The Party Cat Imperative + A Few Other Tidbits
Likely cover. Click for big.
Let’s talk about a little thing I’m working on called The Party Cat Imperative. It is an album filled to the brim with what are known as Mashups. Basically, these are entirely new compositions made of up disparate elements from existing songs. Some of my favorite Mashup artists are Girl Talk, E-603, Tanner4105, and the Super Mash Bros.
One thing important to note about this release is that this will not be under the artist known as Starship Amazing, and will not be available with the other Starship Amazing releases, although it will be promoted and branded with the group in mind. Don’t get it twisted, I love Starship Amazing, and I love Derek. I love that dude. But he has nothing to do with this, besides occasional criticisms and suggestions. This is my thing, something that no one else can make a claim in.
All that being said, I don’t even know what artist name I’ll put it under at this point. The current front runner is the simple “C. Hansen” but that’s starting to sound a little pretentious to my ears. I want something I could conceivably put other records out on, regardless of genre.
In broader news, all of our albums are now centralized and organized on the Bandcamp page that you’ve become accustomed to, available through the “Releases” button above. Both Zoom Zoom Internet and Ultra-Modern Rhythms are now available in a lossless format, the best we can do for the beasts.
I’m trying not to describe the quality as “pristine”. I seem to do it a lot, and it’s beginning to garner ridicule. All of the ridicule is coming from Derek, but I digress.
Next order of business: We mentioned a while ago that we were selling t-shirts. This was a unwise proposition, as it turns out, because none of you people bought any. Literally, ZERO orders. Don’t worry, it’s not your fault. Well, it is, but it’s also not. You see, Cafepress is a pile of shit. Their quality is shitty, and the prices we are forced to charge are even shittier. The designs we presented were also pretty lackluster, so some of the blame falls on us.
So, that’s going away. We have plans to launch new apparel options at a different online storefront, so be looking for that sometime before the world ends.
I think that’s it. This turned out a lot longer than I wanted it to be.
-Calvin
Thatz a Rap 2.0
We said it was coming a while ago, but now this shit is here, ready for you to procure at your leisure! What was once now a simple April Fools joke has evolved to become an official thing! New features include:
- Remastered! Whatever the fuck that means!
- Two new tracks!
- One of them is about video games!
- Re-recored and extended A Minute of Fury!
What are you waiting for? Put down the blunt and the pimp cup, and download this motherfucker. Then, get in your whip, and gangsta lean ’round your hood, pumpin’ this shit AS LOUD AS YOU CAN!
The first iteration was rushed, to say the least. The whole thing, top to tail, was written and recorded in about a month. We wanted to do 2.o right, so lyrics, production, and mastering were slaved over to an unholy degree. Adding to delays were a myriad of personal issues, including homelessness, a new job, and the cold grip of death.
No, seriously, my grandma died, and I was kicked out of my house. Derek’s computer has become incapable of producing videos, and he got a job,. So here’s the album, you jackals.
Until I have a place to live, Starship Amazing is basically on hold. Hopefully our labored rappings will tide you over. I’m also working on a smaller project in the downtime, so stay tuned for updates on that. I’ll only offer a single hint: The Party Cat Imperative.
Scoops!/Gearhart Deckrion Studio Update #8
Sup dudes. Derek usually makes these updates, but he be slackin’. I will take up the mantle! I am Calvin. You know, the other guy is Starship Amazing? The one who’s not internet famous? Whatever.
A while ago, I announced that I was going to participate in the RPM Challenge, which involved making an album entirely during the month of February. I failed terribly. However, a few items were plucked from these dark archives, and rejuvenated for the purposes of Starship Amazing. This is one of those items. It will appear on Scoops, one of our two albums we will be releasing before year’s end. You can read at length about these emissions, along with others, in the longer post below. Listen to the song now.
State of the Starship
As I write this, it is May 17, 2009. Two days ago, Starship Amazing officially became two years old. In that time, we have released 2 EP’s, and 3 full length records. Two years running with no sign of slowing down, an unstoppable force wrecking everything using the power of hot tracks. It’s crazy that this time one year ago, The Power of Science is Staggering was about 2/3’s finished. Now, we’re knee deep in about 4 different projects, all at various stages of completion. But before I give you all an update on SA’s going’s on’s, I want to take a moment to reflect on what the entity of Starship Amazing has been to Calvin and I.
Lets face facts: we have our fan’s, and we love you all, but Starship Amazing has not really reached any level of notoriety. Our music has had a few thousand downloads, and we’ve made enough money to buy a couple dozen burgers, but we’ve reach no amount of great success. We do this because we honestly love to make music. We take our “craft” seriously, because we have a blast working on this stuff. We really don’t care that we’re really not that popular. In fact, that may be partially our fault since we don’t put much effort in promoting Starship Amazing. We just want to make music! We’re not all that interested in “hey look at us” stuff. Calvin just wants to make rad beats, and I just want to make rad melodies. Our lack of popularity will not deter us.
Make no mistake, even though we are certainly pleased with what we have accomplished, we are by no means content. We have yet to say, “Well, this is as good as it gets.” We want more. We want our small group of fans to grow into a thriving, active community of listeners. A roiling, fevered mass of people who appreciate what we do. So we soldier on.
I recently sat down and listened to our body of work, particularly Ultra-Modern Rhythms and The Power of Science is Staggering, and then compared them to the few finished tracks for Scoops the Robot!. I still enjoy those albums, but only for what they are: our early works. I feel we’ve definitely reached a point where we’re no longer capable of writing those albums. Right now we have 8 finished songs for Scoops the Robot!, three of which I’m unsure of, and I feel they’re the best things we’ve ever done. God, I don’t know how many musicians I’ve heard say that. Let me clarify; from our perspective, UMR and … Staggering are behind us. We’re proud of those records (less so with UMR), but they aren’t us any more. Calvin and I agree that many of our old songs are too long, and have too little variation. This is something we’ve worked hard to avoid with Scoops!. Our goal is to have songs that don’t feel as long as they actually are. And I predict Scoops the Robot! will be well received by our small but growing fan base because to me it feels like a culmination of everything we’ve done.
But I predict that An Apocalypse in Binary: The Memiors of Gearhart Deckrion will be a watershed album. It truly is something completely different for Starship Amazing, and some of you might not dig it. It has also been the hardest thing for us to do. I can’t begin to tell you how many songs, nearly or completely finished, we’ve thrown out because we were trying to nail down how we want this record to sound. For example, I can already confirm that “A Flashing Light, A Former Friend” will not be on Gearhart. As it stands, there are 6 finished songs for it, but it doesn’t feel at all close to being finished. But even if it comes out and it’s not as well received, that’s fine. I still really want to finish this thing. It’s been tough, but nothings more healthy than a good challenge!
Oh and by the way, we’re being realistic with these two albums. So both Scoops! and Gearhart will cap off at 10 tracks. That may not sound like much, but that adds up to 20 new songs in total. Any more would probably kill us.
The problem with An Apocalypse in Binary: The Memiors of Gearhart Deckrion is that we’re aiming for a specific tone. So we need songs that are not just good but also fitting within the pretentious concept we’ve established. We’ve thrown out a ton of songs, who’s only crime was they didn’t fit with the sound we wanted. So just like with These Rough Seas Ain’t My Doing, we plan to compile all the outtakes from Scoops! and Gearhart in a collection called Broken Robots. Look for that shortly after we release both Scoops! and Gearhart, when ever that is.
Finally, we are happy to announce that we are currently working on a rerelease of our rap EP, Thatz A Rap. Remixed, remastered, rerecorded, and with 2 brand new tracks! Thatz A Rap was just a dumb April Fool’s joke, but it was very hastily put together. It was a lot of fun to make too! We realized that it would probably be healthy to take a break from typical Starship Amazing. I mean it has been two solid years of nothing but electronic music. And an EP of breaks, basslines, and dumb raps is just what the doctor ordered!
So, a remastered version of the Thatz A Rap EP, Scoops the Robot!, An Apocalypse in Binary: The Memiors of Gearhart Deckrion, and Broken Robots are all on the horizon. Shit, if you count These Rough Seas… that’ll be 5 releases on one year! That’s got to amount for something! Anyway, thank you listening and/or giving us money. We’ll try and make it worth your while.
-da
ps. new track from Scoops! tomorrow.
Scoops!/Gearhart Deckrion Studio Update #7
Hello friends. Calvin and I are still hard at work on our two new projects. For those of you just joining us, we’re currently working on two records. One stupid and light-hearted, the other dark and pretentious. We’ve got a new track from the pretentious one: An Apocalypse in Binary: The Memoirs of Gearhart Deckrion.
Remember the song we posted back in studio update #4? No? Good! Because this new song has a similar sound but is much much better. Pinning down the sound we want for Gearhart has been a real challenge. I couldn’t tell you how many songs we’ve started, some we’ve finished, that we decided to throw out. This is why I foresee Scoops the Robot! finishing first. But if Calvin keeps giving me tracks this good to work with, this record might be finished faster than I thought. Enjoy!
-da
Scoops!/Gearhart Deckrion Studio Update #6
Sup everyone. Derek here with another update from the studio. Starship Amazing is currently working on two albums at once. It has been a long journey to see these two albums come together, but yesterday Calvin and myself made a lot of progress with both projects. I predict we will finish Scoops the Robot! before we finish An Apocalypse in Binary: The Memoirs of Gearhart Deckrion . We seem to have a much easier time writing song for Scoops. In fact we have a new cut from that very album for you to listen to!
While you’re listening to the new track from Scoops the Robot!, let me explain the concept behind the album.
Scoops is a robot, and he loves you. He loves everything. And in return he is loved by everything. I mean, how can you not love the little guy?! He’s Scoops! He’s about the size of a 5 year old, is just as cute and playful, and can only say one word: his name. Try saying his name a couple times! Scoops Scoops! I bet you’re feeling better already. In the world Scoops lives in, there’s no anger or hate. No body feels disenfranchised or lonely. In the off-chance something bad happens, Scoops will be there, if only in spirit. His high pitched digitized voice and tiny smile on his tiny frame will immediately resolve the situation. It’s tough being human, but Scoops is there to help ya’ out. To put it bluntly, he doesn’t make the world a better place, he makes the world a perfect place. And it’s not something ol’ Scoops Magoops is even aware of! He is the patron saint of everything that makes you glad to be alive. But to him, he’s just a robot named Scoops. And this is the soundtrack to his world.
Be sure to listen for Scoops at the end of the track. He just wants to say “hi”.
From the Depths of the Starship Amazing Vault: Call It Rain
If I may be so bold, “Call It Rain” is one of my proudest accomplishments with Starship Amazing. Though our first full length record, Ultra-Modern Rhythms, is neigh unlistenable for me any more, “Call It Rain” is one of the few songs I still really like. Mainly because I wrote most of it on the guitar before coming to Calvin. This is really my baby. Even though I’ve got two demos for you here, “Call It Rain” was conceived and finished faster than I think any other track on UMR. If you listen to the demos you’ll hear, from a writing standpoint, they aren’t much different from the finished product. We just fine-tuned the tones and the mix, and before long it was finished.
For a while it was going to be called “Issac’s Honey Bucket”, then “The Greatest Sandwich a Carnivore Could Ever Hope to Eat” before I finally convinced Calvin to let me pick a serious name. I remember having to fight for “Call It Rain”, and I won because I was far more excited about this song than Calvin was. However, the last melody that comes in right before the rain was all Calvin, so it’s not like he didn’t care at all. Just not that much. By the way, the idea of putting the sound of rain at the end was an idea stolen from “Shine (acoustic)” by Muse from Hullabaloo. Anyone who knows me, knows I love’s me some Muse!
I’m not going to lie to you though, it really isn’t as good as it is special to me. Really, it’s not even that good of a song. But it was probably the best thing we were capable of at the time, however, so it’s something I’m still proud of. And I’d like to think we’ve written much better songs since then. So I included the two “Call It Rain” demos, the finished version, and the sorta spiritual successor, “One for the Kids” which will be on Scoops the Robot!.
First Demo
Second Demo
Finished Version
“One for the Kids”
… like I’m Scrooge McDuck,
-da
Scoops!/Gearhart Deckrion Studio Update #5*
Welcome to another update from the studio. As you may or may not know Calvin and myself are currently working on not one, but two new albums. One will be very dark and sobering, the other very lighthearted and uplifting. Scoops the Robot! is the lighthearted affair, and we have a brand new, work-in-progress track for you! And we’re pretty excited about this one. “Scoop Scoops!!”, as Scoops himself would say.
Our latest track, “A Great Time”, is a track that really speaks for itself. In fact, that or a slight variation of that name may end up being the official title. It’s a track that was conceived and brought to where it is now in a matter of hours. Seldom do new tracks develop this fast. Sometimes Calvin and I have those days where everything seems to come together with ease, and the track writes itself for us. These usually are our strongest tracks, at least in our eyes. It still needs an ending and has a bit of a rushed pace, but a song hasn’t come together this well for us in a long time. If you were ever curious how Scoops the Robot! will sound, this should give you a good idea of the tone we’re aiming for. Not necessarily the good life, just a great time. With Scoops the Robot…
Burgers Every Day,
-da
*note: There wasn’t an update last Sunday because we were prepping our April Fool’s Day joke. We posted said joke last Wednesday when there normally would’ve been an unreleased demo from the vault. Now that April 1st is past us, things will continue on as they were. So, demo this Wednesday, another studio update next Sunday.
So…
Yeah, it was a joke. Ya dummies. We keep on keepin’ on.
We Are Proud to Present Our New Record: Thatz A Rap!!
From The Ashes of Starship Amazing Comes The Rap Debut From MC J Phat + DJ Savy!
IT’S A FREE DOWNLOAD! HIT THAT SHIT!!!
http://starshipamazing.bandcamp.com/
http://starshipamazing.bandcamp.com/
http://starshipamazing.bandcamp.com/
http://starshipamazing.bandcamp.com/
http://starshipamazing.bandcamp.com/
PEACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Flash MP3 Player JW
