I realized it had been a while since we posted about what we’ve been up to, so I wanted to take a moment to share some news with you. First, 2011 was one of a’tris’ most productive years. Last year, we wrote and demoed 22 new songs, over 2 albums’ worth of material. As many of you know, each song was released in the form of a music video on YouTube. Some of these videos featured public domain footage while others were conceived and created by our friends at Bouncing Ball Films. Each song featured an original logo by either alphabetica design or the band and we wanted to thank every one who purchased one of our logo shirts at the a’tris merch store. While we set out to do all of these things once every week, when the dust settled, we averaged one demo every two weeks. We’re totally cool with that.
Did you miss some of our videos? Click the above image to see an archive of our work.
Last year, we had the pleasure of collaborating with Tiger Darrow on a few songs. One of our favorites was a cover of Jonathan Seet’s “A Million Hungry Eyes,” which you can check out here. Tiger recently released a new music video for her song, “Machines.” We’re big fans of what she’s doing and have already begun collaborating with her on something new. We think you’re going to really like it and will keep you posted.
This year is already off to a great start. “Dark Lotus” was the second most popular rock video on Ourstage last month. That puts an a’tris song in the top 10 for 12 months. Craziness. Seriously, thanks for all of your support! Until the next post, we hope to see you on Facebook and Twitter.
Our friend, the extremely talented and supremely awesome Amy Courts [Official, Myspace] recently partnered with the folks at ReverbNation to make her song “Hold you Up” available for free. Much like the Playlist7 campaign that you helped us win a while back, Amy can get some awesome exposure if she gets the most downloads; so, if you have a moment, I’d really appreciate you giving her a hand!
I remember years back, when Mike and I first formed a’tris, Myspace was all the rage. Whenever I mentioned that I was in a band during a casual conversation, the person with whom I was speaking would inevitably ask “do you have a Myspace page?” For several years, Myspace was the premier online destination for bands. They allowed bands to host their music for free and provided a great avenue to interact directly with their fans. At that time, there really weren’t many other sites that could compare. However, not surprisingly, that didn’t last very long. Soon many companies emerged to vie for the space which Myspace carved out (or arguably snatched from Friendster) and the company’s dominance began to slip. I think it’s safe to write that Facebook probably landed a near-death blow. Twitter certainly didn’t help. Yet, as many individuals made their exodus to rival platforms, bands continued to keep a presence. I think one of the main reasons was and is that Myspace has always made it really easy for bands to share what they’re doing. For this reason, I’ve often thought the site would be best served by further embracing musicians. Today I’m pretty sure that the decision makers there agree. I’m pleased to present you with a brand-new beta profile we created using a page editor that Myspace recently rolled out.
Rather than showing you what I’ve changed about the site as I usually do, I would like to invite you to click the above image to explore a full spread I’ve created of our new page. I think it’s pretty cool to see how all of the content cascades down. Of course, it may be more fun for you to just go over to myspace.com/atris and check it out Your call.
What do you think of the new look? Is there anything you think we should add or change? One of the first things I did using the new editor was remove the comments box. My idea was that by enabling comments on our ‘stream’ (Myspace’s new very Facebook-like feature for real-time content sharing) that it might make it easier to create a conversation with the tweet acting as the impetus for the comment like our blog posts do here. The comment section on Myspace has always seemed to much like an extended billboard to me. Do you agree? What are your thoughts? Should I bring it back?
Today I received a Facebook message from an old friend, David Epstein (דוד אפשטיין). David is the brains behind Shemesh Music, [official, myspace, twitter] In addition to recording some great artists, he also sells some of the coolest t-shirts on the planet. What makes them so awesome? The Shemesh Music music dude. Don’t believe me? See for yourself:
anyway, contained in David’s message was a hilarious ‘new version’ of our tune “Selling Oxyen” courtesy of the folks at the appropriately named morecowbell.dj. If you haven’t heard of that site, you’re not the only one. I hadn’t either. But David definitely had the hookup and I couldn’t resist passing this along because, with a few clicks, the magic behind morecowbell.dj allows you to add (big surprise) more cowbell and Chrisopher Walkin to any song! Even better you can do it in just 3 easy steps:
Here’s the version of “Selling Oxygen” that David sent us. What do you think? Personally, I think it could use a little more cowbell
Hope you enjoyed that and that this finds you feeling healthy!
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about going back in to the studio to create a new version of “Conquer All.” with Jon Santos from 1176 Studios [Official, Myspace]. Today, I’m excited to share it with you. The guys and I are calling this version the ‘ironic mix’ and it was a ton of fun to record. Keep an ear peeled for the new piano-based bridge (2:02 in). We built a chorus of layered vocals to compliment the arrangement and I’m really stoked about how it came out.
Check out a streaming version of the song by clicking the below image. If you like it, you can download it for free by becoming our fan on ReverbNation.
Want to share the song with your friends? Click here to easily post it to your favorite social networks including Facebook, Myspace, LiveJournal, and more! It’s easy to do and you can customize the look of it too. Rock! What do you think of the new tune? Let us know in the comment section. We’d love to get your thoughts!
A couple of night ago, I connected with Lisa Bouchelle’s drummer, John D’Angelo, on Facebook. I saw that he’d posted some photos from the Meat Loaf tour and asked if I could share some of them with you guys here on the a’tris blogs. John’s a super kind guy and was totally cool with me passing them along so, without further ado, feel free to scroll down to see a few behind the scenes pics from Nate’s current day job. You can catch all of my favorites at a’tris HQ.
Our longtime friend, Amie, recently dropped me a line to let me know that she created a Tubmlr blog called The Captains of Awesome. As you can see from the above screen grab, Amie’s goal with this blog is to write about people she thinks are “really really ridiculously rad.” I am honored to be the first person she chose to feature!
Not to toot my own horn or anything, but here are a few reasons why she writes that she decided to select me: ^_^
He can ride a bike and catch a frisbee at the same time.What other reasons do you need?Alright, fine…
He’s really nice. That doesn’t sound like much, but it is. Seriously, he’s a total sweetheart. It’s impossible to dislike him.
He’s cute. What? That’s a totally valid qualification…
FYI, he gets to be #1 because he helped inspire this blog. (Team Awesome!)
Is that the sweetest thing you’ve ever read or what? All jokes aside, I can’t tell you how much that made my day. There are innumerable ways to define success. I choose to define it person by person. When a’tris’ music allows me to connect with truly fantastic people like Amie, that means that I have succeeded.
Amie – taking inspiration form your blog, I’d like to share with you some of the things that make you a captain of awesome in my book:
After you heard our music, you personally reached out to me via Twitter to let me know that you enjoyed and appreciated it. That really meant a lot.
When I wrote back to you, you shared my message with all of your friends and followers and began to share our music across your social networks. That was seriously cool of you.
When we had the opportunity to be one of Microsoft‘s Featured Artists, you campaigned for us and your efforts helped us win!
You did all of these things selflessly because that’s just the kind of person you are. You genuinely care about people and want to help them in any way you can. That’s what really makes you a captain of awesome in my book and I hope it comes back to you in a big way.
Attn Readers: What makes you an awesome person? What have you done today that made you feel proud or gave you a sense of accomplishment? I hope you’ll take a moment to share something below so we can acknowledge you.
If you follow us on Twitter or are a fan of ours on Facebook, then you may have seen that the guys and I are playing a show in Brooklyn, NY on Monday, 17 May. I wanted to take a moment to talk about the gig here, because this one is going to be a special performance.
If you’ve been stopping by this blog for a while, you may have seen the piece I wrote about Shawn Decker’s book, My Pet Virus. To summarize that post, Shawn is a fantastic guy and a hell of a writer. His story is incredibly inspirational and, for those reasons and many more, we are excited to be sharing the stage with his band, Synthetic Division, on Monday!
The show is not only special to the guys and me, it is also important to Shawn because it commemorates the 20-year anniversary of his dying wish to meet Depeche Mode. Seriously! Check out his book; the whole story is there.
Shawn will also be celebrating the release of Synthetic Division’s new LP, A Symptom of Life at the gig. It’s going to be great!
My co-writer, Michael Kreher, delivered this smile of a story to me via Facebook last night. I thought I’d pass it along to you. May the grinning begin!
Brittany E. Cantarella was cited for a crosswalk violation, said Northampton police Capt. Scott Savino.
Christ, 50, of Belchertown, was taken to Cooley Dickinson Hospital for treatment of minor injuries following the 3:30 p.m. accident. He was treated at the hospital and then released.
Cantarella was making a left turn from Strong Avenue onto Main Street when her car, a 2005 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, struck Christ.
Christ was in a marked crosswalk at the time of the accident, Savino said.
Savino said officers checked Christ’s identification at the scene and confirmed it was his legal name.
“Automatic Doors” hit the homepage of thesixtyone.com today! You can visit us there by clicking here or by go to thesixtyone.com and using the arrows to the left and right of your screen. If you haven’t heard of thesixtyone before, you’re in for a real treat. The site provides a super fun and intuitive way to discover new music. Hope you enjoy it!
Our instruments can’t type so Mason is responsible for most of what you’ll find here. If you like what he’s doing, we hope you’ll take a moment to subscribe by clicking the icon below. If you’re feeling really adventurous, you could even explore our other social networks too. It’s up to you; but we hope you’ll take a moment to get to know us and leave us a comment so we can get to know you.
Your call.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=36f42362-8578-440c-81f8-9ba05dd0c255)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=036433c6-5360-48c6-a25e-6217ecfe6980)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=6b12dc50-b293-404f-bd46-9147595df547)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=7ded2fc4-758c-472c-b9eb-5a5a4525b8a2)
