Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

my music

Broadcasting live for 12for12k!

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The internet had the chance to see and hear the first ever live web concert of my original songs and familiar covers, plus help to raise donations for Unicef’s Believe in Zero campaign for 12for12k

My 12for12k Setlist with demo downloads (if available)…

Like a Virgin – Madonna
Small & Lonely
Icy Cold
Saving Grace (w/Paris monologue)
Shake It Off (w/ “Shake Your Body” outro)
Since U Been Gone – Kelly Clarkson
Something Real
High & Dry – Radiohead (per Danny Brown’s request of Fake Plastic Trees)
Bucket Seat (an Arcati Crisis song)
Real You
Man In the Mirror – Michael Jackson (cried on every chorus – WTG, rock star)
Granted
Love Me Love Me Not (an Arcati Crisis song)
Space Oddity – David Bowie

Also, a few I planned to play but cut (or just forgot)…
What It Is
Unengaged
Gone Baby Gone

For people who watched and said they’d be interested in buying a CD (a) you are wonderful, and (b) download what you will and make a donation to this month’s charity, Unicef’s Believe in Zero. As a bonus, you can also grab my duo’s most recent Live @ Rehearsal album.

Also, we had a high of 40 unique users in the room at one time, so that’s what I donated ;)

Watch and chat live now with 12for12k

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If you aren’t the sort of person who masochistically books their Mondays right down to the last minute you might want to drop in on some 12for12k video events prior to my big video streaming debut tonight at midnight EST.

Just visit tinychat.com/12for12k to catch the following:

7.00pm est – Charity Panel with John Haydon, Joe Waters, Nicole D’Alonzo, Stacey Monk, Gabe O’Neill, and Danny Brown.

8.00pm est – Live music from special guest (TBA).

9.00pm est – Special section with the Looking Glass Lane girls.

10.00pm est – Comedy hour with Amanda Beals and New York comedy troupe, with an appearance from Wendy Liebman!

11.00pm est – Special adult hour with Avatar Koo reading short stories of erotic fiction.

Midnight est – Live music from me!

Midnight to 4.00am est – Special hosting from Iggy Pintado, author of Connection Generation.

TinyChat is a simple, old-school style web chatroom with the added bonus of audio/video chat from those who have it enabled. You can still watch and chat even if you don’t have a cam.

12for12k is effectively a charity of the month club – they seek out worthy organization with low administrative costs every month, and then spend the entire month spreading the word to raise donations.

Social networking makes this not only possible, but plausible. Instead of evangelizing to the web at least every month, 12for12k can aspire to having 12,000 (or more!) subscribers who chip in a $1 via paypal every month. It’s small change for one person, but $12,000 makes a big difference for the charity of the month.

I hope you’ll support 12for12k’s virgin videothon by dropping in for a few minutes, and follow them on Twitter to keep up with the charities they select for the rest of the year.

Streaming live at 12 midnight for 12for12k

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If you’re awake at midnight EST on the Monday-to-Tuesday divide you can catch the first ever live, streaming concert of my music – in support of an awesome, international charity drive called 12 for 12k.

I think I’ll call it at12for12for12k. Cool?

Founded by social media marketer Danny Brown, 12 for 12k throws down a bold challenge to social media users – can you use your social networks for good in concert with people all around the world to raise $12k for a new charity every month for a year?

This month’s charity is Unicef’s “Believe in Zero” – the belief that we can stop children from dying from preventable causes. And so far there is less than $1,200 pledged for the month.

It shouldn’t be that daunting. 1,200 people could do it for a reasonable $10 a month – three less trips to Starbucks. 12,000 people can do it with no issue – $1 a month, each! Easy pickings. If more than 10,000 Twitter users turned their icons green for Iran, surely just as many can muster $1 a month in donations to a good cause?

If you know me you know that projects like this are very close to my heart. I used Blogathon as a platform for my music to raise money and awareness for my favorite charities. I have cancelled Christmas in favor of giving charitable gifts. I volunteer with Lyndzapalooza – a musical non-profit dedicated to giving a voice to more of Philly’s independent artists. And starting tomorrow I am helping to plan a major non-profit project for this September.

12 for 12k is at once easier and harder than those projects. Easy, because it’s simple to support with a small donation. Hard, because it’s about making your giving a year-round trend – not just a once a year event.

I’ll be playing at midnight, and at the very least I will donate $1 for every song I play … and my songs are short, so that could get pretty expensive! In fact, I think I could play 12 songs in an hour… 12at12for12for12k!

If you’re awake at midnight – or even if you aren’t – will you do the same? Just ten of us donating $12 each is 1% of this month’s goal. We might not make it to $12k this month, but we can make giving a regular part of our lives, and save lives while doing it.

The power of social media compels you!

(PS: I promise at least Madonna & David Bowie covers, and almost can promise MJ as well. Dunno if the Lady Gaga is ready yet… you’d all have to donate a lot of money to hear that.)

…and there was life

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My body is convinced that there are 27 hours in the day.

It will gladly absorb a requisite eight of sleep, but then it wants to stay up and about for a too-long 18 hours, plus a bonus hour to wind down to sleep.

I’ve long since been used to tricking myself into being tired, but I cannot always trick my brain into making a to-do list that can be completed before midnight.

Tonight was an epic amount of exercise, mixing for a top-secret freelance project, uploading brand new Arcati Crisis videos, chipping away at some freelance writing, and beginning the massive late-spring cleaning required to accommodate the hulking new digital audio workstation Gina and I lugged from her car on Saturday before a completely exhausting/exhaustive drumming rehearsal with Chas.

BTW, Arcati Crisis with drums is awesome. Just you wait.

If you have been wondering where the spiffy PM demos have gone, they are far from over. It’s just that I realized somewhere around 9:30 p.m. on June 7th that I haven’t had to contain many more than a dozen well-rehearsed, original, solo songs in my body all at once for several years – let alone contain them on top of my AC repertoire – and so it would be a stretch to assume there were another 46 good ones ready to tumble out daily for the rest of the month.

Also, there was the little matter of having completely worn through my dozen-years-in-the-making guitar calluses, a feat I’ve only accomplished a handful of times previously. Merrily, my vocals stayed strong throughout – more points towards the value of good voice instruction. Old-school me would have been croaking like a frog by day four.

(Also also, I was primed to miss out on some actual life in order to keep recording – including seeing good friends (and clients) play big shows, supporting local open mics, and communicating with my wife, amongst other things. Oh, and maybe a Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon.)

(Don’t judge.)

Point being, I’ll be back with another run of of demos as soon as I have the time to rehearse them a bit, because scrabbling through a daily duo of tunes so barely-rehearsed that they hardly hang together sortof defeats the entire point of the project (i.e., to rehearse for my impending studio album and definitively/digitally put to rest some older tunes).

In the meantime, I am insanely happy with the results of the first seven days, particularly Saving Grace and Colorblind, both of which are intricate and in alternate tunings. Not ones I thought you’d hear in the first week.

Knowing my body and its various to-dos, I’m thinking sleepiness will arrive circa 1:50 a.m.

Held My Tongue (2009 Demos) – 7/30

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This is post 7 of 30 featuring live, single-take demos of each of the 30 songs I’m considering for my upcoming studio album. Each potential album tune is accompanied by a B-Side, to make each post a virtual 45 single (remember those?).

This pair of songs have always been as easy to play as they were to write. I wish I could say the same for the remaining 46 songs I have to capture.

Also, the fingers on my left-hand are completed shredded, which – given my decade-plus of guitar calluses – is a pretty impressive feat.

Song #174: Granted (live demo)
Last recorded the night it was written in October of 2003.

Granted was perhaps the first time a song woke me up from a dead sleep. I’ve been listening to its original early a.m. demo for so many years that I didn’t realize the subtle changes in how I perform it. Today it is for Sandra.

Song #141: So Hard (live demo)
Last recorded for Trio in February of 2003

This song began in an AIM window in January of 2002. I was talking to someone who was perpetually at odds with life, trying to explain that he should anticipate what he’d think about some of his decisions in hindsight. The rest of the song emerged in short order. Since he’s long since been forgotten, I tend to perform this as if it’s about myself. It’s a particular favorite of E’s and mine.

If you dig one (or both) of these songs, please leave a comment – your feedback will have a big effect on the songs I ultimately choose for the album.