Mark Nicholas

01:44 pm: I'm huge in Uruguay (no, really!)
This is taken from a message I just received on myspace from a DJ who spins there:

"Every friday and saturday people get crazy with "Perverse" here at Alexander Disco Pub..
I'm so glad to tell you that people come to us to ask what is that wonderful song we sing non stop.
I will record it and post it here for everyone to see the success of Mark Nicholas in Uruguay.
Keep it uP!"

Just when I'd started believing that album didn't really get too far...

-m

Tags: mark nicholas, perverse, uruguay

01:30 am: 19 Tomato Sauce
Tonight we invented 19 Tomato sauce. As you may have guessed, our recipe calls for 19 (Roma) tomatoes. We happened to have this many, fresh and shiny, because our two tomato plants are freaks and are producing fruit like we injected them with growth hormone or some shit. Anyway, for a first stab at ever making sauce (let alone from tomatoes we grew ourselves) it was pretty good. Just a little sweet. Next time around we're gonna have it nailed. I'm sure we'll have 19 more tomatoes by Monday.

I feel slightly Italian co-creating a custom marinara sauce. Too bad I'm Polish/Irish or I'd probably have some girls swooning right about now. I can't really do traditional Polish food, ya know? Who'd swoon over a custom Pierogi recipe? Nobody, that's who!

In other news, I'm totally working at a snails pace on my next release. For this reason, I will be combining my two project efforts into just one (and slimming down track lists for both a little bit) to help get it released sooner. The Perverse single and the MN vs Cosmicitiy EPs have now morphed into one CD. World, be afraid. Very afraid. And also feel free to suggest any "album" title ideas you may have for this release, 'cause I'm not sure exactly how to approach it now that I've decided on this merger. (I feel weird calling it an album, 'cause it's really a collection of remakes, remixes and covers of a few old Cosmicity songs. It's not really an album unless it's totally original/new music right? I dunno. Who gives a crap? It just a release that needs a name.)

-m

Tags: 19 tomato sauce, mark nicholas vs cosmicity, perverse

03:07 pm: Live appearances.
For a bit there, I wasn't sure I'd ever hit the road with my music again. But it's officially happening now, starting with the east coast. First booked date looks like June 16th in Baltimore, but I expect a couple more will shake out. If you're on the east coast, and you know of a cool place, please feel free to hit me with any info you have. The more things I can line up while we're out there, the more worthwhile it'll be to do all of that driving!!!

And even if you're not on the east coast, I'm still all-ears. Would love to do some shows anywhere I can get 'em. Just know that for many shows (particularly those that are more than 12 hours from Detroit that I can't drive to), I'll be appearing by myself, doing a kind of half DJ/half live performance thing. A lot of DJs are kinda doing that these days... laptop, live sample triggering, live vocals through distortion 'n' stuff, but all from like a DJ table setup. It's pretty fun and it works well for me, and even better, it means I can do shows at almost any club. No need for a big formal stage setup if it's not available. If the club has ever had a guest DJ who brings his own stuff, my show would work there.

Duchess 33 is doing good this week, too. Reaching out to fans of Cosmicity on MySpace has been working quite well.

Oh, yeah, and the first single. Definitely gonna be "Perverse". Definitely gonna be good 'cause I've got some cool people doing remixes. Definitely gonna be out in just a couple of months.

-m

PS: Here's a fun little iMix I put together. It's all club tracks with a fun flavor (either humor, or cool samples, or vocal hooks.) A few of my favs weren't available on iTunes, so it's not the entire mix, but it's a good chunk of it anyway.

Clicky --> Club Music For Pop People

Tags: imix, live shows, perverse, single

11:29 pm: Remix 2nd track - Stems for Perverse are up.
Remixers/DJs only. Parts for the next song from "Duchess 33" are posted.

http://marknicholas.org/Perverse_130_STEMS/

"Perverse" WILL be the first single in just a couple of months.

Even rougher than "I Wish", I did the vox for this song DIRTY. I wanted feel... and I knew I'd mix 'em distorted and lo-fi, so the quality is not "top notch studio". Still, I provided untouched, totally raw WAVE files in addition to the effected ones, so presumably you could multiband-compress, EQ and effect 'em however you like to put 'em in a cleaner-sounding place. Also, 'cause Syrian (one of the booked-and-official remixers) requested it, there is a MIDI file with the chords and a couple of other parts included. (Turns out I didn't use much MIDI for this song. Who knew?)

130 bpm. 16 bit WAVE files. All parts start at a bar line.

-m

Tags: perverse, remix, stems