Everything is starting to come together for the CD Release Show at Conflikt; we have a big bloody lot of musicians to try to pull this thing off live, which is a good thing, because we’ll need ’em! The performance lineup:

• Me, of course. Mandolin, Irish bouzouki, vocals, bodhran
• Alexander James Adams – drums, vocals, fiddle
• Jeri Lynn Cornish – cello, bones, backing vocals
• SJ Tucker – bass guitar
• Angela Korra’ti – flute, readings
• Leannan Sidhe – vocals
• Betsy Tinney – bodhran
• Paul Campbell – hammer dulcimer
• Skellington – fiddle, backing vocals

The sharper-eyed amongst you may note that we have all of Tricky Pixie in our band for this show. And that none of them are playing their usual roles, except for Alec, who is throwing in the same fiddle work he did on the album. I think this is hilarious and I hope you can come see it. It’s Sunday at Conflikt. (They have a show the weekend after us, and you should go see it, too.)

Also, I just finished the first draft of the print edition of Bone Walker, the novel. I’ve already found a couple of things to fix, but it’s close. STAY ON TARGET

Teenage Engineering have produced a lot of really clever and nicely engineered synth devices over the last few years, so check out this pocket-sized sequencer they’re just releasing. (Klopfenpop found it, so h/t to him.) There are actually three models – a drum sequencer, a bass synth sequencer, and a melody unit, and they’re seriously like $60 each.

sixty dollars

Plus they look kind of awesome and adorable. They have passthrough so you can sync them so they’re actually useful together. I’m not convinced of the apparently-limited tempo settings so that’s a minus, but watch the video, this guy is making pretty awesome sounds just by button mashing.

button mashing makes legitimacy now

The only thing that would be better is if they came in kit form. These are begging for kit form. I would be even more all over that if they did.

holy hell, check out what’s up to number 80 on the weekly Alternative chart on Bandcamp.

Yeah, that’s right. Bone Walker.

I know it’s not a huge pond but it is the pond we are in and it is a chart we are on and with a nontrival number, and we’re still in pre-orders mode. o/

Talking of, if you prefer AmazonMP3 to Bandcamp for some reason, Bone Walker is up for pre-orders on Amazon now, too.

i’m just like “what?” at number 80. we entered the weekly chart yesterday at 129. today we’re number 80. at least as I type this. I guess I need a @wilw flail gif or something now because that’s what it feels like. 😀

I would normally not mention real-life things like going in for an MRI (may’ve done something to my shoulder, doesn’t bother me much, they want to look to be sure), but discovering that I am kind of invisible to MRIs is just weird.

It took them like 12 tries to get any kind of image, pulling me in and out of that stupid thing over and over again, and I’m not even ramping up that number. It was more than 12 times, I’m sure. They were trying with three different attachments hooked up like four different ways and ended up needing to focus the thing on a water bottle for a while before it could find my shoulder at all. They rebooted the entire MRI system like three times and all the images were completely blank until they tried that water bottle thing.

tereshkova2001 suggested on Twitter that I cut down on the deuterated water. I say cytotoxicity be damned, how the hell else am I going to keep this muscle density? Exercise? Hah!

Also I am apparently the first person to ask for CBC3 on the keep-you-distracted-from-the-scary-clanging-noises headset. I do not think this is related, but I cannot be sure.

And the sedative they gave me (liquid form valium) to keep me from blasting the machine to pieces? I do not like sedatives. This is not an exception. This is not a paranoid-and-hallucinating non-exception, but it is still not an exception.

I guess really Monday was mostly a write-off. At least I practiced a bit for the show, between bouts of trying really hard not to fall asleep.

Someday I won’t turn everything I do into some sort of art project. However, today is not that day.

These are the liner notes for Bone Walker. See? Special paper, custom cutting, typesetting – everything is a blinkin’ art project. XD

We’ve decided to go ahead and included the “(Original Soundtrack)” like CD Baby suggested. This means we’re in the very end of pre-order for the CD, so if you want a chance at the test disc as a bonus, pre-order right now. We only have one test disc, and this is your only chance of getting it. ^_^

Talking of CD Baby, we’ve sent in approval for general distribution. The album won’t go live on iTunes, et al, for a bit still – it takes a while for things to fall through all the systems. But we should be generally live by the end of the month. Anna’s also finishing up the technical release of Bone Walker, the novel; it’s up for pre-order on Amazon, with other links to follow. You can also talk about it on Goodreads, if you’re one of the lucky pre-order/pre-release people.

And, as always, if you’ve seen any commentary on Bone Walker, the soundtrack? Throw us a link. We really want to hear what people have to say. Thanks!

So CD Baby put “(Original Soundtrack)” onto the end of the Bone Walker album title. If you know nothing about any of this project, does that make you more or less likely to look at it when browsing?

My thoughts are that on one hand, it’s an atypical marker and thus distinctive, which is a plus. But on the other hand, most people won’t know what it’s a soundtrack for, and may skip over it on that basis.

They did it on their own and seem to think it’s better to have it, but I can have it pulled. What do you think? Are you more or less likely to look at something that says “(Original Soundtrack)” if you don’t know the thing it’s a soundtrack for?

Meanwhile, on the novel side, Anna just posted good news: Bone Walker (the novel) is now on Amazon for pre-order. She also has MOBI and EPUB versions ready for proofreading/testing – go look at her blog post for details on both.

And since I posted late in the day yesterday; in order not to make the Kickstarter backers wait any longer, we’ve gone ahead with a soft release of Bone Walker the album on Bandcamp only. The general release will wait until closer to the release event, but we didn’t want to make Kickstarter people wait any longer than they have already.

We’ve seen one or two public comments already – if you see any more, post in comments? That’d be really helpful. Thanks!

So Bone Walker is genuinely ready to go in download form. We’re holding the full release (iTunes, CD Baby, all that) until the book is ready too, closer to the CD release show at Conflikt.

HOWEVER! We realised over the weekend that since we are ready, it’s unfair to keep it back from the Kickstarter backers who have been waiting so long. And since the easiest way to get that sorted was to hand it out through Bandcamp, we’re gone ahead and made the Bandcamp edition LIVE.

Final Wraparound Cover

Yep, THE BANDCAMP VERSION OF BONE WALKER IS COMPLETE AND DOWNLOADABLE NOW. You can also still pre-order CDs, and one of you who pre-order the physical CD will get the little bonus we mentioned before. If you pre-ordered the CD already, you should have mail and download codes in your inboxes.

We aren’t ramping this monster up through the roof yet – the big event will be the book and album at the same time, and all that, and there’ll be the show and it will be awesome, like y’do. But the Kickstarter people have been incredibly patient, and sitting on it another couple of weeks just seemed rude.

It would be really nice if you post a review or comments if you let us know. That would be really excellent of you.

So remember the guest post that Jeff Bohnhoff wrote for the Studio Buildout Series of articles I posted while building out my studio?

Jeff has his own blog now for his own studio, and yesterday he put up a really good and extensive build report on his latest round of studio room conditioning, including a lot of details on building really large and pro-style sound baffles. They look spectacular and if you have any interest in home recording or sound control in a room, you should go look at it. It’s great.

Advance Review Copies of Bone Walker went out last night and we already have an awesome surprise that I can’t talk about yet. But I will, later. so exciting

The disc is approved. NEXT!

We just signed off on the master (with one small CD-TEXT modification, but that’s nothing). SHIP PARTY AT CONFLIKT! EVERYBODY SHOW UP OK!