Mark Nicholas

11:45 pm: Lil' freebee bootleg remix
As most of you know, Sara (DJ Ginger Snapp) and I like to occasionally make quick little bootleg remixes of tracks that, well, lack a beat! Our latest is for Love Lockdown by Kanye West. Why? Because it needed a beat! If you want it, you can grab it here:

Follow this link: http://www.thesixtyone.com/#/SM/

Or if that doesn't work, you can go to that site and search for S+M, you'll find our remix.

-m

PS - This was custom made for Sara's set on IPMRadio.com Saturday night. It was awesome. As soon as she puts it up for download, I'll post a link to that too.

Tags: kanye west, love lockdown, remix, thesixtyone

11:35 am: Watching the charts...
As suspected, Cosmicity is the faster climber of my two musical efforts on thesixtyone.com.

I gotta tell you, though, this site is an eye-opener for me. Completely democratic... people vote for their favorite songs, and the most successful songs make it to the home page and are considered "hits". And it's fascinating to see what songs work and what songs don't.

For example, the most popular Cosmicity songs of all time (in terms of sales) are "Rengerate" and "Sedgwick". They did okay on the site, but then got SMOKED by the songs "Let Me In" and "Crucify", the two I posted most recently. "Let Me In" hit the homepage yesterday, and Crucify will be joining it there in the next day or so. That's kind of cool... a song from 11 years ago that's a hit with people today. For all they know, I recorded it last week. In their ears, it still holds up (not dated). That's awesome!

On the Mark Nicholas front, the song "I Wish" went straight to the home page in just 2 days, but the song "Two Sandwiches" did SO badly (only 12 bumps in 3 weeks... to put that in perspective, most of my other songs get an average of 80 bumps in that time, and Crucify just got over 200 bumps in 14 hours). I would have bet the farm that "Two Sandwiches" would be popular, but I would have lost that farm! "Maniac" also just hit the homepage today. I would have bet half the farm on that one... so at least I'd still have half a farm. Hopefully the things on that farm aren't split too evenly, as half a cow is still a dead cow.

Overall "Mark Nicholas" still has a higher score, but I've had "Mark" in the game a lot longer. In the next few weeks, I'm positive that Cosmicity will double that score and then some.

What does it all mean? I guess I don't really know. I'm just happy that some of the songs are doing very well, old and new. If you feel so inclined, cast your votes for the next Cosmicity song I should post. Which one do you think will be a hit (given the facts listed above about Sedgwick failing and Let Me In succeeding, etc.)?

-m

PS - Weren't we supposed to be having a baby or something? What ever happened with that?

PPS - (Any day now!)

Tags: cosmicity, mark nicholas, thesixtyone, zoe

01:15 am: Thing that old friends say to me all the time that I get tired of now:

"So, are you still doing the music thing?" (Not even just old friends, actually. Current friends, co-workers, you name it. My answer should be, if you actually care, maybe get on my mailing list or look at my website once a year?)

Thing people would say to me all the time that I would get tired of now if I'd reached the level of success I was shooting for:

"I always knew you were going to make a name for yourself with your music."

Ah, life. You fuck with me, but I still love you. Between humans that's considered a dysfunctional relationship. With you, I believe it probably is as it should be. Because on the absolute flipside, there's this:

---

( A post from last week that never posted for some reason - recovered from the draft.)

Every so often someone sells an old Cosmicity album on E-bay, and I feel SOOO much better about my musical accomplishments. Seriously, I am humbled.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180239938414

$33.00 for a CD I self-released in 1994 at the age of 21 that retailed for $9.99. Shit, I REALLY wasn't even very good yet. Sara and I were just talking about this the other day. She and I only put the songs we actually like from albums on our iPods, and I think she only has 1 song from this album on her iPod. One!

Thanks for letting me know about that auction, Miss Ania.

-m

PS - I've got Cosmicity up on thesixtyone.com now too. Who wants to take bets on which artist performs better on there... Cosmicity or Mark Nicholas?

Tags: cosmicity, e-bay, success, the vision, thesixtyone

01:01 am: Ah! I'm on the homepage!
Thanks so much, everyone, for your help on thesixtyone.com. "I Wish" is on the home page right now! That's not just top in my genre - that's top 10 on the WHOLE SITE!

Not sure how long that'll last (possibly gone before you click to see it?), but that's awesome exposure right now. Woo hoo!

-m

Tags: i wish, thesixtyone, top 10

10:22 pm: thesixtyone
Hey, if you feel so inclined, I'm having some fun competing on a new music website (it's actually pretty cool) and any "bumps" you threw my way would be appreciated. It's free, and a totally simple and non-invasive to sign up for. (Lots of free music to be found here for download too - and the best music does seem to rise to the top - well sorted by category - so there's a lot less crap than just looking for new music at random on sites like myspace.)

http://www.thesixtyone.com/marknicholas/

I found the site through a band called The Long Division. Might even be doing a remix for them. Check out their songs "Neighbors" while you're on thesixtyone... it's got a very innocent retro flavor to it that I tend to like right on the first listen.

-m

Tags: the long division, thesixtyone