PAX Report
What can I say? I had a simply amazing time at PAX. I opened Saturday night’s concert by playing a set to an audience of thousands of people (which I’ve never done before). It was quite a rush – I’ve never seen a wider sea of cell phones and Nintendo DSes and light sabers, and the sound of several thousand screaming zombies truly is a little frightening. And there was a tender moment with a robotic boom camera that I will always be grateful for.
As proof, I can offer you these artifacts:
1) an interview I did with Ben of Gaming Nexus on Saturday afternoon, on which page you’ll also find a picture of me towering over…well, my pants.
2) this YouTube video of Re: Your Brains which gives you some idea what I was up against.
3) this flickr photoset from Chris Maloney, with a lot of great shots of me looking awesome.
Many thanks to Mike and Jerry and Robert and Amber and Jillian and Matt and Jennifer and all the rest of the people who invited me there and got me out the other side.
Now I’m in Ocean City, NJ perfecting my skimboarding technique, but don’t forget: Friday, the Birchmere in Alexandria, VA with Paul and Storm, and then this weekend is Bumbershoot in Seattle. Will I ever stop rocking? The answer is no.
Ze Frank Songs
Some of you may remember my guest appearance on Ze Frank’s The Show in which I did some acoustic versions of several Ze songs. I sure remember it – I still can’t seem to get “Hindsight” out of my head. Much time has passed since then, but not enough time for us to change our minds about offering these songs for sale as mp3s here in my store.
If you’re a Ze fan you already know this news, and you may even have already asked me for the chords (Ze fans move VERY quickly, like a swarm of fire ants). I don’t have them at the moment, but I will try to write them out soon. Unless – isn’t there some sort of magical Ze Wiki Team that can take care of this? Some kind of Ze-worshipping, human guitar-tabbing engine, floating above our planet in cryogenic stasis waiting to attack just such a problem?
E-Junkie vs. Payloadz
I recently discovered e-junkie.com, another site designed to handle the back end of something like my digital download store. I had been using Payloadz for this until now, but the pricing at e-junkie seems like it’s going to work a lot better for me – it’s based on the number of products in the store rather than the actual dollar amount sold per month as Payloadz does it. I also think the shopping cart/download process is a little more slick.
There are a couple of things Payloadz seems to do better – Payloadz automatically switches between a regular Paypal account and a micropayments Paypal account depending on the purchase amount. Though when I asked the support people at e-junkie about this they said it was a feature they wanted to add, and would it be alright if they just made my account work that way as a test? So for me that problem’s kind of solved – I don’t know when they’ll roll it out to all users. Also, currently e-junkie sends one email for each mp3 purchased, which is a little spammy if you buy ten songs at once. And they don’t handle spaces in filenames very well, so I had to do some renaming here and there. But if you want to know the truth, I’m not exactly thrilled with the level of customer support I’ve been getting at Payloadz anyway. Between that and the better pricing, I’ve decided to try switching over to e-junkie to see how it goes.
The mp3 part of the store is now live on e-junkie, I’ll be watching closely in case there are any problems (and transferring the karaoke files over to the new store too). After that, FLAC.
Shows, Shows, Shows
If you’re not on the mailing list, then you did not receive this:
I’m back from vacation and ready to travel around the country bringing joy to all the boys and girls. Weirdly, I’m making several trips to Seattle in quick succession. Not as weirdly, there’s a whole West Coast/Texas tour thing with Paul and Storm happening in September. Watch this:
Saturday 8/25 – PAX (Penny Arcade Expo) in Seattle, WA
Washington State Convention Center
9 PM
I’m kicking off an evening of nerdcore deliciousness that includes MC Frontalot and the Minibosses. The first 4,000 attendees (gulp) Saturday morning get seats, the other 1,000 seats go to attendees on a first come first served basis.
http://www.pennyarcadeexpo.com
Friday 8/31 – The Birchmere in Alexandria, VA
7:30 PM
This is a big place with lots of room for everyone. Seriously, buy some tickets right away so I’m not embarrassed. As a special bonus, this is also the CD release party for Paul and Storm’s new CD “Gumbo Pants” (which sounded awesome to me even before I heard it).
Saturday-Monday 9/1-9/3 – Bumbershoot in Seattle, WA
Seattle Center, Comedy Stage North – Intiman Theatre
Several shows: Saturday 4 PM, Sunday 5:30 PM, Monday 2:30 PM
Ah, afternoon comedy. Nothing funnier than a slightly sleepy audience who hasn’t been drinking. I’ll be splitting an hour on stage with Kristen Schaal (late of Flight of the Conchords) and Anthony Jeselnick (erm…from Pittsburgh).
http://bumbershoot.com
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Here begins some serious touring with Paul and Storm
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Wednesday 9/12 – Paul Gleason Theater in Los Angeles, CA
8:30 PM
With Paul and Storm
http://acmt.org/
Tickets at Ticketmaster: http://tinyurl.com/3bhkt6
Friday 9/14 – Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, CA
9 PM
With Paul and Storm
Tuesday 9/18 – Cactus Cafe in Austin, TX
8:30 PM
With Paul and Storm
http://www.utexas.edu/student/txunion/ae/cactus/
Wednesday 9/19 – Club Dada in Dallas, TX
8 PM
With Paul and Storm
http://www.clubdada.com/
Thursday 9/20 – McGonigel’s Mucky Duck in Houston, TX
7:30 PM
With Paul and Storm
Friday 9/21 – McMenamin’s Mission Theater in Portland, OR
9 PM
With Paul and Storm
http://www.mcmenamins.com/index.php?loc=72&id=168
Sunday 9/23 – Triple Door in Seattle, WA
7:30 PM
With Paul and Storm
http://www.tripledoor.com/
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Was that enough crazy touring for you? No? OK then!
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Saturday 9/29 – Rams Head Onstage in Annapolis, MD
7 PM
With Paul and Storm
http://www.ramsheadtavern.com/annapolis/onstage.html
Wednesday 10/3 – Higher Ground (Showcase Lounge) in Burlington, VT
7:30 PM
With Paul and Storm
Thursday 10/4 – Iron Horse in Northampton, MA
7 PM
With Paul and Storm
http://www.iheg.com/iron_horse_main.asp
Friday 10/5 – Johnny D’s in Somerville, MA
7:30 PM
With Paul and Storm
And that’s all I know so far. Times etc. subject to change – don’t count on my having gotten any of this right for heaven’s sake. Please spread the word, tweet about it, blog about it, help me to put butts in seats so that I can continue soft rocking all around the world. As always, thank you.
-j
P.S. I got blisters on my fingers!!!
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