Dr. Noise to play Summerfest this year?! Maybe...

I've entered Dr. Noise into a contest that has voting every day til April 14th. It's to play Summerfest in Milwaukee, WI this summer. you can vote 10 times a day on a single e-mail addy and 20 times a day total per IP address. Please help me/us take a DFTBA act to a major stage :) I'm currently ranked 1st in the rock division!

http://tinyurl.com/voteforbill

This is no small task. I need to be at the top of this list every single day until the contest ends and I really feel WE CAN DO IT!!! Voting is super easy, no need to register or anything like that.

I hope you'll bookmark the page, tell friends, help MAKE THIS HAPPEN. It would be so awesome if DFTBA Records took the stage at a major event like summerfest. Seriously...think about it. So awesome. <3 <3

http://tinyurl.com/voteforbill

Recreation of a website

My website is a mess and the graphics made no sense to being related to anything I've ever done. Therefore I'm redoing the whole thing. Talk about a time consuming task. I've built my share of websites in the past, but thanks to website enhancements that have come up over the past few years it's become quite a challenge. I'm using Joomla as a source... The result means I can work off a template and have a dashboard to update things. It's supposed to make it easier and more efficient. IT REALLY DOES.... but not when you're building graphics and trying to manipulate them to do what you want them to. That, of course, requires quite a bit more... and many times I'm finding I don't have the knowledge.

It reminds me of when I was forced to teach myself all the tricks to HTML. Now it's me teaching myself the tricks to CSS.

It's slowly coming together though. Woot! I love making new websites, but I find myself too often staring at the screen wondering what to put where or what to do next.

Whew. Getting there though.

Feeling The Need

I'm constantly busy.  It goes without saying that no matter how far back I look I've always been doing something that I felt was going to be something great or something special.

Everytime I'd finish a project I had 2 things on my mind.  The first was, yay the project is going to be done and I can finally rest for a bit... the other is I can't wait to show people this.  .... but every time I finish a project I've already got 3 more waiting to be finished!

Right now I've got 7 songs waiting to be recorded (possibly 9 now), 4 huge video ideas, an EP to release, a show to prepare for with Driftless Pony Club and Searchlight in October, and all the while doing this I have to move out of my apartment on the 15th and decide once and for all just where I'm going to live from now on.

It's a lot and it's easy to get burnt out... but no matter how much it is it's always exciting and I feel if I'm not doing anything I'm just wasting time.  Even if I stop for a break just to play a video game there's a point while playing where I think.... I should work on lyrics or a recording or practicing or anything that's not this video game.

It's overwhelming and I bring it onto myself, happily.  I've always felt this need since I was little.  When I was younger and a really big fan of NASCAR I built an exact replica in 1/64th scale of Bristol Motor Speedway out of cardboard, screen (for fencing), and paint.  And when I got too old for that I had started playing instruments and within the first year of playing guitar I was writing songs.  They were BAD, but they were songs at least!

I wonder to myself how some people can spend their time negating their talents and putting them aside when they could be using them.  Some people get discouraged because they don't think anyone was watching, or looking, or cares at all.  I know that feeling all too well.

I guess I like the rule that no matter how many people are watching, looking, viewing, enjoying... whether it's 10 people or 2 million people.  Do your best, use your talents, and don't ever let discouragement from one project stop you from moving onto the next.  you need to impress and make yourself happy before you can make anyone else happy.

So with that said.... back to projects!

Things that make me Happy

So, Sammi and I have spent the last 3 days or so yelling at each other over how the artwork for my new EP is going to look.  It's a good fight, cuz the end product is exciting.  It's been a very long time since I've released anything under the Dr. Noise moniker.  The original CD was in 2006 and I used the funds I made from it to move to Las Vegas so I could join a band here that ultimately fell apart leading me right back to doing things on my own.  Funny how things work, isn't it?

So now, the excitement is back of releasing a CD completely made up of music I created from start to finish.  And this time, I'm doing it with the help of some outrageously awesome people.  Alan has easily become a new best friend of mine, within the YouTube world or outside of it.  You can't ask for better people.

In the music world, you get used to being around scum and worthless people.  When you're not one yourself, it's important to grasp onto and hold those who give a genuine crap.  The real music scenes I've been around are the reason i decided to turn to YouTube when I had the chance and while I have the amazing help of Alan, The Vlogbrothers, Alex Day, etc.

In the real world of music as an unsigned artist it's very difficult.  Some of the best bands in the world never get signed or see the light of tour because they don't have the right friends or other various reasons.  To me, the fact that talent can so easily be overlooked this day and age, that's a real sad state of affairs.

The YouTube world on the other hand... is amazing.  Whether you've got 10 fans or 10 thousand... they're watching you because they want to.  Not because they know they look cool at your show but don't give a shit about your music or even you.  YouTube friends/fans/followers are genuine people who genuinely like what you do...and immediately can tell you what they thought of it.  Good, bad, or neutral.  And not only that, you can potentially be seen by anyone all over the world at any time of the day.

I've got so many new friends and fans thanks to YouTube.  I say at the end of every one of my BlogTV shows that I'm always so eternally thankful for everyone apart of the community and I don't know that I could ever express just how much I really mean that.

Being the community that we are I hope you all will now and will forever always promote.  Not just me, not just Alan, not just Hank, not just Alex...but anyone.  Anyone who ever makes something special.  Anyone who makes something that makes you smile, laugh, cry, feel anything.  Because while the YouTube world is years above that of the real world (at least in music) there's now a huge amount of people who don't get seen in this world either....who in my opinion deserve to be seen.

The people you love to watch and create can only be as big as you make them.  It always has been and always will be in the hands of those who watch.  I hope that we all continue to treat each other with the love and care we currently do.

Thank you all so much for making my life a better one.

Blogging For Me

Blogging for me seems like a thing of the past. Back when Myspace was in maybe it's 2nd year I used to blog all the time... usually about nonsense rants. I'd write to vent in silly ways on things that many times actually made me want to vent in the first place. It always interested people and I had a pretty good number of followers just on my myspace blog. It was nice to know someone felt inclined to read what I wrote.

In fact, my vlog about the Enchanted Forest I wanna build when I'm a million trillion bagillionaire originated as a blog from Myspace. I just thought it would be fun to tell the story.

Writing can be very uplifting and it can really help in many ways. Particularly for someone like myself who spends a lot of time writing music. Lyrics can sometimes be a real block and I think expressing myself via blog and getting feedback from others assisted. It got my thoughts out of my head and many times that lead to making writing in other fields (ie lyrics) much easier.

With that being said, maybe it's time I started putting something inside this bloggy blog blog thinger.

Now we'll just see if I stick to it. hehe

C'mon me! You can do it!

Dr. Noise = Blogger

I'm a somebody!


*dance*