Blog News Archive

The past couple months were kinda slow in the getting shit done department. With the holidays and some other scheduling conflicts we only managed to get in a few weekends of actual recording. The good news is we’re closing in on finishing up guitars and have the rest of the days we need scheduled for this month. After that we move on to vocals.

We would absolutely love to be getting this done faster but everyone involved in this project has other things going on where they actually make the money needed to survive. The donations we’ve received go a long way towards paying for the new album, but that’s all we’re using it for. When it comes to rent/bills/etc, everyone’s kinda on their own. So whether its fishing for Alaskan King Crab or doing pet dry cleaning for the rich and famous… we gotta do what we gotta do.

I’m hoping that playing rock music will someday be a viable career option. Until then it’s more like playing the lottery and winning just enough to buy some more lottery tickets.

Every couple of years or so we like to bring The Strychnine back from the dead in the form of another box or, in this case, Macy’s bag of CDs found in someone’s basement or, in this case, parents’ garage.

I haven’t pulled them all out to count them but it looks like around 20-25 discs all still in their factory wrapped glory. This may or may not be the last of them, but I’m leaning towards may. They’re back in stock so get one while supplies last.

As an added bonus, CD Baby is donating $1 from every sale (until 2/7/10) to Haitian relief efforts. We’ll go ahead and double that with no time limit. So we’ll donate $2 for every one of these CDs sold, until they run out. If you need help with that it comes out to $3. Plus you get your hands on this classic piece of Pennsylvania Rock History.

If you already have one of these you could always pick up a few extra to hand out at parties or your next ice cream social. And it’s red so it makes a great Valentine’s day gift. Or you could just head over there and leave a review. The possibilities are pretty much endless.

Tony and Jay performed at the in/out festival in NYC last week. Here’s some video.

Ocular Noise Machine 12/12/2009 Part 1 from Livid Instruments on Vimeo.

Ocular Noise Machine performing at the in/out festival in NYC. Part1

Check out Part 2 over on Sinch TV

We nailed down some more recording days over the next month or so. The live stream will probably be up for most of them so remember to check in and see what we’re up to. Here’s the schedule:

Sunday Nov. 22 @ 11am
Monday Nov. 23 @ 7pm
Monday Nov. 30th @ 7pm
Wednesday Dec. 2nd @ 7pm
Saturday Dec. 19th @ 11am
Sunday Dec 20th @ 11am

The best way to get notified when the stream goes live is to follow us on Twitter. If you’re not into Twitter, you can still find our latest update here on the site (in the right sidebar) or over on our Facebook page.

You can also stay updated through email by signing up for our newsletter.

Our hugely successful Sound Share project has a new home on Bluskreen.com

From there you can download samples from both Sinch and Bluskreen tracks and make your own remixes, mash ups, monster mashes or whatever you want. All the samples are released under a Creative Commons license.

You’ll find more information there as well as links to a bunch of audio apps to get you started.

Bluskreen Sound Share Project

We’re keeping all of our photos from the studio in this Flickr set. We just added some from last weekend’s guitar sessions.

Here it is as a sweet slideshow:

A New Music Store

Yes, we have a new music store.

This time around we’re using a relatively new service called Bandcamp. There’s a few things about our new store that are different:

1. We’re now selling all our releases (except for the self-titled album and Imitating the Screen EP, both still on Roadrunner).
2. Everything you buy in the new store you’re buying from us. And it all helps support the band.
3. You can buy full albums and/or individual songs. In our old store you could only buy full albums.
4. All the downloadable stuff is available in a variety of formats: MP3, FLAC, AAC, Apple Lossless and Ogg Vorbis.
5. We’ve included some extra bonus materials in all the downloads, including liner notes, bonus tracks, desktops and more.

Live Cuts 2005: The Album

Second, to celebrate the launch of the new store, we re-released Live Cuts 2005 as a full length album. The album now includes all 9 songs from that show, including some live versions of songs from the self titled album.

Here’s the full track listing:

1. To Die In Fall (Live) 04:34
2. The Power of Suggestion (Live) 03:47
3. Identity Theft (Live) 03:52
4. The Last Scene (Live) 04:04
5. The Projector Breaks 00:34
6. Bitmap (Live) 04:54
7. Something More (Live) 04:15
8. 433 (Live) 03:38
9. All That’s Left Behind (Live) 03:36
10. The Silent Acquiescence of Millions (Live) 05:36

Live Cuts 2005: The Album is available now.

We had some issues last weekend and weren’t able to get everything set up for the live stream. Apologies to anyone who tried to get on.

The good news is that guitar tones were “dialed in” and a bunch of stuff was recorded. I wasn’t in the studio for these sessions so I can’t tell you much more than that. But we’ll be back in for more guitars on Oct 17 and Oct 24.

The live stream will be up for those two sessions, so mark your calendars.

A little later tonight Tony will be back in the studio to start recording guitar tracks. We have some logistical issues to work out so the stream may be up starting tonight or it may have to wait until tomorrow. Recording will be going on all weekend so either way there will be something to watch at some point. Tonight there will likely be a lot of knob fiddling and what have you before actual recording starts so you might not end up missing too much.

See if the stream is live here »

Oh and we kinda just launched a new music store last night and released a (sort of) new album. Check it out.

We’ll have more info on that soon. It was kind of a “soft launch” with minimal fanfare, mainly because we just don’t have to time to create much fanfare these days. But it’s live and open for “bizness.” We now have all of our releases (except the self titled album) available directly from us.

We made a small change to the donation structure that may affect you if you donated $25 or more to the cause.

Traffic on the live stream (from the studio where we’re recording our new album) was a little less than we expected. Considering the fact that this has become somewhat of a global effort, it’s not too surprising that people from halfway around the world aren’t able to tune in live on our schedule.

We still think the live stream is pretty cool (even with the long periods of down time) and realized that it might be better suited to be used not only to let the people who’ve gotten involved in this project see where their money is going, but also to let casual fans and even total randoms into the studio with us to see what all the commotion is about. Maybe they’ll even want to get involved themselves. And that works out well for all of us.

To put it simply, the live stream from the studio is now public.

If you’re one of the fine ladies and/or gentlemens who’ve already thrown at least $25 our way (Bronze level), you might be feeling a bit let down that the live stream is no longer the exclusive secret society it once was. That’s understandable. So in addition to still having full access to the live stream, you’re also going to get a free copy of the new album on CD.

And just so our Silver donors don’t feel left out, in addition to the signed and numbered copy of the CD you’re already getting, we’re gonna throw in a limited edition promotional mini-poster (also signed and numbered of course). This will be a totally new poster and will be a different design than the (non-mini) one at the $100 level.

Finally, there’s one last change that affects everyone: Instead of getting your free download of the album in “high quality mp3 format” you’ll be able to choose from a whole list of audio formats, including FLAC, Apple Lossless and Ogg Vorbis. All these options will also be available to anyone who wants to wait until the album is released to buy it.

How is this modern miracle of technology possible?

We’re about to launch a new music store that includes all those formats. Not exactly a miracle I guess. More like breaking news. You heard it here first.

Meanwhile head over to the current store while it’s still there and check out the updated list of donation levels.