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A friend recently reminded me that in about a year it’ll be the tenth anniversary of I Don’t Know What I’m Doing‘s first pressing. I’ve had a few requests for vinyl but not really enough to make me confident I won’t lose money and wind up with a big box of records in my basement. Anyone hot to buy it in an ancient format?

Oh yeah here’s the Facebook post.

Just got back from a vacation in Nova Scotia. Man, I really needed that. What a beautiful province, I ate so much chowder and so many mussels and looked at so much ocean. I also was really surprised at how much I loved the Alexander Graham Bell museum. Turns out I knew almost zero about him, what a rad dude with a rad wife.

I’m really excited about music and recording again. I wasn’t sure that’d ever happen. I’m going to start recording drums for new songs in the next few weeks — it’ll be my first shot at using a live kit and human drummer for Brad Sucks songs so I’m curious/nervous to see how it’ll go.

I’m heading back to XOXO in Portland in September this year. If you’re in town, let’s grab a drink. XOXO was really inspiring last year, it really nailed home for me that my independent Internet creator angst is not in any way special or unique to me.

I’ve been loving the latest Queens of the Stone Age record the new Freeman record (by Aaron Freeman from Ween.) What have you guys been listening to?

PS: Current plan is to update here more regularly. But I also post stupid stuff on Twitter and Facebook.

The last half of 2013 was a lot better than the first half. But I did spend a lot of time working on getting better musically and cranking out demos, so that’s good. I was really in a slump there for a few years, it was impressive, how does that shit happen? Hopefully no more. Thanks for your patience.

So I’m looking forward to a musically productive 2014, movin’ on into the future, taking more chances, being a person who does things again.

To celebrate, here’s a video Eddie Utah did for Making Me Nervous with a GoPro camera:

I hope you’re all doing great. I know blogging and RSS sort of died this year, but you can also find me on Facebook and Twitter and Soundcloud and maybe Tumblr sometimes? There’s also a mailing list.

Thanks to y’all who came out to the Montreal show. I’m actually glad there weren’t more of you because I’m very shy.

Winding down the year here — I’m playing bass December 27th as a replacement member of The Burning Sensations. The next day there’s a Brad Sucks show in Kingston on December 28th and then it’s time to get cracking on rehearsing and recording some new things in the hopes of a musically productive 2014.

(poster by Geoff Gibson)

I’ve got a few shows coming up:

November 16: The Branch, Kemptville, ON
November 30: Il Motore, Montreal, QC
December 28: The Mansion, Kingston, ON

Posters by Geoff Gibson (Samurai in Street Clothes):

When I was in Portland a few weeks ago for XOXO I sat down with Josh Millard and Jesse Holden and a bunch of delicious beers and recorded this podcast interview.

I had sworn I would never attend a conference again but I was at XOXO in Portland a few weeks ago and it was damn lovely. Lots of cool people and fun stuff, I’ll be going next year if they have it again.

Looks like all the talks are being posted on Youtube. Some favorites of mine were Jonathan Coulton’s, Cabal Sasser’s, Adrian Holovaty’s and Vi Hart’s. The first two made my eyes water a few times. I hear there were some great ones in the morning as well that I missed due to the previous evening’s party levels getting out of hand.

One of the most inspiring things during the event was seeing all these independent, do-it-yourself creative types struggling with the same issues I’ve struggled with: overwork, pressure, isolation, confidence, customer/fan issues, balancing business and creativity. When you do it all yourself you can go a little crazy, getting wrapped up in your own universe and forgetting your problems aren’t the worst problems ever invented. It’s a struggle for everyone and there’s something very comforting in that.

Over on Metafilter I joined in on the Bowie Summer Challenge. The idea was to, as a community, cover the entire The Rise And Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars record. I was assigned the song Soul Love which I wasn’t familiar with (I’m more a Scary Monsters guy than Ziggy Stardust.) Anyway, here’s what I came up with:

Soul Love (cover)

Update: Got a few requests for the multitracks, so you can grab them here.

Hey, just found out UFC women’s champ Ronda Rousey likes my song:

Crazy! Also in other MMA-related news some Brad Sucks songs will be on the Co Main Event Podcast next week, which is my favorite podcast.