a’tris Rocks Rock Band!

2009’s Lensing cemented a’tris as one of the most bracing and inventive alternative rock acts since Radiohead. “Automatic Doors,” the first single from the record, demonstrates the band’s remarkable ability to explore new sounds without eschewing the solid pop hooks that propelled them on to the scene with their smashing freshman album, appeal. Bassists rejoice: “Automatic Doors” features one of the coolest and catchiest button-melting riffs to ever be featured in Rock Band. Bring your A-game when you download this one!

“Automatic Doors” is now available for download in the Rock Band Network store! Do you own an XBox and some plastic guitars? If so, we hope you’ll have as much fun as Steven (spe2800) and Kyle (Kuai49). These awesome musicians, Rock Band pros, and YouTubers totally beat me to the punch and shared some killer play-through videos which I’ve re-posted below with their kind permission. I can’t tell you how crazy cool it is to play our song in a video game.

Would you like to join the party? Fire up your Xbox 360 and head over to the Rock Band Network store or visit our song page to buy a copy for 80 Microsoft Points (that’s only 1 US dollar!)

I’d like to thank the following people for all of their time, energy, and help with this project. Without their support, this would not have been possible.

• Kevin English from eleetmusic.com
• Julian from Future Vince reverbnation.com/futurevince
• Tomer and the gang from Explosive Kitty explosivekitty.com/
• Brian Hazard from Color Theory colortheory.com/

Hope this finds you feeling healthy!
-Mason

Brian Hazard Sits Down with ReverbNation

Our friends at ReverbNation just posted an interview with Brian Hazard from Color Theory and I’d highly recommend you’d check it out. Regularly I’d post something like this in a tweet; but, as many of you know, the guys and I are big fans of Color Theory and I think this interview deserves more weight. In it, Brian offers some great advice for independent artists. He also shares some stories about how he’s carved out a successful niche in this industry and how he’s used ReverbNation’s tools to connect with his fans. Very cool stuff.

Don’t forget, The eighth full-length Color Theory album, The Sound, will be released on August 4th. Check out colortheory.com for more info!

Hope this finds you feeling healthy!

-Mason

Meet Our Friend: Brian Hazard

After another day of apartment hunting in NYC, I was stoked to return to Nate’s place to find a message from Brian Hazard in my inbox. For those of you who don’t know, Brian is the creative force behind the electronic indie piano-pop band, Color Theory [Official, MySpace, Facebook]. I write that because he does everything, and I mean everything: Songwriting, recording, programming – the whole nine yards. In a recent phone conversation, I asked Brian what he didn’t do. I’m pretty sure he said he had a little help with graphic art

While I was first officially introduced to Brian by Kevin English from eleetmusic, I realized that I’d bumped into his work on several occasions before we first met. Color Theory was a fellow Microsoft sponsored songs artist and Brian’s music was featured on Playlist 7 as well [See: How You've Helped us Share Our Music]. Color Theory was also recently named the grand prize winner in the annual John Lennon Songwriting Contest. I think, once you listen to his tunes, you’ll immediately see why.

Speaking of Color Theory’s tunes, Brain is doing something seriously cool with his blog. About once a week or so, he posts a new song for feedback. Sometimes he even uploads certain parts by themselves so you can see how everything fits together. How cool is that? Recently Brian shared a tune called “It Must be Halloween” which completely blew my mind. Here’s a Google Voice message he left me about story behind the song. I’ve included a streaming version of it below for your streaming pleasure as well. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Hope this finds you feeling healthy!

-Mason

P.S. Was that piano breakdown @#($* sexy or what!?