Bad Happy is out!

Sorry about not updating like I said I would, that's just how it goes sometimes I suppose.
Well, Bad Happy is out. It has been for a few days.

Want it immediately? Grab it up on iTunes/Amazon.

Want it in it's ultra nice looking physical form? head over to bubblegumoctopus.bigcartel.com OR come to a show (you can also send me check/money order, just email me)

Don't want it? What are you doing reading this?? GET OUT OF HERE!

Bad Happy: Final update part 1/4

On the 31st of this month, I will officially have all of the new album recorded! I know it's been a painful wait for some of you (myself included) but I really feel confident that it was worth the wait.
I really think that this is the BgO album you have been hoping for.

Punky, noisy, death metallic, power poppy, and psychedelic guitars, breakcore and IDM-ish percussion mutilation, SNES and x-bit chip sounds, synths of the analog, FM, ROMpler, sampler, and complex software varieties, circuit-bending, pedal chain harsh noise, occasional moments of grind, all kinds of vocals, self-sample mangling, and tons of other things.

I just tried to do an album the way I've always wanted to, without sacrificing anything that wasn't out of reach completely, and I think I've basically accomplished that.


By all accounts, there is no excuse for me taking this so long, but I'm glad I waited.
The Bad Happy I had planned to put out in 2010 was in no way as solid as the one that I will be releasing in the next two or three months.
I basically did not anticipate what touring was going to do to my life.
I'll be honest, I slacked off a lot when I shouldn't have. I have really terrible sleep problems and it can cause me to sleep through times when I could have been working, but sleep seems to be creeping back to my side. I also get really overwhelmed very easily and this album has tons of things going on at any given time.

Not only that, but I'm not just making the music here:
I'm doing my own PR work, I'm getting merch made, I'm selling merch, I'm managing all of my internet presence. I'm my own record label, manager, PR guy, booking agent, merch guy, recording engineer, and producer.
I have no one helping me in this at all, I have no studio recording me, and I'm not signed.

People will give me suggestions, they'll help me book shows, etc. but I'm still fundamentally acting as a whole band, a label, and the entire management team.
I don't even have other members to carry some of the burden (and people wonder why I'm slow with my orders and never do real self-promotion, heh)
It's all very detrimental to the creative process, but I am getting better at it.

Anyway, that all said... I've given myself this deadline and I plan on sticking to it!
Send me your positive energy, magical happiness, psychic pizza, telepathic cat cuddles, and your ESP caffeine so I can be productive non-stop!!

Next update will be after it's all recorded!

- m@ the c@
(^o^!)

Busy time of the year

Hey all, I've been busy as of late.
Working myself mad on Bad Happy, trying to get The Kitten's Rejoinder prepared for release, rehearsing with Ultra Death Men and Giggle The Ozone, and trying to organize Christmasasaurus Vol. 5 as last minute as I thought possible, haha

Mob Boss recording has entered the pre-recording rehearsal phase.
For various reasons, I'm just going to do everything except for drums, which will be handled by Jon of Ultra Death Men. I don't know what I'll put this out on yet, but I'm feeling a semi-free album that will come with all future merch orders is the best idea.

Jayme is not out of the band, he's just too busy right now to put effort in, and because they are my songs anyway I'm going to just record them to kick start things.

I have my Bandcamp page up and running to fill the void left by myspace turning into a complete trainwreck.
Not quite a website, but I'm still working on that.

http://bubblegumoctopus.bandcamp.com/

I'm slowly filling in all the lyrics and some descriptions of the songs.
Nothing important, just some anecdotes about their origins, the recording process, whatever.
I know some people have wanted the same treatment I gave Possible Party: Part i to be given to TAFKA8LDM

Well, that's all for now.
Sorry there's nothing exciting...

...oh wait, just kidding! I have some shows!




Bubblegum Octopus December 30th, Yspilanti, MI @ a house party. Ask me for the address.

Bubblegum Octopus January 6th, North Hollywood, CA @ Hustle House with Monomate, NVR-NDR, Halloween Swim Team, and Vyncent Flaw

Bubblegum Octopus January 7th, Isla Vista, CA @ Biko Garage with Monomate, Treasure Mammal, and Coach McGirt

Giggle The Ozone January 21st, Brooklyn, NY @ Vaudeville Park

Bubblegum Octopus & Pyrrhic January 28th, Sunderland, MD @ tba w/ Watabou

Bubblegum Octopus January 29th, Baltimore, MD @ Hexagon Space w/ TALK TO ANIMALS

In March... I'll be playing South By Southwest, followed by another tour with Yatagarasu covering Texas, Oklahoma, and more on the way back to New York!
More details on that stuff soon.

11162010

So, here's what's been up as of late:

I've been coughing myself new orifices to cough through on and off for the past month or so.
I have the vocals for a bunch of songs tracked, but progress has been slow.
My ears have been clogged, my head has been hazy, my voice has been malfunctioning, my ability to sleep has been severely damaged, my throat and nose have been full of mucus... the point is, I've had a really hard time getting work done for reasons beyond my control.
I'm hoping that tomorrow will bring better health and that tonight will bring restful sleep so that I can get back on this. My brain is exploding with ideas I can't carry out.

That said, Bad Happy is probably not going to come out until January or February now.
I was really pushing for it to be done next month, but time isn't slowing down of course, and "Flu Season" bested me this year *shakes fist at sky*

Let me take the time to apologize now for 2010 being the year of compilation albums and contributions, split EPs, and re-releases.
At the very least, I played in a good deal of the country, got two full lengths (Ultra Death Men and Hybegnu) recorded for future releases, got one fantastic split of new material out, got 15 of my free releases within the public's grasp, and made substantial progress on future BgO releases.


As far as The Kitten's Rejoinder, I decided it does indeed need some sort of bonus tracks and that I should also do some more work on the Scissor Shock split tracks.
They'll never be up to the standards of my current music, but I want to polish them however I can to at least help!
It should be out next month.

It's looking like the track list will be the following:

1. Unveil: Machine Octopus
2. Soft Sun Spots
3. Zuru??
4. Mr. Yum
5. Rembowave
6. Misconception Superhighway
7. Peace in Pious Pieces
8. Discomfort & Laughing
9. Fire Belly Bravery
10. Enjoy My Home
11. Product Amazement
12. The Fantastical Balloonopus: Sanchtïrl'ynk
13. Digidock
14. Here He is He's GONE
15. Sausage MAXXX
16. This is not Dead Time!
17. Enjoy My Home: Platinum

1 and 2 are new songs (1 being an instrumental intro track I wrote in 2007, 2 being a song I originally wrote for the Weakness Electronics split with Watabou this year.)
3 - 8 are my songs from My God Is The Cat King, the split with Dental Work (which is a fabulous release that you should still try to get, even if you get this album when it comes out)
9 - 12 are my songs from Take Control, the split with Yatagarsu from last year.
13 - 16 are my songs from the split with Scissor Shock from 2007
17 is the new version of Enjoy My Home that I've been playing live with better vocals. I was unhappy with some things in the first version and it was my favorite BgO song up to that point.

While I'm on the topic, did I ever post the revised Bad Happy track list?
If not, here it is:

1. SpazzPop Forever!!!!~
2. Distortion Castle
3. 888 Days Meow Fast
4. Sleep Void
5. Floor of Worlds
6. Tubulidentata
7. Goodbye Light (God's Fake Laser)
8. Betrayal is okay.
9. We ARE Sick
10. Shovel Piledriver
11. Metallic Sheep Nap
12. Feeler than I'm old
13. Beautiful Little Towne
14. Time Zone Proclivity
15. Loud Noise In My Room
16. Resting in the valley forever




End of release news, here's some live show updates:

[Start of Mixed Emotionz Tour. Bubblegum Octopus w/ Monomate]
January 6th - Hustle House in Los Angeles, CA
January 7th - Biko Garage in Santa Barbara, CA
January 8th - Northern California, help needed!
January 9th - Portland, OR. More info soon
January 12th - Seattle, WA. More info soon
January 13th - Oregon. More info soon
January 14th - Northern California, help needed!
January 15th - The return to LA. More info soon.
[End tour]
January 21st - Giggle The Ozone @ tba in Brooklyn, NY
January 28th - Bubblegum Octopus and Pyrrhic** @ tba in Sunderland, MD
January 29th - Bubblegum Octopus @ Hexagon Space in Baltimore, MD w/ Talk To Animals
March - Beginning of Bad Happy tour to Texas! Details as they arrive in the next few weeks.

**Pyrrhic is some kind of proggy, extreme metal band I am doing vocals for at some shows.
I will be appearing on their first album, as well. They are a pretty superb band, so I have high hopes for it.




I did art for the 2007 Fork Sister album, Savory Sauces. I still obviously haven't gotten the vocals done, but at least the art is complete!

I'm also compiling another compilation album, appropriately titled "One-Off Oddities"
It's going to be a little more than me just slapping a bunch of weird crap I've recorded together, putting it on the web, and calling it a night though.
It's going to feature songs by Hurricane Metal, The Cuddle Sluts, I Am A Hexagon, c@ Vs. Peppermint Pony, Bubblegum Octopus Vs. Scissor Shock, Rage-a-holic Tortise, Frame House, Awful Throats, a "m@ the c@" song, Mercury Syringe, a Scissor Shock cover I did as Bubblegum Octopus, and hopefully some new BgO song or something to increase the value.
It'll basically answer all of your questions about my projects that you've never heard (except for the fact that the Frame House songs will be a weird porn groove thing and a melodic death metal thing we did before the band had really found a sound. Not even sure it's fair to call them Frame House songs, in fact)

I suppose that's all I have for you for now.
Stay happy, dearest friends.

Minimum Dollar Boy

Recording with Hybegnu was awesome, seriously.
Everyone involved had something great to contribute. Their first album was mostly angular avant-noise-sludge stuff, but the new one is nothing but contrast and strangeness, without losing a central feeling of discomforting other-worldliness.
Spastic/atonal math jams, gaunt odd time metal, new wave hip-hop, hideous screeching noise, submarine drone, ambient acoustitronic free jazz... basically a ton of things that the average Bubblegum Octopus fan might not really like, but the average m@ the c@ fan will be totally down with.

I think one of the best parts of the whole thing was the fact that one song literally sounds EXACTLY like what you might expect from a collaboration between Keith (of PAK, Time Of Orchids, and tons more) Dylan (of Giggle The Ozone, Zeehas; 12 Wait, and more) and myself... and I consider that sound to be quite desirable.

I ended up doing bass, guitar with a bunch of my effects pedals, vocals, and a set-up where I had a mic running into my KP3, which ran into my DD7, and I played glockenspiel and slide whistle through it. We switched line-ups for almost every song.

As for a release, I don't know yet. We're doing more than expected with this album, so it might be a while yet.


Bad Happy is still trudging along... eh, well... actually.... it's more like it's jogging at this point, but it keeps tripping over it's shoelaces even though I keep reminding it to tie them.
I basically re-did entire drum tracks for like 5 songs, making them ridiculous elaborate, added some potentially unnecessary synth parts from the Nanosynth, and have been fighting with the frustration of mixing up to about 50 tracks of audio and MIDI per song.

After the grindiest song on the album has it's drums replaced (it's kind of like Falcon Breeze's much more sophisticated and elaborate spiritual successor,) my only obstacles in the way of having this thing done are the vocals for 9 tracks, some guitar and bass parts, some textural palette cleansers, and the very daunting mixing process.
I've got an install of Komplete 7 on the way that was donated by my father, who got it for teaching purposes, and I think Battery may be the trick for the drums on that thing.

I need to get more shirts printed. All I have left is small and girly small o_o;
Money is so tight that it's pretty hard to afford these things. If I get more of the Tubbypaws design it'll probably be the last run of 6 color shirts for a while.
I'm definitely under-charging you all for them.
I'm too nice sometimes (^-^;; )


Oh, I forgot to include this the first time I updated this post.
The Kitten's Rejoinder is actually going to be getting a "DIY style" release through the micro-label that Yatagarasu runs. He's looking to boost it up in scale and to do that he's going to release nothing but quality extreme/experimental electronic artists (I think only ones that involve chiptune elements, too.)
The Kitten's Rejoinder will be packaged in a similar fashion to Take Control:


Hand printed cover on a cardboard sleeve, xeroxed insert, nice disc.
Actually, the cover will be nicer than these (not that I didn't like them) because Chris now has access to a multi-armed screen printing press... which sounds like a good thing, haha



New Ultra Death Men material is being written, by the way, some of which will be audible at our upcoming show...

....speaking of...


Some of my upcoming shows:

• November 12th - Ultra Death Men @ The Clash Bar (21+ show, sadly) in Clifton, NJ

• December ??? - Giggle The Ozone @ ???? in Brooklyn, NY (more details on that soon, I'm just excited to be playing with them again)

• January 6th - Bubblegum Octopus @ Hustle House in Los Angeles, California (first show of the tour with Monomate)

• January 7th - Bubblegum Octopus @ Biko Garage in Santa Barbara, California (w/ Monomate)

• January 29th - Bubblegum Octopus @ Hexagon Space in Baltimore, Maryland (w/ Talk To Animals! Finally!)


Hope those of you that like Halloween enjoyed the holiday.
The weather is perfect for me right now. See-your-breath cold, without being discomforting.
Give it some time, snow will come and then I'll say that's the perfect weather.

Late update

Well, I don't have much time to write, as I'm on my way to the post office, and then I'll be in Philadelphia for the rest of the week to record with the band Hybegnu and to get some drum stuff recorded for Bad Happy.

I've actually been extremely sick for the past week, so my progress on the album was temporarily inhibited. I'm back into functionality now though, and I expect to know if it will be out in time for January's tour in the next two or three weeks.

Speaking of, plans for the Mixed Emotionz tour are coming along nicely.
A few dates are booked already, but I'm waiting for the line-ups for the shows to be assembled.

The Ultra Death Men album is coming alone nicely as well. Not sure when it will be done though.
We also have a show in Clifton, NJ at the Clash Bar on November 12th. We'll be playing songs from Muscles as well as some new material.

Giggle The Ozone also has a show coming up in early December, somewhere in Brooklyn, but I don't know many details yet.
The new GtO album will actually be out this month and it's going to rule.
I mean, I'm not playing bass on it or anything, but I am sure it's going to be the best one yet.

Fork Sister –making it's first appearance on this blog, I do believe– is actually back to being an active endeavor. Nothing substantial will probably be done this year, but Savory Sauces (the much belated 2007 album) will get some vocals recorded and a free release, followed by new material written with the project being a two piece.
Shows are also in the works.

Alright, time to be on my way!

New Song

head on over to http://www.myspace.com/bubblegumoctopus
New song from Bad Happy, titled Metallic Sheep Nap