But come back here too.

Best,
Mike

For 10 USD you can buy a CD and get a complimentary download link. So…if you still don’t have either Total Hearts (2009) or Adventure, Bless and Don’t Be Sorry (2006), now is the right time to pick them up.

CDs ship directly from me. Worldwide shipping is included. The transactions take place via music.mike-downey.com. Downloads are available as lossless, 320kbps MP3 and a slew of other formats.

Thanks for reading!

I doubt this collection of songs will have anything to do with Mathlete as I mentioned previously. I figure I’ll leave that name in the past and not ruin the legacy we’ve left behind. So far the songs are quite inspired by that era though so if you’ve been following my output over the years this might be a bit of a time warp for you. I’m aiming for 15-20 songs.

Other than that, I turned 32 yesterday and I’m coming up on 4 years living in Sweden. All is rolling along and progressing. I was able to leave my job for 4 months (starting last month) to be home with my daughter. My days are spent at the playground, doing laundry, cooking and other domestic things you’d expect. This bonding time is really precious and I’m grateful to have such an extended period to do it. Recording music doesn’t fit into the daily routine; absolutely no time for it. I usually retire to the bedroom/studio after dinner and put in a couple hours when I’m in the mood.

Audio Graves Vols. 3 and 4 received quite a bit of attention according to the download stats I have available to me. Vols. 1 and 2 seem to be hiding under the radar a bit for some reason. So if you don’t have the entire collection please grab them all. It would make me really happy. I thought about putting together an after-the-fact abridged version picking like 25 of my favorites but quickly abandoned the idea. I don’t want to try and make it an “easy” listening experience. 15 years can’t really be summed so easily. I gained and lost a lot during those 15 years. It was good and bad times. It was all messed up and aligned perfectly, if that’s possible. There’s some work to do in putting the puzzle together.

I hope everyone had a great summer. The fall weather has blown into Stockholm. This is my favorite time of the year, year after year.

Until next time,

Mike

On Goldwire is now available here.

Add me as a pal if you wanna and let’s spy on each others listening trends.
bubbleshield aka mike downey on last.fm

I almost want to delete all of my profile songs off of Myspace and just use these.

Someone called me the king of web 2.0. And although I’m not the king of anything, I live for this sort of stuff. But really, I just like computers.

Apple Lossless (also known as Apple Lossless Encoder, ALE, or Apple Lossless Audio Codec, ALAC) is an audio codec developed by Apple Inc. for lossless data compression of digital music.

FlacFree Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) is a file format for lossless audio data compression. Being lossless, FLAC does not remove information from the audio stream, as lossy compression formats such as MP3, AAC, and Vorbis do. FLAC’s primary author is Josh Coalson.

I am happy to announce that all 3 of my full lengths are now available for download in all digital formats. This includes the above uncompressed variations.

The site that made this possible is called bandcamp. If you are a musician and want to make your music available online and don’t want to deal with distribution deals, I highly recommend it. Users can stream the albums in 128 kpbs mp3. Believe me, it sounds a million times better than Myspace or Virb.

I have uploaded all of my lyrics as well. So you can follow along if you’re into that sort of thing.

Kicking Gas for Laughs is available on a pay what you want scale since it was originally released for free. I see this as a way for people to donate to the cause so to speak if they so choose. The minimum is $1.

Adventure, Bless and Don’t Be Sorry and Hold Horses are available for $8 each.

So, get to the point. Please head over here, put on your headphones or strike a pose in front of your speaker stacks and enjoy some music.

When I use the Find Feature (open apple + f) and type in what I am looking for on a page, the word is now highlighted in yellow. Anyone who used this feature in older versions of Safari knows that previously the searched-for word was displayed in a nearly invisible light gray. I absolutely HATED this. I found myself with my face an inch from the screen looking for a word in a sea of text even after using a tool based on searchability.

This is a simple pleasure of mine in a word of widgets, gadgets, wireless connectivity and online lifestyles. This feature will probably go unnoticed by the masses, but was immediately noticed by me.

I also realized that if you took the Status Bar off of hide you would get a bottom bar that showed the links you were hovering over. It’s like 1996 all over again.

New phone! What ringtone should I choose?! I admit, I don’t really mess with my phones enough to download songs or ringtones to them. For songs, iPod. For ringtones, a preset is enough for me. My last ringtone was “old phone.” Brrrriiiiiiiing…Brrrrinnnng. I found a similar one on the Nokia called “telegraph.” It sounds old and it’s similar but with better old frequencies. This one might be at 256 kbps.

Today I was doing my usual browsing on Pitchfork and came across a quick interview with Thurston Moore in their Guest List column. The interview is insightful and I like Thurston as much as the next guy. It was a good way to spend a few minutes this afternoon in between TCB like a madman on the job. The last paragraph of that interview did that thing it does to me when I like something, draw an immediate connection to it and then start planning a blog about it. Let’s get to that now…

Lou Barlow once sang, “crackin’ jokes like a Thurston Moore, pedal hoppin’ like a dinosaur” in one of Sebadoh’s gleaming moments in the song Gimmie Indie Rock. There’s your connection to Thurston and here’s your connection to Dinosaur (besides the fact that this is Lou Barlow singing it)…

>> My Ringtone

You know, Kim gave me an iPhone for my birthday and they don’t let you– you can’t download ringtones on there, which is a bummer. I’m trying to think of my previous cell phone’s ringtone, which I really liked…I don’t even remember what it is, so I can’t even tell you. I think my ringtone is called “science fiction” [laughs]. Which is kind of cool because when you’re playing a CD in a car and the science fiction ringtone goes off, it sounds good with every track. Sometimes it’ll be going and I’m like, “Wow, that’s so cool that they put that in their song,” and I’m like, “Oh, it’s my fucking phone.” J Mascis has the best ringtone, he just put his phone on top of his drum and then he just like whacked the drum with a drumstick and he recorded it onto his phone, so when his phone, well…rings, it actually just goes, “BABABABABA!” [laughs]. — Thurston Moore on Pitchfork’s Guest List

I was at the 40 Watt Club playing a show once. I talked to this guy for a bit because when I was on tour I’d get into the habit of shooting the shit with the sound techs at these various clubs. I don’ t know, I’ve always liked audio and studied for a bit to take it up as a profession. For various reasons it wasn’t meant for me and I dropped it. But there’s always been something about the job that seemed like something I’d like to do, or something that I was sort of close to doing. So I asked him who the hardest person was to soundcheck. Like, who made the most fuss up on stage about monitors not being loud enough, etc… He immediately said that it was J Mascis. I remember the sound tech saying that J’s ears were so shot and he sang so soft that getting his vocals up enough in the monitors was nearly impossible. What’s also nearly impossible is having a ringtone that is original or even good for that matter. Looks like someone figured out how to do that.

“Breakin’ down the barriers like Sonic Youth. They got what they wanted, maybe I can get what I want to. C’MON INDIE ROCK“