Devo Spice Update - 4/30/2013

Hey folks,

I got some last minute information about my show in Washington DC next week that I wanted to pass on to you.

If you’re planning to come out be sure to mention to the people at the door that you’re there to see me. Even if you’re not. I don’t care. If enough people say they’re there to see me I’ll actually get paid for my performance. (Getting paid to perform. What a novel idea!) I go on at 8:30.

And if you’re not planning to come it’s not too late to change your plans! :) Or if you know anyone in the DC area who might be into a nerdy show pass the info on to them.

Saturday, May 4th, 8pm
Axum’s Lounge
1934 9th St. NW
Washington, DC

And here’s the Facebook event for the show:
https://www.facebook.com/events/611661735514836/

Because it’s not really happening unless there’s a Facebook event for it.

In other news I just posted the latest episode of The Insider. You can download that from here:
http://www.devospice.com/podcast.php

Spice Rack subscribers I fixed the private RSS feed today, so your login should work again. If it doesn’t let me know.

->Later.....Spice

Devo Spice Update - 4/22/2013

A couple people have asked me about my PenguiCon schedule for this weekend. My concert is scheduled for 9pm Saturday night in Oakland. (That's the room, not the city. I'm not driving to Oakland, CA from New Jersey.) If anyone has any particular songs you would like to hear drop me a line and I'll see if I can work them into my set. I'm really looking forward to this. I haven't been to PenguiCon in a couple years now. Although I'll pretty much only be there for Saturday.

Speaking of cons it looks like I won't be able to make it to BaltiCon this year. I haven't been booked yet but I was hoping to go anyway. However we recently scheduled my daughter's birthday party and the place she wants to have it couldn't do her birthday weekend. So we're doing the following weekend which is the same weekend as BaltiCon. So while you guys are off partying I'll be at a local gymnastics place with a bunch of hyperactive 9 year olds.

In other news I've made some good progress on the Best of Sudden Death project. I'm almost done mixing and mastering the songs for Volume 2. I still have to re-record "My Doctor's A Quack" and my friend Marnie has agreed to reprise her role as the ditzy girl at the beginning of the song. Then I have some work to do on Volume 3 which will be fun and hopefully won't take as long. I'm really looking forward to the "I'm Bored" update. That's going to be fun.

->Later.....Spice

Devo Spice Update - 4/6/2013

Hello people who seem to enjoy the weird stuff I do! Here’s some updates on the weirness...

--== NON CON SHOWS ==--
--== BEST OF ALBUM COVER ==--
--== THE LOGAN MEDLEY ==--
--== DR. DEMENTO DOCUMENTARY ==--

--== NON CON SHOWS ==--
I have some shows coming up that aren’t part of a convention. This happens occasionally. The first one is this Monday in Brooklyn, NY with Rob Paravonian.

April 8 - Brooklyn, NY
The Way Station, 684 Washington Ave
I go on at 8:00. There’s no cover and no minimum.
http://waystationbk.blogspot.com

May 4 - Washington, DC
Axum’s Lounge
$10, 21 and over. First 20 people get a free comic book.
https://www.facebook.com/events/611661735514836

June 29 - New York, NY
The PIT, 123 E. 24th St.
$10, or free with a comedy student ID
https://www.facebook.com/TotallyRequesty

I’ll also be at PenguiCon at the end of the month.
http://2013.penguicon.org


--== BEST OF ALBUM COVER ==--
Hey, you know that Best of Sudden Death compilation I’ve been working on since September? It’s getting closer to completion! Honest! Want proof? The other night I finished the painting for the album cover. Here it is!

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/537890_10151687103355561_1336360796_n.jpg

--== THE LOGAN MEDLEY ==--
This year at MarsCon the great Luke Ski opened the Logan Awards with a medley of songs by Logan Whitehurst. There is now a studio version of this medley available on The FuMP featuring me in a couple specific areas. You can hear me in “Happy Noodle Vs. Sad Noodle” and “Robot Cat.” And yes, that’s me gargling during “Lizard and Fish.”

This song is available as a free download at The FuMP right now. Go get it!
http://www.thefump.com/fump.php?id=1673

--== DR. DEMENTO DOCUMENTARY ==--
A production company is currently in the early stages of planning a documentary about Dr. Demento’s life and career. The film will be called Under The Smogberry Trees and will feature interviews with Barnes and Barnes, Whimsical Will, and Ogden Edsl, and many other people who were a huge part of Dr. Demento’s life. Dr. Demento is fully on board (this is an official film, not a little fan video or anything) and several FuMP artists are slated to be interviewed as well (including me, Luke Ski, Chris Mezzolesta, and several others).

The film is currently looking to raise $100,000 on Kickstarter to cover the costs of the production. They are well on their way ($13,705 as of this writing) but they have a long way to go. So if you can please go donate something to their Kickstarter campaign. Every little bit helps.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/smogberrytrees/under-the-smogberry-trees-the-true-story-of-dr-dem

That’s it for now. Hope to see some of you in Brooklyn on Monday!

->Later.....Spice

The Logan Medley

This year's MarsCon opened with the great Luke Ski, Insane Ian, TV's Kyle, and Carrie Dahlby singing a medley of songs by Logan Whitehurst. It was a fantastic tribute. There is now a studio version of that song available on The FuMP, clocking in at 6 minutes long and featuring 10 different FuMP artists.









So 10 FuMP artists equal one Logan. Sounds about right.

Originally posted at DevoSpice.com. You can comment here or there.

I hate it when I fail at stuff.

I really hate it. Especially when the reason I fail is completely out of my control. There's a reason my company is called FIDIM Interactive. FIDIM stands for "Fine! I'll do it myself!" for those of you who never caught on to that. I learned very early on that when it came to creative projects I either do it myself or it didn't get done. With the exception of a handful of close friends and FuMP cohorts that is still true to this day.

In late 2010 I put a project in motion to get FuMP songs up on Rock Band. I had two options here. 1. Hire a company who knows what they're doing to author the songs for me, or 2. Do it myself. My instincts told me to bite the bullet and do it myself, but there are a lot of steps involved in authoring songs for Rock Band, plus some initial expenses, and a steep learning curve. So what I decided to do was try for 1, and if that failed I'd go with 2.

I put out some feelers to a couple of these Rock Band authoring companies and with one of them I struck gold. The guy who ran this one particular company was not only a fan of funny music but he has a working comedy-musician in the family. So he knew first hand where we were coming from and he was excited to be working with us. We set up a revenue sharing agreement, I signed contracts, and we got to work.

The FuMP Core decided fairly quickly that "Dead Again" by Possible Oscar (a cover of the Tom Smith song) would be perfect for Rock Band and that we should have them do that song first. We also submitted "Mallet of Metal" by Consortium of Genius, and then later we submitted "Raichu A Song" by Nuclear Bubble Wrap, "Halloween" by Steve Goodie, and "The Dumbest Song on Rock Band" by me, which I wrote specifically because we had this deal in place and I knew I could get it on Rock Band.

As always happens with these things the company was excited at first, but then it became work, and the updates became slower and further apart. However, in late 2011 we were happy to report that "Dead Again" was live on Rock Band! We celebrated, and I figured things would go a lot smoother now that the first hurdle was cleared.

From all the reports I heard "Dead Again" was fairly successful on Rock Band. It was featured by Harmonix and even ported to the PlayStation network, whatever that means. It was well-reviewed and by all accounts was selling well. But I never got any official numbers from the company.

Then updates trailed off even more. Every few weeks I would ping them for an update and on the few instances where they responded they said they were close, songs were in play testing, things would be posted within a week or so, blah blah blah. Same thing every time. Nothing ever happened and we never saw any money for the sales of "Dead Again." Then they stopped responding altogether.

Then in April of 2012 I found out that the company was shutting down and being sold to another company. I contacted this other company and told them the situation and they said they were sorry about what happened but that was a very common story in the Rock Band authoring world. They assured me they were in the process of migrating assets over from the first company and that we would have some new papers to sign with them and then they would take over FuMP song authoring going forward.

I was excited, but at the same time I wanted to get my song up there as fast as possible. I had just been contacted by a guy who wanted to author "The Dumbest Song on Rock Band" independently so I asked the new company if I could have that song back and let the other guy do it. They said fine, so I sent him the stems and turned him loose.

Same thing happened with him. Updates were initially fast and progress was swift and then he realized it was work and trailed off.

The second company never materialized into anything, either. Beyond that first email from the owner I got no meaningful correspondence with them whatsoever and never received any of the promised contracts. I pinged him several times (most recently January 22nd) but never received a reply.

This morning I was listening to The Scope Show (one of the hosts, coincidentally, is in Possible Oscar, the band that did "Dead Again") and during their news segment they announced that Harmonix will be ending the downloadable content for Rock Band effective April 1st. So that, as they say, is that.

2 1/2 years of coordinating, managing, effort, and aggravation and what do we have to show for it? One song on Rock Band which I've never even played and no money from the sales of that song.

This, folks, is why I do things myself.

I'm going to try one last attempt to contact the individuals at both companies (I'm assuming at this point that the second company has or will be closing down as well) to try to at least get whatever money we (well, Jared, mostly) are owed. I may try to contact someone at Harmonix to try to get a sales report for the song so I can get an idea how much that was but I doubt they'll be willing to give me that information. I'm not going to turn this into another Prince Markie Dee thing because unlike that situation we didn't put out any money up front here. We're just owed royalties on the presumed sales of a song, but that could be any amount.

But I'm more pissed because this just didn't happen. And at this point I'm blaming myself because I didn't take the bull by the horns and learn how to author Rock Band content myself like I damn well knew I should have. I was really looking forward to playing "The Dumbest Song on Rock Band" on Rock Band and now it looks like that's never going to happen.

So when people ask me why I'm so busy, why I take on so much, why I do what I do, this is why. Because if I don't do it it doesn't get done.