuming everybody’s okay with that.

And assuming at least three entries, somebody will win a signed CD, and there may be other prizes as we think of them!

Did I forget anything? I hope not. Anyway, that’s how it works. We’ll put entries up as we get them, and pick favourites on June 1st!

Also! Come to the show Friday night at the Green Bean in Greenwood, Seattle! It’s a multiple-act set with me, Weird Feeling nr. 3 headlining, and another act who I don’t know yet because the hula dance troupe originally opening for me at 6pm had to cancel. Shows start 6ish and run through 8:30. C’mon out, it should be good weird fun!

So I was out doing various Day Job Things when I got an IM from Anna: holy crap we’re on iTunes, early! And the mp3s are on Amazon! No sign of CDs yet, but you can get those here, or on CD Baby, or at Sonic Boom Records.

I wasn’t expecting it to show up on Amazon for another three weeks, so that’s all very surprising! I wasn’t even checking for it. XD

Please, please, those of you with the album and on iTunes and on Amazon – go rate it! It needs stars! Lots of stars! It likes them!

Also, I played here last night:

Oxford Saloon, Snohomish

It wasn’t the kind of event I thought it was, it was more of a blues show, but they brought me up between sets and I did a miniset of five songs while the blues band in charge of things took a break. If you like the blues scene, I recommend it; the first set is an hour plus of solid blues, followed by a break, followed by an open blues jam. And if you were there last night: me, between sets!

The funny part was running into CD Woodbury on the way out. HI CD!

But mostly, EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE iTunes! Clickie and rate!

I keep having this strange reaction of “agh I have all these copies I pirated, I should buy it” except “o wait no I own these, like made and actually own own these, lol.” Strange feeling is strange. BUT WHO CARES ABOUT THAT! ITUNES OMG! XD

A couple of new gigs to announce now that I finally have five minutes to do it:

1: May 6th, at the Green Bean in Greenwood, Seattle. I’m the second band in a three-band set so should be on shortly after 7pm and hope to have more details soon.

2: Talk Like a Pirate Day in Kirkland, at Juanita Beach Park, from 3-5pm, September 9th. I’ll be loading up on riot-and-revolution trad for that one. It’ll be fun!

And! I have another secret! This one’s midsummer. Wish me luck!

If you were shooting stills or video at either nwcMUSIC shows at Norwescon last weekend, would you post links? Several cameras were in use and at couple video cameras were rolling; I’d love to see pics!

Who opened for Death*Star on Saturday? Yeah, me, that’s who

Finally, I got to see – as in actually see, rather than miss most of it running around fixing logistics – Heather Dale’s show last night, making up for the one I missed most of at Norwescon. She’ll be back in town in June with the whole band, and if you’re a performing musician trying to make a go of it? Show up and take some goddamn notes. I mean it.

…that’s the third straight week averaging >100 plays on the website. I hope some of you guys made the gig. I had a hell of a good time, did you?

I posted a bunch of backstage and front-stage nwcMUSIC photos on Flickr. They’re just snapshots from my iPad, but they’re fun. I wish I’d had my real camera!

Back from nwcMUSIC at Norwescon – and that was the best time I’ve had at one of those in years. I sold a bunch of CDs and met a bunch of people and learned a bunch of things and THANKS for coming to my sets, even the last-second fill-in spot on Saturday night! I wish there’d been time to get word out, but that’s how it goes with last-minute cancellations.

(The band which dropped out the day of their show described their reasons as “personal” and “sudden,” which is an apt description for a car bomb. Note that down, kids: never get between a supervillain and the stage she wants! XD )

So much to see and do and so little time even in four days. Cascadia’s Got Talent! was a riot, Heather Dale is an unending fount of friendliness and cheer, we had new attendance marks at concerts – the Thursday shows this year, the experimental first-time shows, did better than last year’s Friday shows – Kinuko Craft is a lovely person to talk to, and I had no idea how much I’d missed the Merchants of Diva until they were back. With their vodka.

I didn’t know vodka fluoresced! But now I do. This is critical information.

Way too many con people to thank from the con and the concerts, but include Heather Dale, Ben Deschamps, Vixy & Tony, Death*Star, Annie Henry, Leannan Sidhe, Sunnie Larsen, Betsy Tinney, Dave Tinney, Aislinn the Bard, Starlight, Electric Children, Andrew Ross, Jen Kilmer, Dave Tinney, John Seghers, Angela Korra’ti, and if I forgot anybody it’s just ’cause I’m so tired.

Four days of awesome means I need a nap. Let’s do this again sometime!

Hello Norwescon! There are showbills up everywhere and it’s not even Thursday yet. I was just explaining chiptunes for somebody and hopefully they’ll make my show and stay for Electric Children and Andrew Ross and and and!

Also, hi Seattle Geekly peeps! Nice to meet you! C’mon by, say hi! 8pm, Thursday, just follow the showbills XD Also I’m on some panels, too. Godt dammit, this is going to be fun! ^_^