Musical Monstrosity No More!

I am writing to inform the millions of apoplectic readers of The Musical Monstrosity that this weblog will most likely be retired by the next full moon.

Before they reach for their millions of filthy, snot-covered handkerchiefs, I suppose I should tell them that this is because a new, bigger and better "blog" will take it's place.

This new weblog will be the main internet outlet and hub for all things produced by me (Mr. Festhalten), Mr. Miller, Ms. Taberna, and Mr. S, as well as little Bunny Prole: collectively "Burning City Studios." The name of this new endeavour is to be announced as soon as Ms. Taberna gets it sorted (which shouldn't take long as she is oh so clever.)

That is all, I should think, for now. Except Bunny would like for me to show them all this not very amusing image of what appears to be a squirrel playing a banjo.

Good day!
-Mr. Festhalten

[source: http://www.rabblerousetheworld.com/submission-guidelines/]

[Mr. Festhalten is an intern and general tool at the Studios. He is really of very little consequence but, as I am required to attempt to make him seem important here, I will say the following.]

Mr. Festhalten is an indispensable member of the Burning City Studios staff and actually does most of what he is asked, except when he doesn't.

New Mr. S Song On BandCamp, (I Played A Monkey On) Faces Of Death

Wanna rock out but don't want to hear any stupid old-fashioned guitars?
Wanna rock lo-fi?
Wanna hear the distorted yelling of an over-excited alien?

"(I Played A Monkey On) Faces Of Death" is definitely for you!



Like the cover art work? No? Buy it as a poster or print on RedBubble!

Also, you can "watch" the "video" on Youtube!

(Song originally produced circa 2002. Copyright Oh The Glamour Music. Artwork adapted from "Distorted Self-Perception" by Keith Miller. Originally produced circa 2002. Copyright Burning City Studios.)

Time-Saving Tips For Starting Your New Redbubble (Or Other Print-On-Demand Store)

Before you get started with your new Redbubble or other POD store, let me save you a lot of time with a couple simple tips.

First, let's decide exactly what types of products you want to design for. Are you only going to design for one type? Are you going to design only t-shirts? Think again. There is no reason to design just for one type of product on Redbubble as any design can be offered for sale on most all of the products that Redbubble prints, and all on the same page. And selling the same design on as many different products as possible is a great idea as a potential buyer may love your design on that t-shirt, but they simply aren't looking for clothes. Maybe, however, they would buy it if it was available as a framed print. And don't think just because your design is not what would be considered "fine" art that someone wouldn't want a type of print that is usually reserved for fine art. If someone offered to buy a print of your comic book style design on a canvas print, would you turn them down? No. Why would you? There is NO reason to not offer your design on all available products. There is no cost to you and only potential gain.

Also, it is good to remember that your beautiful brightly colored design is going to be dulled down and darkened somewhat due to the printing method and the fact that it is being printed on cloth. You may find, as is the case on Zazzle, that white is not printed on any "light-colored" shirts. That includes colors up to a solid medium blue. Do you want your beautiful photograph based design to have all it's white areas replaced with medium blue? If you really want people to see your design the way you meant for them to see it, you might want to offer prints and posters of it as well.


Burning City Studios on RedBubble

That being said, you may find yourself in an annoying position of having a nice design uploaded to the site only for sale as a shirt, which has different file requirements and then deciding to also offer a poster, say. At this point you will realize that you can't upload the same image for a poster that you used for the shirt for a number of reasons including lack of background, sizing of image to sit well on a shirt, etc. And, the chances are good that if you started designing only for t-shirts, that the original file dimensions are too small for the rather large requirements for posters.

Now, you could simply resize your image. But, you're likely to lose pixel data and end up selling blurry or pixelated images without knowing of this poor quality yourself. That is unless you actually shell out the bucks and order a large size poster to check the quality. It would be nice to have copies of your own work to see how the prints actually look. But, needless to say, you are designing products to make money not to spend it. And the cost would pile up very quickly if you ordered copies of all your own work. I guess they might make good presents.

The other option is to start all over. And, after having spent so much time getting your t-shirt design perfected, it begins to appear as a massive waste of time—especially if you want to make sure that your design is uniform across all product types. This is because now, not only will you have to redo your original design, but also you will have to remake your t-shirt design to ensure uniformity. And, as a side note, you absolutely do want to ensure uniformity. Remember the McDonald's model, consistency is everything.

In order to avoid wasting so much time, I suggest that every time you start a design for any online print on demand site, not just Redbubble, always start with a file as big as the largest required size. This will eat up your hard-drive space, but save you an enormous amount of time in the future. You never know if, in the future, you might decide you actually do want to make a poster out of that Galaxy S3 case design. Also, you might find yourself deciding to sell on multiple print on demand sites and find that they're requirements are actually larger than the site you currently sell on. Even though you will most likely need to do some reformatting, you do not want to have to start from scratch every time.

One really important lesson in life is, whenever possible, to learn from other peoples' mistakes. I wasted an enormous amount of time for the first couple of weeks on Redbubble. No reason for you to do that too. Learn from my mistakes. Always design for the largest product available, then work down.

(Post by Mr. Miller as dictated to Mr. Festhalten.)

Recent Redbubble Products: August, 2013

• Scissors!
• Rock!
• Open/Shut V1
• The Inner Party - De…
• Winter Vigil (Photos…
• The Inner Party Show…
• The Inner Party Show…
• The Inner Party Show…
• The Inner Party Show…
• Ossa Mona Just a quick sampling of my recent designs up for sale on Redbubble, as chosen by the Redbubble site itself using unknown criteria.
• Cheese!
• Turn It On V2

Stuff To Do, Update May 22, 2013

So, now that I've updated this list two times, it's getting really cluttered and my ADD is going crazy when I look at it. So this is the last update. Time to make a totally new, cleaned-up list. Will start that in about fifteen minutes, once I'm at Kingfish.


1. Focus
2. Finish official video for "Stuck Up"
3. Storyboard official video for "Fix Me"
4. Finish video for "We Live Majique" Update: Made some headway with this and I think this is what I'm going to do after typing this. Update (May 21): This video is really almost done. But, it turns out that some things I started trying with it experimentally while drinking were interesting and actually set me on a slightly different path. It's a much better video now, more suited to the song and, I think, enhances the listening experience rather than detracting from it. Like I said, literally almost done. I mainly have to make a couple of creative choices.
5. Make, test, edit, test, scrap, remake, test, edit and upload Twitter background while NOT being distracted by tweets   Update: this was actually supposed to be about not just the background but also the banner or header or whatever they call it on Twitter. That part, the header title thing, is done. I thought at first the image I used was going to be temporary. But I decided that I like it quite a bit. So, for now, it's staying. So, one thing out of two down....
6. Decide on a "featured" list of songs to be on all artist sites and which songs will be exclusive to which sites
7. Figure out how the hell to use Facebook "page" and how much it can be customized. Update (May 21): Made some headway with this. But I just keep finding things about the way the pages work that drive me crazy. They're terribly wonky. And every time I think I've figured one thing out, or a workaround at least, I run into yet another thing that just doesn't work. Still wish I could have my "page" without the constant ADD-inducing annoyance of the "personal" account. I don't need any freakin distractions.
8. Do taxes Update: Done! Doubt I'll get any of it though. I owe a TON on student loans and I think, this year, they'll finally keep it. Fingers slightly crossed though... Update (May 21): Yep, they kept it! No music gear for me and The Inner Party. My tax returns are the only way I really can ever buy anything that costs more than about ten bucks.
9. Write some blog posts that aren't lists of things for me to remember to do Update: Started getting kind of regular with this almost, sort of. Update (May 21): Scratch that. Regularity was an illusion.
10. Finish "Burning City" series of paintings
11. Decide if my artist i.e. "fine artist" name is going to be the VERY common Keith Miller (or KA Miller, etc) or Bunny Prole. Or, maybe, El Blanco? Done. I decided to use, basically, a company name with my real name attached to it, instead of using a pseudonym or something. In the long run I think this approach will be the best bet as Burning City Studios will be the brand name hopefully for not only 2D visual art, but also furniture and video, as well as a parent company to my musical output.
12. Research and choose art portfolio website to upload art to Done. Considering that there are several free ones, I realized that it's stupid to sell things on only one. My decision is D: All of the above. So, the list for now is: Redbubble, Zazzle, and some others that I can't remember at the moment. It's been a couple of weeks since I put thought into this one.
12: Part 2. Collect images to use on aforementioned art-selling sites. Prep it, using file requirement info from each site, and upload. Update (May 21): Been collecting a lot of graphic work from old DVD backups, which has been a week long, time eating nightmare. But, some good stuff is coming together.
13. Design watermark that is tasteful, functional, and unobtrusive (possible?) Update (May 21): Not even sure I'm going to do this now. After reading some good blog posts on the subject of protecting your art online I decided to go with the low-res, small dimension image approach suggested by Dan over at Empty Easel.
14. Write artist statement (where do I even begin?)
15. Make Slaptogether video for "It's Alright Now" or "Chateau Nervoso"
16. Brainstorm new "Light" drawings Update (May 21): I have some new ideas for the series but honestly nothing astounding yet. However, after looking through old sketchbooks and at some of my older unfinished schoolwork, I realized that there are a lot of good ideas I barely started to put to use. So, for now, that will be my direction.
17. Look into pricing for prints of existing "Light" drawings
18. Research and purchase a good new printer
19. Create a Facebook "page" for my "fine" art Done. Burning City Studios is open for business! The graphic images I referred to on number 12, part 2, actually came from me trying to find examples of my graphic work to put up on that page. So far there are a decent number of drawings, though still lacking in the ones from the Fayetteville Arts Festival somewhat. But in my design folder there is only currently my "Burning City Graphics" logo and business card image. The more I dig through my design work though, the more it seems like I don't have any damn design work. Or at least that it's still lost in the ether somewhere. More time needs to be spent digging through Backup Hell. YAY!
20. Start making scheduled "update" videos and 6sec videos (Twitter) linked to here and Facebook
21. Finish writing "A Million Lifetimes" Update (May 21): Had a great idea recently for this song. But, I need some bongos! Yup, bongos I said. I want to play them on the section that is currently what I think of as a bridge. I really love this idea. But, of course, this requires money, too. Oh, Money! How I despise you!!
22. Screw up every single sound (minus drums) on every single electronic track I have ever written
23. Make at least 3 new Slaptogether videos for Mr. S (Quiet Time, Rainbows, Mr. S Theme, Theme from "Rock!", Third Drink, Morning Time, etc)
24. Lay out a calendar with target finish dates for major projects
25. Take a damn break Update (May 21): I don't think I've actually taken a break from all this in months now. The only times that might count were forced. Like when I run into someone that wants to talk to me while I'm working in public. Or when I went home to see my parents. While I'm at work all I can think about is how much time is being wasted just trying to keep a place to live and buy food. If I could just live in a cardboard box with electricity and an internet connection and didn't need to eat, I'd be set. Tick-tock tick-tock, tick-tock, tick.
26. Finish lyrics for "Back To Work" Pseudo-Update: Got solid ideas to work with (playing russian roulette with Excel) Look up dangerous games; like chicken, russian roulette, etc and pair with office things.
27. Brainstorm projection video for Inner Party shows
28. Brainstorm ideas for and take new Inner Party pics
29. Make new designs for all IP web sites and implement Update (May 21): I've actually done a bit of this but not a whole lot. I redid the IP Sun thing for Facebook because the one that was up looked like some kind of internet relic; all pixelated and fuzzy and shit. I also made one that's kind of the opposite: IP Moon. I think I want to add a satellite, really close up and mostly off frame, to the extreme left side of it though before using it anywhere.
30. Scan all sketches of furniture designs
31. Design Mr. S shirts that can be made with Inkjet iron-ons and sell online, also posters Update: found out today that there are now iron-on sheets for inkjet printers that have a white layer so you can print on dark shirts. I hope HP makes some of those cos the brand I saw at WalMark today is one I have used (Avery) and they were horrible quality; they peel and crack and the color doesn't last. The HP iron-ons, on the other hand, have lasted surprisingly well. I have a shirt that I made around 2002 or 2003 that is still in perfectly good shape. Speaking of, I need to upload that graphic to Redbubble as a shirt design (Art Is For Sissies, muscle car thing) Regardless, this white layer iron-on thing is kind of a boon because all the designs that came to mind early on all would have had to be on black shirts and required white. So, maybe a win?
32. Design IP inkjet iron ons and print to sell at IP shows
33. Iron out all problems with Paypal so I can actually get paid for anything I might sell online
34. Find out if I can sell anything on that website Maryevelyn uses to sell stuff. Update: Found out and yes, I can. New #34: Scan Year of the Balloon Sketchbook and edit or create versions of all the sellable designs for shirts, phone cases (see #43), etc. Also, make account on that site.... Update:
Find or remake and upload "Art Is For Sissies" graphic to Redbubble as a shirt design (Art Is For Sissies, muscle car thing) Done. Also, considering that there are several free ones, I realized that it's stupid to sell things on only one. My decision is D: All of the above. So, the list for now is: Redbubble, Zazzle, and some others that I can't remember at the moment. It's been a couple of weeks since I put thought into this one.
35. Songza, Rhapsody, Tunecore, Playlist, last.fm
36. "Unclog" Soundcloud and straighten out all art there Update: Did some of this last night, kind of willy-nilly. "That song? Screw it! Delete." But there was some actual direction taking shape so moving in the right direction.
37. Talk to Simon about possibly playing along with a drum machine. Update: Simon has never done this but is willing to give it a whirl. I need to make some files with some drum parts set up and set a time to go try it out with just me and him, see what happens
38. Get EVERYTHING registered on my ASCAP
39. Write a real Mr. S bio and distribute among music sites
40. Unify art design across all sites Additional: Use images from Maryevelyn photo shoot for this purpose.
41. Figure out how to cross-promote art-music-art
42. Scan ALL sketch books (weeks of work!)
43. Find anything in sketchbooks that can be used as-is for shirts, prints, etc
44. Digitize all old 4-track tapes and mine them for anything good
45. Get voice synthesizer sorted, start using heavily
46. Write new IP songs
47. Write new Mr. S songs
48. Take guitar amp to the shop and figure out how to pay for it's repairs Update: Amp goes to the shop tomorrow. I hope the guy at Blue Moon isn't backed up with repairs right now. Update: Amp has been to the shop and repaired. It turned out, of course, to be a LOT of stuff and to cost about twice what I thought it was going to. But, amp fixed; and sounding really good. So, Another one down!
49. Clean my room Update: Done! Already dirty again... Update: I suppose this one would have a nearly infinite number of update so, whatever. Already cleaned it again. The neverending story right?
50. Keep going to work every day to pay the bills and wear me out and keep me from being able to do number one on this list
51. Using voice synthesizer, make announcements/MC stuff for live show
52. Pick a Mr. S song to have a video that is nothing but a black screen with some really, really nice title and end-title screens. Then, pick another song to have what seems like the exact same video, except make, either, little intermittent flashes of things on key song points. Or, have a full frame video in B&W that is toned down to be almost black with gray as the 'white.'
53. Research art competitions and make a list/calendar with all relevant info.
54. Make new list.
55. Go see the doctor.

Czech Out Mah Neu Szong!! I Give You "Grey Sunshine!"

"Grey Sunshine" by Mr. S.

I Aim To Have...

"I aim to have the life of my time."

                                         -Mr. S, Bunny Prole, Keith Miller

if you're aiming lower, think again.

The Cultural inclination Principle #1

Cultural Inclination (Definition Attempt #1):

The inclination, or disinclination, of any individual, toward or from, the norms of the society to which he or she is a part of. With the Inclination producing an individual generally at an advantage to others in the same society. The Disinclination produces an individual generally at a disadvantage (alienation).

[Afterthoughts on the same page:
The advantage/disadvantage applies to:
income (inclination to 'norms of occupation')
amount of friends/colleagues
relationships
political views
health (non-culture specific)]

In real afterthought, tonight, I remember that this leads down some very murky paths. If it can be said that some people, due to their DNA and, to a lesser extent, their upbringing, are at a disadvantage to others, it would be similar to a physical disability and therefore need social support in the form of government aid.

Talk amongst yourselves....

Photos of Dogwood Trees, As Samples for Direction on Dying Cover

To whoever may have stumbled on this post:
These are not intended as a normal post for general viewing. It's really only of interest in respect to a drawing I'm going to do for the band Dying. Just so you know.

To Dying:
So I've kind of picked some different "styles" of trees here and was thinking you could pick one or two so that I have a really general idea of which way to head. If you can't decide or don't want to or whatever, I'll do it. I'm kinda leaning to #2 (graveyard tree) and #8 (by old fence). I thought you might be interested in the syle of fence that's in #8, too, even if you don't like the tree. Unless you guys just particularly like one of these trees as is, I will probably rearrange the photo that gets picked in Photoshop somewhat.

Anyway, get back to me on that FriendFace thing.

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8

"The Wheel of Time" Videogame (Just a Thought)

I want a new, updated, next-gen "Wheel of Time" video-game! I loved that old one, from 2002, or whatever it was.

God, I loved that game. And I miss it...

Bring it back!!!

What's Up With "The Stars Are Out Tonight" by David Bowie?

Let me say, first of all, that I have a long history with Mr. B. It's not a history like some people I have known. For fuck-sakes, I was born the year Ziggy Stardust came out. But, it's a long history nonetheless.

Today, I really, really wanted to make a Facebook post saying, "It's official, 'The Stars Are Out Tonight' is now one of my favorite songs, ever."

But, I stopped.

Why? Because last night, or the night before (I can't remember which), I read the lyrics.

I have a bad habit of not comprehending lyrics by listening alone. I am, always, most moved by music. But, I hear a certain line or word, here or there, in conjunction with the music, and I am completely struck. I heard the words that begin the song. "Stars are never sleeping. The dead ones and the living."

I, very naively, was reading this as a line about real stars; not famous "stars." I'm kind of always thinking about human life in terms of cosmology and billions of years. But, I heard, [interpretation] "The real stars are never sleeping." It made me think of how, when a star dies, it becomes something else; a white dwarf or a black hole. It's still there but in a different form. Stars, it seems from our limited perspective, never really die. They keep on in some different form. (I also misinterpreted some other lyrics to my own chagrin, I later noted.)

Getting back to the original point somewhat, my favorite songs of the past decade-ish have been "Time to Pretend" and "Common People." Two, solidly, populist songs, with pretty clear, very solid lyrics. If you read them, you understand them, pretty much instantly.

"The Stars Are Out Tonight," is strange to me. The lyrics make me think of the "everyman," or the "everyhuman." I got so moved by this song, that I looked up the lyrics; an act that is uncommon to me. I was confronted by words that were not what my lizard brain had heard. I assume it was my lizard brain. David is singing about stars like they're other people. He is watching them. He is following them. I read things I was not expecting at all. I went back to the recording. It moved me still; even more, actually.

I returned to the lyrics. What am I not seeing here? Something is moving me like the mythical block of Sisyphus being moved. What IS IT?

"But I hope they live forever." I can't get that line out of my head.

This song reminded me from the start of the two songs I mentioned earlier. Musically, I can make it fit. Lyrically, I am lost. [I just hit the back button for the third time in a row this sitting. This is still after listening to this song several times only a few hours ago. This song is literally keeping me up at night. I can't go to sleep because all I want to do is listen to it.]

{I would like to interject here. I don't think I can mentally, or physically, finish this post right now. I don't have the answer. But, I hope someone does; let me know, please. I will continue this post tomorrow, when I am a little less tired, etc. But, long ago, I wrote the following bits, so I wouldn't forget where I wanted to end this. I will still, I think, end this with these words.}

I still don't know the answer to this puzzle. But,

A DEVO Doodle by Mark

Hey DEVO fans! If you haven't already, you should really check out this!

Mark would apparently doodle on the boxes of the reel-to-reel tapes they were recording on. This is the box containing the tape for "Working In A Coal Mine."

DEVO! I salute you!!!

I would do a lot for one of those shirts. They sold some sort-of like em fairly recently and I did want one of those but they had print on em. I want one just like that! Think I need to make one....

New Drawing #3: Beginnings

Progress! I have two more drawings started. I started really working on the one tentatively known as "#3."  And here's a photo timeline so far.

FIRST! You must play this while reading:

Step 1: Stare at blank page until eyeballs turn red and pop out of skull. It seems this is a very real problem for lots of budding artists; no ideas. I seem to have too many, a problem that, while being a problem, is a much better problem to have. I need a team of college art-student interns.

[Nota bene: The process I'm showing here starts after all the setting up lights, photographing, posing, rethinking, photographing, putting the lights back up that fell for the third time, posing, photographing, importing, looking, black-and-whitelizing, cropping, looking, comparing, re-cropping, level adjusting, editing, looking again, flipping, re-comparing, deciding that I picked the wrong photo completely and starting over.... Which leads to the following.]

Step 2: Printing. And then reprinting because the printer I bought for thirty dollars is a piece of crap. Damn you Canon! You always do me right, except with printers.

Step 3:

 Step 4: Start with the parts of the drawing that are completely black and big.

Detail showing tracing.Yes, I said tracing.

Detail showing earliest defined areas and a bit of.... tracing.

Step 5: More dark areas, some less so.

Detail of Step 5

Detail of Step 5

Detail of Step 5

Detail of Step 5

We'll pick up with step 6, I think.

Czech out more of my art at Burning City Studios Facebook page!