SUPERGOD! THE MOVIE

Alright folks, after almost a year of work I'm ready to début this sonnavabitch to the world in Youtube form! This Christmas I spread it around as a DVD (which makes a lovely present for a loved one and can be easily purchased through my Bandcamp page here) and had a couple of small screenings but now it's time for the internet to get it's chance at it.

The movie is a strange little experimental thing I got the idea for last January while I was musing about what I was going to do for the RPM Challenge. I wanted to do something more ambitious. So I decided to actually do it and throw myself into this album length video project I've had in the back of my head for a long time, for my RPM project. I figured I would film most of it during January and do the music and editing in February. After about a week into February I realized that I was never in million years going to be making that deadline. So instead of killing myself to get a really shitty film done by the end of the month I decided to concentrate on making the soundtrack album first and then try to make the film as best I could afterwards.

When figuring out the plot and concept of the film there were three things I had to keep in mind, for one I knew it had to be something that I could do all by myself or otherwise it wouldn't get done (anyone who has experience organizing volunteers knows this to be true). For 2, it can't cost any money (I'm poor). And for 3, the story has to be something that can be expressed without dialogue because I am not an actor and I am not a fan of my speaking voice. While I was in Hava Java's on my Christmas visit last year I had some inspiration while recalling a short British film from the 60's I'd seen a few months earlier (I've been trying to find the name of it for the last 4 hours without any luck, if after my description you think you know what it's called please tell me). The film was about an intellectual and sceptical man on a sabbatical retreat to a coastal village who after an argument with a local resident about the nature of the universe goes on a walk and finds an ancient looking flute thing in an exposed grave site on a cliffs edge, and after picking it up and trying to play it without thinking much of it, is then followed by an apparition of some sort that in all a flurry appears in his room at night (which ends the film). I thought something like could be evocative and could be done by one person essentially and not need much or any dialogue. The perfect plot! But I had to screw around with it.

The movie was definitely a learning project. Pretty much every scene of the film involves some sort of fairly complicated effect that I had to figure out.from scratch. The movie was definitely influenced by (and I'm going to make the bad decision of comparing the works of proper masters to my cheap and shitty student film) the work of Svankmajer, Lynch, Tarkovsky and Maddin and it features many loving shots of food, random music videos, vaseline lenses, triptychs, moody drone pieces and a drawing that is either 1.21 billion miles across or 1 millionth the size of an atom depending on how you view it (it starts about 34 minutes in if you're curious). If you are curious about how the drawing sequence was accomplished then check out my entry on the Vicar Ouroboros video as it's pretty much the same method only slightly more elaborate and using 32 panels instead of 9.

Anyway, I'm pretty damn happy with the film and I guess the challenge now is to figure out what I can do with it since it's finished. I'm gonna try getting it into some festivals (possibly as a much shorter edited down version) and see what else can happen with it, but I'm the type of creative dude who as soon as I finish a piece I don't want anything more to do with it and only want to move onto the next project. And I gotta lotta ideas for new projects I wanna jump on. So I hope you all like it and don't just watch the first few minutes and move on to some other youtube piece of crap. You can buy a copy of the DVD or download the Score from me from my bandcamp page here. Enjoy!
Cheers!

SUPERGOD!!!!!! The Motion Picture Soundtrack: Rainbows, Piss & Meat

Well another February has came and went and that can only mean that now the deluge RPM Challenge albums will now start raining down from the heavens like hastily made indie manna. Here this years entry from me "SUPERGOD!!!!!! The Motion Picture Soundtrack: Rainbows, Piss & Meat". As you can tell from the title this is a soundtrack album to a movie I am currently working on. The original plan was to complete a short movie in the month of January, or at least get enough done so that I could start scoring, and then do a score during RPM month. This plan failed... It's not that I didn't get enough done to get started, I had about 15 minutes or so past the editing stage, I just realized fairly quickly that if I pushed myself to get this movie and score done by the end of February I'd just end up with a totally unwatchable movie with a shitty score. As much as it would've been awesome to pass in a finished DVD this year instead of a lowly CDR I didn't think it would worth it if it ended up looking like shit. So I swallowed my pride and just worked on getting some decent music down all the while thinking "cinematic" in my head. About 10 minutes or so of this album is actually scored to some scenes, which is trickier then I thought, but I'll leave it up to you to figure out what parts will make it into the movie or not.
This is without a doubt the most minimal SUPERGOD! album I've made yet, my whole focus this last year of music production has been trying to get more from less, while some parts are quite layered (there's about 20 guitars at the end of "Training bra stapled to a prison shed") most tracks have around 4 or 5 instruments instead of 20 or 30. I also took this project as an opportunity to try out some new software, I was sorta forced into this decision as I discovered that the software I've been using was giving me latency issues on this new computer I'm using with the fancier soundcard. This new program (I'm using REAPER by the way) took awhile to get used to but ended up winning me over with some nice features (or at least nicer features then my outdated version of Adobe Audition had) and it allowed me to come up with the loop studies on tracks 7, 9 and 16 that I'm quite pleased with.
I'm pretty happy with this years RPM, some songs like "A cage match with benefits" and "Don't listen too carefully to what the gunman says" got the atmosphere I was going for just right. Of course this wouldn't be an RPM without a few concessions: If I had more time I would've probably changed the vocal or pretty much all the lyrics on "Training Bra..." I'm not very satisfied with the transition between "The world is smiling now that I have no legs" and "A cage fight with benefits" even though I worked on it forever (the bandcamp player fucks up all the transitions anyway by adding the pause between tracks)  and the album as a whole could use more RAWK (although it has a bit here and there) and a bit more silliness. But y'know, deadlines make things happen.
I can't wait to hear what everybody else came up with this year!

SUPERGOD!! ~ The Party Controls The Gun - volume: Horse + volume: Lazerbeam

above: volume: Horses. click here to download from Mediafire

above: volume - Lazerbeam. click here to download from Mediafire

Continuing my SUPERGOD! Give Away Fever! here are the second and third albums in my SUPERGOD! series, "SUPERGOD!! The Party Controls the Gun - volume: Horses and volume: Lazerbeam". I made these while I was working on "The Pervert" album and I released them simultaneously as companion CDs back in 2007, I literally spent 95% of my time recording music that year. All the audio bits flow into each other like the first SUPERGOD! album, but this time I was nice enough to break them into separate tracks for listening convenience. This also gave me the opportunity to give my songs silly names which is where 90% of the appeal of SUPERGOD! material comes from. The material is much the same as the first one except a good bit darker, more or less random, a bit more "song" oriented and more polished then the first one.
I read an interview with Tom Waits where he was talking about his albums and how he purposefully puts the most challenging and abrasive song on the album first so it would quickly get rid of any "casual" listeners, as those are the worst kind of listener, and keep any active/interested ones (That's probably nothing like the actual quote but I can't find that interview anywhere right now so I'll go with that). I always liked that idea so most of my albums start with something horrible or ridiculous sounding. These two albums are the best examples of that theory as they both start with pure abject terror. I never made that many copies of these albums so you've got the opportunity to own something pretty rare here, so if you do listen to them tell me what you think.
Cheers

New SUPERGOD! Video - "A Scalpel Scrapes The Crust off the Sky"

Howdy!
I went and made a fancy new SUPERGOD! video for you fine people to feast your eyeholes at. I was all in epic mode when I recorded the song yesterday. The footage is from last weekend when me and my ladyfriend went up Signal Hill to do some illegal kite flying (we didn't know it was illegal at the time, I only found that out the other day, flight paths my ASS!). I named the song "A Scalpel Scrapes The Crust off the Sky" for obvious reasons. In other SUPERGOD! news I'll be sharing another couple of old SUPERGOD! albums here later on in the week, so look forward to that. Anyway tell me what you think of my video.
Cheers

Download the First SUPERGOD! album for Free

On a whim today I started up a Mediafire account and decided to christen it with the first self-titled SUPERGOD! album I put out three years ago. It's a ridiculous 40 minute affair (all one continuous track) whose main purpose was for me to get to know my recording gear a bit better and work on some wacky ideas I'd been brewing for awhile. You'll here chanting inanities, random freak-outs, experimental drones, disconcerting atmospheres, Steve Reich-y experiments, some soul balladry, some Godspeed You Black Emporer rip-offery, lots of Residents rip-offery and much more.

I'll post up the next two SUPERGOD! albums shortly, as no one cares about those albums anymore so I might as well give them away for free.

Download it Here

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SUPERGOD!!! ~ a man pees a hole through his pants

Hey folks
I got inspired today and decided to make another SUPERGOD!! video. this one is for the song "a man pees a hole through his pants" off of the "Rabid Peripheral Mermaid" RPM album (available for free download here). Unfortunately while I was filming this video the camera suffered an accident and was rendered crap. So it looks like there won't be anymore new videos for awhile, at least until the gods of surprise unemployment money look well upon me and I can afford to buy Michelle another camera (hopefully a better one). Sad sad times. Anyway, here is the video, it gets pretty trippy at the end when I start playing with psychedelic liquid effects and bring out the blood ball. Tell me if this is watchable or not.
Cheers.

New SUPERGOD!!!! music video

SUPERGOD!!! Rabid Peripheral Mermaid

Okay, so I warned everyone when I started this that entries would be sporadic at best because I'm a busy man who has better things to do with his time then blog about any old thing everyday. Speaking about side projects (was I?) for the last 28 days I've been working on my RPM challenge album "SUPERGOD!!! Rabid Peripheral Mermaid" I have it uploaded on the RPM website ready to be streamed by you frothing at mouth public types. I think it turned out pretty good if you're familiar with my previous SUPERGOD! material (this will be my fourth SUPERGOD! release) it's pretty much in the same vein of audio fuckery and loopy shinanigans. I'm going down to Fred's Records tomorrow give them a few copies. Anyway, it was fun, I might make a couple of videos for it, and maybe in the next few weeks I'll start going to shows again and start this here videography project back up. Tell me what you think if you have any thoughts on it at all.
Cheers!