Recent Blog entries on Fuzz.com

Keep the Charts or Kill 'em?

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 23:27:47 -0700

Guys - First of all, thanks for all of your feedback and support over the years. We do our best to keep Fuzz engaging and interesting, but sometimes things aren't exactly perfect. As we all know, we need to improve the way our charts work. It seems that folks have had some fairly provocative discussions around this topic. The charts were really just meant to be another way that we could highlight emerging artists that work hard to promote themselves. Charts aren't everything - they are just one of the MANY ways to discover artists.

So, give us your feedback... do we keep the charts or get rid of them (or something in between)...

OH - and here are the rules. You cannot attack others' comments. If you are nasty, you will be disregarded. State your own points and be respectful. Healthy debate is good. Being a jerk is not good...

Your feedback is really important so let's go...

ROCK N ROLL HALL OF FAME CD SIGNING AND CONCERT JULY 23RD

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:28:32 -0700

CHUBBY CHECKER

IN STORE AND CONCERT

WEDNESDAY, JULY 23RD

ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME
CLEVELAND, OHIO

6:30 PM

IN PERSON

I WILL BE SIGNING COPIES OF MY NEW ALBUM, "ALL THE BEST"
2-DISC CD SET WITH "KNOCK DOWN THE WALLS"!

COME JOIN ME!

Music

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:21:04 -0700

I Fell This Band Or Person Has Potental, Great Lead Guitar Decent Vocals And Nice Easy Beats And Melodys People Will Love.

More to Come (My new single)

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 21:26:10 -0700

More to Come is my new single and I am making it available to download. Be sure to check out my album Story of Life while you're listening. Thank you!

A Modest Elaboration

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:14:40 -0700

Well, in my last blog, I wrote about the charts of Fuzz. I guess I want to take this one step further. The music industry is on its last legs. Even the corporations that were a tad smarter than the average bear, that signed great groups from the 70s to the 90s, and attempt now to be "relevant" by releasing things exclusively on the Web are having major issues. The music industry will be fragmented more than ever in the future, and they don't know how to stop this fragmentation. That's because they can't. Fuzz is just one fragment, but it can grow to be a stronger one. But, if Jack and Jill are at #1 on any chart today, that does not mean they are selling incredibly well or making superior records. A success now is to sell 10,000 records. Yes, the times they are a changin'. One person's "career" I followed on youtube for awhile, to see what mistakes or excellent moves they would make. Their first problem was they stacked the game in their favor. It was very obvious they had sock accounts, under every video there was excessive praise for them, even if the video was a few seconds long, and the person did not address accusations of rigging by the youtube community. That person is now really, well, getting the karma they deserved, because those huge numbers didn't translate into sales of their music. That person was not honest with themselves or anyone else. You can only sneak around for a limited period of time. This principle can be applied to any business and any person. If you set out to deceive, it will bite you. And bottom line, any musician would want 50 dedicated listeners than 500 who think you are cool because you are "at the top of a chart". They will forget who you are after you are unceremoniously relegated to that horrible number two position ;) Peace out,
Bette

MUSIC NEWS! : the PINK SNOWFLAKES are coming to SF!

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 16:28:35 -0700

Come out and show some love for Portland's highly unique psycho-delic rock band the PINK SNOWFLAKES @ The Hotel Utah on this Saturday July 12th !! They're on tour so let's help put gas in their van. Couldn't we all use a night out of good times, good laughs, excellent tunes, and strong drink :)

details and video's :

"Like Ice Cream"

"When I'm Lookin At You"

Compressor abuse

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:23:13 -0700

I just thought I'd post a note here about overzealous use of compression. I'm wandering around the site listening to random music, since I'm new here, and I ran across a track that I otherwise really like from a band with a bunch of other tracks I enjoyed. Unfortunately, it seems like they were in a bit of a hurry to make this specific track's volume match the rest of the stuff on the site. I'm guessing they ran a bounce of the track (or the output bus) through a "mastering" compressor and just set the volume where they liked it.

Please, if you've got big fat kicks in a mix, either compress at low ratio with a viciously short attack and release or compress the drums separately from the rest of the mix! This track in particular had a slow release and very aggressive gain, so the (beautiful) synth/keyboard work sounded like it was being ducked under the kick.

Compressors can be a wonderful and creative sound-shaping tool, and of course you can use them to MAEK IT LOUD KTHX, but use them with care! Settings that worked for one track / stem / song probably won't work for another without adjustment.

Remember: tweak until it sounds right - who care what it looks like? It's music!

-Matt

First post, the remix contest, teh Intertubes

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 13:52:58 -0700

Well, here's a strange thing: this is my first-ever blog entry. Yes, at this site, but more than that. Ever. I've never had a blog before, anywhere, and I've been using the Internet for a really long time. I guess I'm young enough to have grown up with a computer at my fingertips from just after birth, but old enough to still value my privacy and personal space. When I was younger, I poured out my heart on IRC to a bunch of strangers (and made a bunch of good friends, oddly enough), but I've drawn the line somewhere short of Myspace, Facebook et al. I have personal websites, but I host them myself and carefully filter what ends up on them. Hell, I read and enjoy other people's blogs and a enjoy writing! This should be a natural fit!

To the chase, then: I probably don't know you, whoever you are. When I press "POST" under this textbox, you and the rest of the Internet will be able to read what I'm typing now. The technology and the idea is simple to me, but the psychological hurdle isn't. I'm going to put something up here that has my name on it, and in theory, people will read it. Somehow this has never been a problem for me with music - text seems different, though. More personal? Than music? Hardly. It's like a diary, I suppose, but I'm intentionally leaving it open on a bench in the park? Is it more like a magazine to which I'm contributing articles documenting the minutiae of my existence? Is it just a tool for manipulating the public, wielded by a cynical marketeer? I know I believe everything I read on the Internet.

What I've seen of this site so far is pretty interesting, anyhow. I like the business model at this point, it seems like a relatively active community, nice user interface - and yeah, the remix contest brought me here, I admit it (obligatory VOTE FOR PEDRO - I'm on page two of the remix gallery).

So here's the deal: I'm going to take this seriously, for what it's worth. I'm going to talk the other guys from arrowhead records into setting up on here too. I'm going to try to come up with interesting things to ramble about on this blog, and I'm going to put up more music. For your part, you can tell me what you think of the music, because I dig feedback.

Nice to meet you, whoever you are. See you around.

-Matt

The latest little ditty

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:17:49 -0700

I created the latest tune in a couple of minutes on Saturday morning while preparing for a moving sale. I plan on going to Alaska for a little while to take care of some personal business. There is something special about this piece, what can be done with this is that anyone can play the lead to this song. As long as you can keep a rhythm you can play a lead to this music. To do this just place your fingers on any of white keys moving them up and down the keyboard or you can just drag your index finger along them and you can hear your contribution to this Jazz Fusion creation, at least thats what I call it.

I have been learning a few things about recording from my friend Matt Fisher (Eyes of Fire, Mind Rot). Matt has been showing me the ropes regarding volume levels, mono vs. stereo tracking, compression and other things I have not yet applied to my recordings. So I plan on rerecording or should I say mastering some of the songs I have put out here for the public to have access too.

So with all that said, thanks for dropping by to partake in what I have been blessed with, that is the ability to make something out of nothing and enjoy what that something feels like to your body and how it affects your soul. (Thanks you Lord)

How to make my profile pretty and other FAQ

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:07:17 -0700

Finally found a new project four our fan group. This blog is about how to get started on Fuzz and a collection of useful tips for fans + musicians.
....even more important: It's a work in progress. All group members are very welcome to add more tips!

Let's start:

How do I make my profile pretty?
Answer: With BBCode you can do magic ;-) Or in other words:

BBCode is an abbreviation for Bulletin Board Code, the lightweight markup language used to format posts in many message boards. It is also called forum codes. The available tags are usually indicated by rectangular brackets surrounding a keyword, and they are parsed by the message board system before being translated into a markup language that web browsers understand, usually HTML or

XHTML.

(Source: Wikipedia)

If you go to your dashboard and click on the blog tab a new window opens - here you will find a link to the formatting Guide, that tells you a.):

b.)

c.) coming soon

How can I embed media on my blog/ profile?

Great that you asked - well what can I say? - Just one word: BBCode:

I still don't understand how this works - Could you please explain me again?

Sure! Don't worry you are not the first one (and probably not the last one) Be a bit patient - I just have to find the places where I explained some other people - do the copy and paste - I will be right back! Promise!!!

How to embed an youtube video:

You need the video ID (that can be found at the end of the video url)
This is the url of "The Windowframe": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Og4ygN45qL0
and the red marked part is the video ID: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Og4ygN45qL0

Then use the BBCode:
(youtube)Og4ygN45qL0(/youtube) ....well replace the (...) with [...] - you know :-))

Once you replaced the round brackets with [] - the video will appear - on comments, blogs or your profile page!

How to embed mp3s:

1. first you go to SkreemR or The Hype Machine (and alike) and look for the artist/song name:
For example Sylvie Vartan:

http://skreemr.com/results.jsp?q=Sylvie+Vartan&search=SkreemR+Search

2. If you are lucky there gonna be some finds ;-) Click on the "file" button and a new window will open with the mp3

3. Copy the url of that mp3:

http://www.tous-arts.net/chansons/08-SYL~1.MP3 (Qu'est Ce Qui Fait Pleurer Les Blondes)

4. add BBCode:
it's (mp3) url of mp3(/mp3)...replace the round ( ) with square brackets [ ]

5. the miniplayer will appear:

MP3: 08-SYL~1.MP3

It's too much work to type all the BBCode tags - Is there an easier way?

Yes there is. As long as you use Firefox! SomeVapourTrails already explained it here: BBCode for Dummies

How do I create a playlist?

1. Go to site of an artist you like.
2. Take a look at the music player - there you will find the "add button" - press it (if the song is to your approval)

3. Go to your dashboard and click on the music library tab:

4. Now you are at your music library dash board. Click on "create" and start your first playlist :-)

How do I create a mixtape from a playlist?

http://www.fuzz.com/mixtapes/create?playlistId=

When you go to your playlist there should be an ID # and you just plug it in after the =

Is there a fuzz search tool for keywords?

Yeah - there is a fabulous tool created by Jevs. The Google Custom Search Engine that returns results only from fuzz.com and allows to click for additional keywords, such as 'mixtape'.
http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=017544134282304348325%3Abe-dub4ow0o

How do I add favourites to my profile?
1. By clicking the star at the upper right corner of every artist site:

2. You find "add to fav" buttons underneath the artists avatars/ at the site of fan avatars:

More detailed informations for artists can be found here:
Artists: How to add fav to my profile?
....................................................................

More FAQ that gonna follow soon:

How can I search for genres?
....................................................................

Feel free to add your questions below. Please don't discuss in this blog why the old Fuzz Tips and Tricks are no longer up or anything related.

Upcoming JTB solo shows

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:02:26 -0700

I have Two upcoming shows first one is at the STORK CLUB in Oakland Ca. its $5 cover and 21+

The next is a special night at Burnt Ramen studios where I wil open and perhaps will plays some song in between bands as well. The headliner is MDC doing a split unplugged and electric set. Will be legendary !

new song

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 10:32:09 -0700

dancing dark king

Watch the new Calexico album trailer!

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 10:03:22 -0700

Some new sights and sounds from the forthcoming Calexico album, Carried To Dust - due out September 9, 2008. Go watch the new trailer at - http://www.touchandgorecords.com/calexicostream/

My new song......'Mariner'

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 09:45:22 -0700

My latest creation... I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I did writing it.....

"A Cool Bridge Between Two Music Communities"

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 09:35:11 -0700

http://alifeforsearch.blogspot.com/

I'm enjoying the flow between art lovers communities (music lovers in particular) through the bridge made.
The next URL link may talk about you, so why don't you try to connect.

Blogging on Myspace

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 09:24:39 -0700

For now Apraxia is not maintaining a blog on Fuzz. You can check out the latest news on the Apraxia Myspace blog.

http://blog.myspace.com/apraxianation

or just go to

http://www.apraxia.net/

and click on "news"

Thanks for the interest and support!

June Grant & Green Show available for listen and download....

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 08:59:43 -0700

Hello from HECKLEland...

Just a quick heads up that the live recoding form last month's Grant & Green show has been published online... jump over, have a listen, and download the show for your archives...

Why? 'Cause it's the heat!
http://www.archive.org/details/heckle2008-06-12.aud.flac

Is there anybody out there?

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 08:00:45 -0700

Word. Just realized that I am not being listened to at all. I wonder if maybe I should just pull my music from this site and venture somewhere else. Eh, someone somewhere will give a listen. It's here, if you like - then that's cool. If you don't like it - then I guess that's cool too ~ but you'll not get a christmas ham from me.

peas n hominey

Review of 'The Happening' by M. Night Shyamalan

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 07:11:20 -0700

This weekend Sid and I decided to watch a movie and so we chose...The Happening by M. Night Shyamalan starring M. Walburgh & J. Leguizamo.

All I can say is this movie was ASS!!! PURE AND SIMPLE CRAP!! We should have known better as we have come to expect the worst from Shyamalan these days. I was intrigued because of the trailer until *****SPOILER ALERT***** I realized that the trees and plants were actually releasing toxins that made humans only in the North East mind you, to kill themselves. WTF?????????????????????????

Sweeeeeeeeet Jesus...I have seen better films from Sid's film class (years ago) than this!!! And btw...why does M. Walburgh always sound so desperate when he acts??

Anyways, I DON'T recommend seeing this movie!!!!

Also, the poster for the movie below, that didn't happen in the movie!!!

THEY GAVE ME A BEAT TESTING MY SKILLS,WITH A COUPLE HOURS TO WRITE AND RECORD IN A HOUSE STUDIO

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 05:26:46 -0700

NEW TRACK YOU GOTTA HEAR,(remake) TOO SHORT-FREAKY TALES.KC GIVES YOU- HOODTALES