Seume

As I’ve been looking for work in Austin, I’ve had some extra time on my hands. So I’ve been taking my dog on some long treks through the Barton Creek greenbelt, doing some reading (“Winter’s Bone” by Daniel Woodrell — GREAT book), doing some writing (new songs a-brewin’), and wasting plenty of time thinking about doing stuff. As per.

I also managed to squeeze in some time to update my MUSIC page to make it a lot more accessible and convenient and nice. Now, you can not only fully stream each song from It Is What It Is, but also see the lyrics and download the album or any individual track — for free!  Enter “0″ in the name-your-price field and you’re good to go.

So come and get it! If you download the whole album, it comes with a .pdf of the album insert with all the credits and thank you’s and all that. And of course the album cover for your iTunes, etc.

I’ll probably leave everything free like this through Christmas time, so if you already got it and know someone else who’d want it, you can enter their email address and they’ll get a message giving them the option to follow through with the download. Win/win, my friends. The new MUSIC page also makes it really easy to Share (and Like) this deal through Facebook, Twitter, Myspace (you still on that?!), and email. And doing that type of thing helps more than you may think. So please consider making those couple extra clicks if you feel so inclined.

‘Tis the season to give, after all.

I leave you with an illustration that inspired the title for this post. It’s one of many done by my very giving friend, DJG, for an upcoming book by Chad Thomas Johnston called, “The Stained Glass Kaleidoscope”. Look for its release in the coming months…

The animated gem for “Will Ya Be My Friend” has been receiving heaps of praise and now has a trophy for the shelf!

The folks at the KC Chapter of the AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts) gave it an award for their annual Motion Graphics category. All the credit goes to DJG and PJC — the creative geniuses working under the moniker Mur Mur Man Productions — who let their imaginations run wild (as per) and worked for over a year on it collectively. I just uploaded DJG’s process art for the video to Flickr, so stop by there to get an idea of how it was made! It involved lots of collages, a giant scroll, and unrestrained wonderment. Congrats and another big thanks to both artists for bringing the song to life on screen!

If you haven’t seen it yet, just click on the VIDEO header and see why it’s been called

“one of the coolest things you’ll see all year”! – Present Magazine

Also on the video front, the footage we shot for “Leavin” is being edited down as we speak, so we’ll be premiering that real soon. And I got photos from that shoot on Flickr… behind the scenes! Click the photo below to see the rest.

I’ll be making a half-naked cameo appearance in an ACB’s video in the coming weeks, too. So be on the look out for THAT! And in the meantime, go download their debut single “Be Professional” from their upcoming full length Stona Rosa. It’s free, and you’ll love it, I think.

Single artwork by… none other than… DJG.