copyright Sellergren Design 2013!

Well, to paraphrase Turbonegro: Are you ready for some darkness? Meet Call Me Greenhorn‘s new outing The Harvester – A wayyyy darker offering than usual that’s kinda like if Fu Manchu and Queens of the Stone Age teamed up with what remains of Flipper to create a sort of Jesus and Mary Chain-esque soundtrack for the latest David Lynch outing. At least that’s what I envisioned while listening to the final mix earlier today.

As far as I can tell this lil’ baby will be released with The Titan Was Deemed Unsinkable later this summer – making it the second “dark” release from Camp Greenhorn in 2013 – and maybe I’ll have the time to write some more exclusive tracks to make it a more “legit” EP, we’ll see.

The sleeve is actually a collage of photos found on Wikimedia Commons. The Blue Skull – yeah, it’s actually blue to being with – is courtesy one ‘xlibber’ and the cemetery photo courtesy Walesman (Welshman?) Ben Salter. Check it out on my SoundCloud and share like crayzee!

Oh boy! Guys, I’m sorry for being such a buzzkill, but as this is becoming quite viral abroad it’s time to set the record straight: No, no Swedish man has perished after trying to perform intercourse with a hornet nest. I’ve seen it starting to spread like wildfire on Facebook and now even high-profile magazines like The International Business Times and Metro UK are running with the story – a quite surreal experience as the original article about this “incident” was published on a Swedish equivalent of The Onion and The Daily Mash in September 2012 (Swedish language), and a quite amateurish one at that to be honest.

Now, I can only answer for myself of course and sure don’t know what other guys do to get their kicks – and I consider myself being quite liberal and would never judge how anyone gets their jollies as long as they keep it within the boundaries of the law – but I am pretty damn confident no one at least felt that – ahem – “sting of love” if you know what I mean.

Well I’m a king bee
Buzzing around your hive…

Well, after that less-than-optimistic previous post it’s time for some kick-ass news that’s actually been months in the making. Time to premiere the video for Call Me Greenhorn‘s Here Comes Gorbot – off the coming CMGH2 aka The Abandoned Project album! Directed by Robert Griffith it stars Jerry Kokich and Olivia Dunkley from The Adventures of Superseven and Sandra West web series – Olivia at her best Fay Wray and Jerry doing some great work as the King Kong-esque Gorbot, one of my fave criminal characters from the series.

The album itself will feature eleven tracks that actually were abandoned once I started creating music using Reason 6.5 in early 2013 – which if nothing else should tell you how much of a difference said DAW is to work with compared to other software available today. There’s nothing wrong with the tracks per se, it’s just that once I got into Reason I felt it was a second phase and that initial work just didn’t cut it. If memory serves me correct the video was shot in November 2012 and the songs were created some time during fall of said year.

Anyway, the album is due to be released later on this month complete with bonus tracks and the video. In the meantime check it out and share away! Cheers!

UPDATE: I’m stoked to announce that the video has been selected top pick at Frequency.com! Check it out here and if you install their application you can even watch it on your iPhone!

copyright TMIAS 2013!

Recently found Justin Colletti‘s great blog Trust Me I’m a Scientist that focuses on all things music, not from a fan-boy perspective – though there’s certainly nothing wrong with that as they’re turning into modern day fanzines – but covering everything from recording techniques to management, promotion as well as the do’s and don’ts for a budding artist.Thankfully I’m a disciplined type of person meaning I now have dedicated one hour a day (and not one minute more!) catching up on the just brilliant collection of articles ’cause it is damn easy losing hours just reading it.

One of the really great ones is When to Work For Free (And When Not To) that struck me as just brilliant. Covering the usual bullshit mentality “DIY = “free labor”" that unfortunately isn’t just common within the real creative world but also pretty much seeps the underground community – although I highly doubt a lot of the creativity in said community, but that’s a whole different blog post – usually meaning YOU work for free while some douchebag SOMEONE ELSE profits from it. It’s a classic scenario exploiting people’s naïvité and/or hunger for work trying to “get exposure” when there’s usually no or very little exposure to be had. And having experienced it myself as well as seen some very talented people actually work themselves into stone cold poverty “for the scene” it sure struck home. A great quote:

In the creative culture, we’ve been primed to associate the word “DIY” with a kind of pure and noble approach. But it’s precisely because the term is so front-loaded with sanctity that it makes for a great marketing buzzword – one that can be used and abused for fun and profit. The term has been so eagerly twisted by people and powerful companies, that out in the real world, “DIY” can be a mixed bag, just like anything else.

The big thing to watch out for here is “Fake DIY.” This an increasing popular trend in which really, really rich people fund their own money-losing vanity projects or secretly profitable businesses, and then expect a whole bunch of people to work for them for free because they’re really “stickin’ it to the man.” You know, just like you guys! Steer clear.

Using considerable resources to start a crappy business that cuts corners and doesn’t compensate people fairly is not the same thing as “DIY.” If wealthy and well-connected people with access to healthy amounts of capital want to twist the term to market their businesses, then fine. That’s within their right of free expression. But it’s also their responsibility to compensate people appropriately for their work. DIY does not equal free labor.

If you’re new getting into this, or have some experience trying to make a living “within the arts” I highly recommend you read it. There’s some really good advice I think you should take to heart in order for you to maybe not make out like a bandit but at least get paid fairly for what you create while building and maintaining a career of sorts. Read it in full here.

Hey kids, new week and time for another episode of The Adventures of Superseven and Sandra West! This, their 30th, is entitled A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Rescue Sandra West and features a pretty damn epic fight scene – over four minutes long!

There’s some nice, tight editing in this one and I think Robert Griffith did a great job with it. Got some nice tracks from Call Me Greenhorn as well with Ooky Pt.2 and the all-new Superseven Fight Theme Vers. 2 making its debut, plus some cool tracks by Aussie musician The Jimmy C – including his brand new Sandra West Theme.

Speaking of the series I was glad to see them announcing that their campaign on Kickstarter was successful with an extra $1,000 raised for the project. So congrats to them and congrats to the funders as they’ve got a free download of the They Call Me Superseven OST coming their way. If you haven’t, make sure to check it out on Bandcamp and share, share, share away!

copyright Sellergren Design 2013!

Get ready for a serious dose of Dub heaviness with this new taste of the coming Call Me Greenhorn full length: The Titan Was Deemed Unsinkable. Oddly enough The Titanic has been popping up as a subject all week, so I went with it and once again took a somewhat completed rhythm track and set out to create sound effects emulating the noises I imagined a sinking boat would make. It was fun editing and experimenting with all kinds of weird stuff and I guess those teenage years listening to Einstürzende Neubauten finally paid off!

FYI the song title is not wrong ’cause if you’re familiar with the weirder side of popular culture you’d know that The Titan was the name of the ship in Morgan Robertson‘s 1898 novella Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan that predicted the Titanic disaster 14 years before it happened! Or, sure do have a lot of odd similarities if you’re more of a sceptic. I went with that name ’cause I felt using one from a real-life disaster that killed 1500+ people was just asshole behavior less than tasteful.

The sleeve was me trying to emulate Winston Smith‘s classic album collages and I think I came pretty close to the stuff he did for Alternative Tentacles, like Jello Biafra with D.O.A.‘s Last Scream of the Missing Neighbors or the The Sky is Falling and I Want My Mommy collaboration with Nomeansno. Eerily enough the woman and child is actually taken from a genuine White Star Line brochure advertising the launch of the doomed vessel, and I got the background image via NASA (it’s actually a photo but I messed around with a couple of filters to make it look more like painted artwork) with both being in the public domain.

So give it a spin on my Soundcloud or down below and don’t forget to share! Cheers!

I looked and there before me was a pale horse. Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him…

Yes, here we go: Proudly announcing that the video for Call Me Greenhorn‘s Armageddon Dub is now up and running! Directed by Robert Boud it’s based on his great photo project Aftermath Apocalypse and fits the bleak industrial sounds of the song just perfectly. I already written about how the song was conceived, but my stats show you guys sure don’t like to click stuff, so it all began with me trying out both some new parallel processing techniques as well as getting to know the utterly insane Russian VST Molot one weekend, getting an initial basic track finished late on Friday evening and going to bed ending up having the worst nightmare in years.

With a heavy Walking Dead feel, the nightmare kinda freaked me out and I spent that Saturday trying to re-create the desolate feel of it and ended up with a weird, industrial soundtrack to go with the pretty standard meat-and-potatoes Dub rhythm track. Totally satisfied with the results I was kinda taken aback by the sheer darkness of the damn thing and am still scratching my head how it just kinda jumped out of me. Where the hell did that come from? Anyway, as much as I like the song I’m not adding it to the coming full length as its feel just differs from the rest of the material too damn much.

Now, if you wanna talk synchronicity let’s rewind roughly two weeks where I’m a bit bummed out about not having the equipment to edit new Greenhorn videos (I switched computers early 2013) and am trying to figure out just when and how to get something rolling when I jot down my little post about the Necronomicon Ex Mortis iPhone Case and wouldn’t you know somewhere in the UK was Robert reading it, clicking “like” and the next thing I’m checking out his portfolio and being blown away by his work – with the rest being history. Like I already stated he was perfect for the job as his imagery fits the feel of the song so good it’s eerie.

So make sure you check out the video on YouTube, it has been added as a download bonus goodie on Bandcamp so check that one out here, and please pay Robert a visit on his official site to check out his portfolio ’cause it’s damn good work. And if you wanna try out the insane Molot VST you can do so here.

R.I.P.

Well, here’s some bummer news via Bloody Disgusting.com: It has been confirmed by his family that legendary animation pioneer Ray Harryhausen passed away today at the age of 92. Via the official page on Facebook they released the following statement:

The Harryhausen family regret to announce the death of Ray Harryhausen, Visual Effects pioneer and stop-motion model animator. He was a multi-award winner which includes a special Oscar and BAFTA. Ray’s influence on today’s film makers was enormous, with luminaries; Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Peter Jackson, George Lucas, John Landis and the UK’s own Nick Park have cited Harryhausen as being the man whose work inspired their own creations.

Ray was a true visionary and be it 50′s sci-fi or 60′s fantasy his work was truly in a league of its own. My personal fave is his 1963 Jason and the Argonauts - and I’m willing to bet Sam Raimi‘s as well as his skeletal army in Army of Darkness: Evil Dead 3 looks like an homage to the one in said movie – so how about checking out the trailer:

UPDATE: I just had to share this to showcase just how much Ray’s work influenced so many of us out there. Here’s blues punkers The Jon Spencer Blues Explosions‘ Burn It Off, a video that’s nothing but a three-minute homage to Ray and his magnificent creations. Rest in peace.

copyright Edgar Allan Poe Foundation of Boston 2013!

Well, pardon the more-than-usual bad pun, but I ran out of ideas and just wanted to hep everybody to this cool cause as well as nice lil’ artefact as soon as possible: Royal Bobbles‘ limited edition Edgar Allan Poe bobblehead! Only 200 of these babies were made exclusively for Poe Foundation’s Edgar Allan Poe Public Art Project’s Poe Statue Fund - with 100% of the proceeds benefitting the organization. Their goal is to raise $177,000 for the installation of a life-size bronze statue of the Boston-born writer in Poe Square by early 2014.

Available for pick-up from the foundation at Bartevian’s Antique Store at 160 Boylston St., Boston, MA 02116 – Monday through Saturday from 10:30 am to 5:30 pm –  and those not living in Boston can visit the Poe Foundation’s website for orders. The bobblehead cost $50, with $10 postage and handling within the US and $15 to cover international rates.

Also, Royal Bobbles do already carry a different Poe bobblehead, so if you don’t wanna plop down $50 you can check that one out here – and they offer custom bobblehead dolls for less than $150 as well! How cool is that? Perfect gift for weddings, birthdays, record sleeves (oh yeah, baby!), or, you know, something to put on the mantelpiece if you’re a complete egomaniac. Check that one out here.

copyright Sellergren Design 2013!

Now, this is exciting! Just got word from UK photographer Robert Boud that the first rough-cut of his video for Call Me Greenhorn‘s Armageddon Dub has been finished and is ready for an initial “screening”. This is awesome news and I am giddy as hell about it. His original project Aftermath Apocalypse Photography looked nothing short of stunning and got me approaching him about this project to begin with. It’s gonna be great! Stay tuned!

Speaking of the “single” – yeah yeah, Grampa still finds it surreal to call a digital release something that used to mean a physical product – it’s still available via Bandcamp.com, so check it out here, make sure to share and “like” and visit me on Facebook as well. The single: