In April 2008, I released my very first album The Dino Soars.
Months before, I'd been prepping by sending my music to all sorts of places to get some reviews. In the end, I got a nice handful of people who listened, and enjoyed what they liked.
Except for Pitchfork.
I sent them a copy of The Dino Soars and I doubt they even took a look at it.
So, I'm going to do it again, now that others have already reviewed my music; those guys at Pitchfork have no excuse this time, not finding any info on me.
So... I need your guys' help.
I finally set up my official Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stegrex Come check it out and follow me!
(Thanks to Johnny Darko of Unfun Records for holding the spot so no one else could take it!)
Go to http://www.twitter.com/pitchforkmedia if you have a Twitter account and demand that they check out Stegosaurus Rex!
If you don't have a Twitter, get a friend who does, and have them hit up Pitchfork!
Or hit them up on Facebook! http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pitchfork/28015075999
It's about time that these guys owed me a (probably crappy and negative) review!
I've been sort of taking a bit of downtime from music recently because I'm looking for a new job, and I've also been spending time with a motorcycle I bought last fall.
Here are some pics of my 2006 Daytona 675. Built by Triumph in the UK, only about 2000 were made for the US market in that first year they released it.
It has a 3-cylinder engine, and you can see the top speed that I pulled a week or two ago. I don't want to really ride it too hard until the warmer season, when I can go out and do some track days (I hope I get a new job by then).
In any case, this has sort of been my new obsession. Okey dokey, time to get back to making more tunes!
It's been a while since I posted. Been pretty busy with a couple of things here and there.
First up, if you haven't noticed, Mattie Silver the single is now up on Amazon, Popcuts, iTunes, and CD Baby. Go and get the extended single version NOW! This version might not get released elsewhere!
Here are some pics to show you the extent of the damage to my car.
Hey, it could be worse but...
I had to drive into work with this, and it was cold and rainy. And I missed being able to get a fucking burrito that day. Car is now fixed, but this sure wasn't a pretty sight (and I just lost 100 bucks for fixing it).
Hey everyone. As I'm working hard on trying to put together art for a release of Mattie Silver as a single, some motherfucking punk smashed my car window, broke into it and took my condenser microphones.
This is obviously not the first time nor will it be the last that a musician has gotten their shit jacked, but goddamn it pisses me off.
For anyone who steals from poor musicians, you deserve to burn in Hell, listening to garbage music for all eternity. I worked my ass off to buy those mics and worked even harder to learn how to use them. To know that someone probably way less talented is handling them right now is just plain annoying, and I know it's not someone with actual talent who took them because they would know it's just plain wrong to steal MXLs from someone. If you see anyone with MXL mics, you know they're working on a budget, and they're not worth stealing like someones rims. If I had Neumanns in my car, I'd be hurting a lot more if they were stolen, but shit, if I owned Neumanns, I would probably have a lot more money to cover for those, and I would most likely have not left them to burn in the summer heat in my car.
The worst part of it all was that I found out my car got fucked today when I went to my car to go get a burrito. I was starving and was fiending for a California burrito with carne asada and some fries... And in the end, I didn't get one because I had to deal with filing a police report and getting insurance taken care of. Whatever punk smashed my car window owes me. Even if they wanted to keep the mics, fuck, at least get a guy a fucking burrito, damn.
So if anyone lives in the South Bay Area and hears about a set of MXL 990 / 993 mics in a shiny metal case, missing the shockmount, let me know. Because those would be mine.
And for the fucker who stole my mics, I was thinking about upgrading my mics from MXLs to Audio Technica AT 4040s, which are worth twice as much as the ones that were stolen. Patience truly is a virtue because if the dumbass had just waited just 3 more weeks, they would be listing stolen property for twice as much right now, because they'd be in possession of some LEGIT fucking equipment. But turns out that person now has a set of shitty MXLs, and the rest of you guys got to wait for any new music, because I got to scrape up some more money for a set of shitty cheap new mics.
As for now, check out 5-20, from the album The Dino Soars. I just uploaded it to celebrate May 20th:
I just posted the Nowhere To Run demo on YouTube! This is the first render of the rough sketch I made the night that I came up with the song on July 30, 2006.
A couple things have changed since that first render to the final song. See if you can spot the differences...
So it looks like I've managed to get The Dino Soars re-released digitally!
The album is now available on iTunes and features the original cut of The Dino Soars, fully remastered, and includes an extra 70 minutes of B-sides and covers that never made it onto the original album!
This also means that Nowhere To Run is now back on iTunes!
(Update As Of 1-6-10) - YouTube has unblocked the Nowhere To Run music video!
So apparently, Warner Music Group (WMG) is messing with my tunes on YouTube and also on MySpace.
A week or two ago, WMG decided to block the Nowhere To Run music video off of YouTube and they've been taking down certain other tracks off of MySpace.
Funny thing is, WMG has NEVER been given ANY copyrights to ANY of my music!
WEA (owned by WMG) was given online distribution rights early in 2009, but that's different from copyright. Also, I ended distribution by WEA earlier in the year...
So...
The current situation is that there is currently NO way to buy The Dino Soars digitally online (even though the CD of it is still available) and WMG is going left and right blocking my music claiming that they have copyright over my stuff (which they don't).
For 2010, I'm going to do my best to set all this straight, because all I really care about is people listening and connecting with my music. The last thing I want is some bureaucratic bullshit like this getting in the way.
Just wanted to give an update to everyone who has been asking about this.
If you want the single version of Nowhere To Run, it is still available as a digital release! You can get it direct from Elita Likes Electro right here.
I just posted a new demo of a track that I'll be finishing up in the next few weeks. The song is called Green BMW. You can check it out at http://www.myspace.com/stegrex
I'm playing The Blank Club Wednesday August 19th with Johnny Darko! It'll be at 9PM and I'll be doing some electro improvisation with keyboards and drumset. Come by, check it out, have a few drinks! It's going to be a FREE show, but you have to be 21.
It's at 44 South Almaden Avenue, San Jose CA 95113. Bring your friends because it's FREE!
David Nguyen (AyDee) has done it again, with a bangin' logo for Green Tease! We're currently currently working on getting all the artwork done for the pressed copies of the CD.
In the meantime, you can check out the digital release available on Amazon, iTunes, as well as CD Baby.
We might be working soon on a track to be used as a theme song for a video game, and we'll be updating you on it as we get more done :)
As for Stegosaurus Rex, the t-shirt orders are being finalized, so definitely keep an eye out for those. It'll be the Stegosaurus Rex logo screenprinted white on Irish Green shirts.
"An artist I recently discovered, Stegosaurus Rex, who it seems is quite unknown at the moment, and by quite unknown I mean just over 1000 plays on LastFM, is the solo efforts of Max Chen, who is also a member of various other projects, although in my opinion, SR is where he really shines. His music seems to regularly be compared with Cystal Castles, and the resemblance on some tracks is crystal clear (no pun intended),with infectious home-made melodic bleeps and the occasional glitchy vocals, its not surprising why some people would think that. The album itself, The Dino Soars, released last year, is simply brilliant. Full of various genres of electronic music, and packed with masses of samples, ranging from live percussion to Hip Hop vocals, theres definately something for everybody. Each track seems very well constructed and interesting in its own way, and the variation in style from track to track is so drastic youd think it were some futuristic NOW compilation. So far my favorite tracks are 'Green', incorporating his own catchy vocals over some infectious cut up drum samples, and 'Nowhere to run' (see video below). Its safe to say ill have this album on repeat for a long time." (-Lee Mifsud)
So I played a short little show at Nickel City San Jose last weekend on the 13th. Thanks to Johnny Darko for lending his voice and an extra pair of hands, and to Eric Fanali for having me play! And definitely thanks to all of you who came by to support me! I'll be having parts of the show be put up onto YouTube hopefully soon.
Next up, I'll be looking for other places to play, as well as getting some t-shirts screenprinted with the design by AyDee, so keep an eye out for those!
As for my other project Green Tease, I'm in the final stages of putting the artwork and whatnot together for the pressed CDs for the EP Desolate Pool. However, the it's already been released digitally on Amazon, iTunes, as well as CD Baby so check out the release (and the Green Tease MySpace profile if you haven't already).
The Stegosaurus Rex EP release Undeniable is available on Amazon, iTunes, and CD Baby as well.
In the meantime, as a way for me to take a break from new tracks (because of all the logistics stuff that needs to be done right now) I'll be working for the next two months on a drum sample pack. That's right, I'm in love with 80s drum machines, and I'm going to replicate the methods used in the 80s to produce the classic sound samples immortalized within the modules of the Casio, the Alesis, the Linn, etc. I'll release this as a WAV pack for people to download and to load onto their own sequencers/drum machines. I love tweaking synth patches, and this drum pack will be a first for me :) I haven't yet figured out what to call it yet, maybe I'll give it some fake 80s-sounding synth name. So for those of you who make your own music, keep an eye out for some new sounds you can use!
, Popcuts, iTunes, and CD Baby. Go and get the extended single version NOW! This version might not get released elsewhere!
I'm bored and I've been way too busy to post anything new.
I'm playing The Blank Club Wednesday August 19th with Johnny Darko! It'll be at 9PM and I'll be doing some electro improvisation with keyboards and drumset. Come by, check it out, have a few drinks! It's going to be a FREE show, but you have to be 21.
David Nguyen (AyDee) has done it again, with a bangin' logo for Green Tease! We're currently currently working on getting all the artwork done for the pressed copies of the CD.
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