S.A. Sebastian: A View From The Bottom

Work on the new Atomic Brother Ep, Silence Collide, is finally done! After moving to Austin in July, I got back to editing the tracks in August and searching for a mix engineer in September, and overseeing the creation of the artwork in October and putting together the distribution and new http://music.atomicbrother.com website.

Silence Collide features 3 new songs plus 2 live acoustic tracks and will be available on iTunes Worldwide, AmazonMP3, Napster, eMusic, Rhapsody and more in November. The new songs feature me on bass, James Melillo on guitar and vocals, and Robert C. Kelly on drums. The Guitars and vocals were recorded at my old studio in Montclair, NJ, the bass in my new studio in Austin, TX and the drums were recorded in Seoul, Korea, at the university where Rob is a professor of music. The live acoustic tracks were performed by me and James and recorded at his place on Long Island, NY. You can get the Silence Collide before it’s released directly from Atomic Brother at http://music.atomicbrother.com where you can name the price you want to pay, and you can get the Ep in AIF, MP3, ACC, Flac and WAV file formats. In addition, you will get the digital artwork PDF and the “Making of Wastin’ All My Time” video as a bonus.

In September, I went back to Long Island, NY to finish recording our next, and still untitled, Ep. We set up a makeshift studio in James’ apartment and recorded guitars and vocals on 3 new songs, and bass on 1 of those songs. Plus a whole bunch of acoustic tracks to accompany the studio tracks. The bass on the 2 other tracks was recorded in Austin, TX. This time we have both Robert C. Kelly and Patrick Aeby playing drums on this Ep. Rob’s drums were recorded again in Seoul, Korea, and Patrick’s recorded in Lausanne, Switzerland. I’ll be back to editing, and getting ready to mix these songs in November for a January release. I just have to tidy up the Silence Collide release, and finish getting Ep number 3 ready for Patrick to record drums.

On Weds, Nov. 28, Warner Brothers announced that they signed Frank Sinatra… well actuall they acquired the full rights to Sinatra’s catalog from Sinatra’s family.

The partnership will operate under the name Frank Sinatra Enterprises and will manage all of his musical, film and stage work, as well as administer all licensing for the name and likeness of the star who died in 1998 at the age of 82.

The family wants to preserve Frank’s legacy by releasing “films, TV specials and unreleased footage, photos and audio recordings and pursue new products and ventures.”  I expect we’ll be hearing a remix of “Love and Marriage” a la the Elvis remix album.

What I want to know is, isn’t his legacy preserved in every pizza joint, Italian restaurant and Olive Garden across the U.S.? I think I’d rather dip my head in a vat of acid than hear what this unholy alliance is going to bring us.

Quiet Riot singer, Kevin Dubrow, died last Sunday night at his home in Las Vegas. I’d post a link, but so many blogs and websites and news sites are covering his death I wouldn’t know which one to post. So, if you have been living in a cave and really need to read about it do a search on Google or Yahoo!.

During the course of the last week Kevin’s death have been covered all over television, radio and the internet. There were many tributes to him on specialty hard rock and metal shows, and for the ones taped in advance of his death, probably more to come. The amount of other people coming out of the woodwork to pay tribute to Kevin Dubrow is tremendous. The music of Quiet Riot has even made back into regular rotation on a few stations here in the New York/New Jersey area.

While I think it’s great that Kevin and his music are getting all this attention, but I kind of find it troubling that it took his death to make people remember him. Everyone is saying so many great things about him, as people often do about people when they die, which is nice. I’ve got nothing bad to say about him. I had the chance to meet Kevin once a long time ago and he was a very nice guy. People go on to say how wonderful, great and influential Quiet Riot was but what they don’t realize is that Kevin was still an active singer and entertainer, and an active member of Quiet Riot. To many people Kevin Dubrow and Quiet Riot were “residing in the where are they now file.” But, unlike all the 80s glam and metal bands getting back together to make a few bucks because of the rising interest in 80s music, he kept Quiet Riot going, no reunion necessary. The band was still making their way across the US and parts of Europe, playing music year after year. I didn’t get to see the band back in the 80s, but I did get to see Quiet Riot in several small clubs on Long Island in the 90s, and once in a minor league baseball stadium a few years ago in New Jersey with Rudy Sarzo playing  bass. Every time they were fun and kicked ass.

It kinda makes me sick listening to all these hypocrites. So, to all of you that are eulogizing Kevin and calling him an enormous talent and great friend, why weren’t you supporting him, band and his career? If he meant so much too you, where the hell were you?

It’s great that you can hear him on the radio again, but it sucks that it took his death to make it happen.

That’s today! My album, See Me Comin’ with Atomic Brother is finally out on CD! It’s been over a year since we recorded it, and 6 months since it was released digitally. Go to the merch section of atomicbrother.com to get your copy! Here’s the press release.

New York, NY - On Election Day, November 6, 2007, the New York City-based Atomic Brother will release the follow-up to the band’s 2004 release Elected, with their latest album, See Me Comin’.

See Me Comin’ is Atomic Brother’s first full-length album and is a collection of 12 original songs. While mainly a hard-rock album, listeners are often surprised at the wide range of styles found on See Me Comin’. After the heavy riffs in “Not My Fault” and the title track “See Me Comin’,” it’s refreshing to find that the band is also capable of playing punk rock tunes like “Employee of the Month,” and even slower ballads such as “Home in the Sky” and the Spanish-feeling “Never Home.” With See Me Comin’, Atomic Brother decided to focus more on writing good music and less on a particular genre. According to bassist Gnolfo, they were “tired of hearing bands both live and on CD that sound the same from start to finish,” so they decided to focus more on writing good music and less on keeping it within a particular genre. “If it sounds good and we both like it,” stated guitarist/vocalist Melillo, “we’ll use it. Period. A good song is a good song.” In his review of See Me Comin’, Robert Pally of Swissrecords.ch certifies that, “Atomic Brother can certainly write powerful songs,” and according to Jon Worley of Aiding and Abetting, “these boys do rock.”

See Me Comin’ was recorded and produced by Atomic Brother in Lausanne, Switzerland at Soundlake Studios with the band’s close friend, and former colleague, Patrick Aeby (formerly of Krokus) playing drums and mixing the album. See Me Comin’ is being released independently by Atomic Brother, and on this Election Day, November 6, 2007 fans can purchase the album on CD from CDBaby.com and at atomicbrother.com. The album was release as a digital download worldwide at iTunes and in the U.S. at the eMusic, Napster, Sony Connect and Rhapsody online music stores on July 4 2007.

The last couple weeks have been real interesting with Radiohead announcing that they would be self-releasing their latest album, In Rainbows, and Trent Reznor telling people to steal his music and that he wants out of his contract. Finally the Radiohead album is out this morning and so is Reznor, he’s free of his contract with Interscope. So, has there been any fallout yet? You bet there has.

According to Billboard thousands have been downloading the new Radiohead album at an estimated voluntary price of £5 GBP. That’s right, voluntary price. Radiohead left it up to the fans to decide how much they would pay for a digital version of the album. According to Yorke, “The wonderful [thing] is that the consumer can decide how much a download is worth,” he added. “I’m not sure how much just a digital download is worth. I’m not sure 79p - the iTunes price - is the right price.”

This has prompted the following response from Guy Hands, from Terra Firma, the group that purchased EMI, “”a wake-up call which we should all welcome and respond to with creativity and energy.” He goes on to ask, “Why should [superstar acts] subsidize their label’s new talent roster – or for that matter their record company’s excessive expenditures and advances?”

Trent Reznor has said if could break free of his deal he would sell his CDs for as little as $4 USD. Now we wait and see what Trent is going to do. It is unsure when Trent will release a new album, especially since Year Zero is still fairly new, but Billboard says, “Billboard understands Reznor, in keeping with past practices, will not decide how to actually release, market and promote the next album until the music is finished.”

What does this mean for bands like NIN and Radiohead? It might mean a drop in sales, but it means a much higher profit margin, and less dependence on touring and merchandise sales to make a living. What a lot of fans don’t know is that while many bands get fronted thousands to millions to record an album, most only make 10-15% of 90% of the retail sales. That advance money gets paid back before they can make any money, and it gets paid back based on those percentages, not overall sales. So they get closer to 100% of the profits, but it also means that they incur the costs of recording, marketing, promoting and manufacturing and anything else the label would pay for.

What does this mean for the labels? If more big bands follow suit, then they won’t have those large album sales dollars to fund their infrastructure, and won’t be able to support signing new artist that currently lose them money. It could mean labels take even less chances with breaking new artists than they do now because they won’t have the money to invest.

What’s this mean for the rest of us? Who knows, but it’s definitely going to be a very exciting time to be in the music industry as things get further shaken up.