Alright, so I made it in the top ten for the Oreo Moments contest, but I need your help to get me to the top so I can be featured on the front page of Youtube for a day! Here’s all I need from you: Go to YouTube.com/Oreo and vote for my video “To Oreo, Love Milk” then tell your friends to do the same, if you don’t have friends then go outside and tell strangers about this song, BOOM instant friends. See, you scratch my back and I will scratch yours. Thanks, you know I love you.
My music is on the most recent episode of LonelyGirl15, the internet sensation, with over 100,000 subscribers. The song they used is “I Can’t Wait.” Here’s the video below. Don’t forget to get “I Can’t Wait” from iTunes!
Well it’s my birthday, February 27th, and I decided why not get a mohawk–because after all, who really cares?!! I was kind of scared to cut it and thought all the more reason to do it. Do one thing you’re scared of everyday. You can see the mohawk in the video below. Also, my new song “Take It Away” is coming soon!
So I jumped today when my phone started ringing off the hook and beeping with texts of friends telling me they just heard my song, “Just To Be There” on “One Tree Hill” tonight. I knew it was in the works but I had no idea it was going to be on tonight! Anyways if you missed it, you might be able to catch a re-run or find it on the CW’s website. The episode is called “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” and aired January 22, 2008. Thanks for staying in touch everyone!
I am not sure how many of you follow the news closely and know about the TV writers strike that began today. Basically, members of the Writers Guild, including people like Tina Fey and other major writers, are picketing to get the money they deserve. The networks currently are putting their television shows for streaming and download on the internet, but the writers are not getting compensated for this. The networks continue to make money from internet ad revenue and other sources, while the writers only earn their cut from actual television.
As you may know my music has been on television shows such as MTV’s “Laguna Beach,” “The Hills,” ABC’s “Men in Trees,” and many more. Songwriters like myself, who have music on television shows, collect payment and royalties from the television end–but I feel we have been getting ripped on digital end. These shows continue to be downloaded from iTunes or streamed over the networks websites collecting ad revenue with our songs on them, but we see nothing.
A lot of songwriters should strike, and songwriter organizations like ASCAP and BMI should get behind them, but we can’t. Because, as soon as we say they can’t use the songs until we get paid fairly, they will move onto the next songwriter. And they know how desperate some songwriters can be, especially at the early stages of their career, and take advantage of them. I am not saying that everyone out there is an amazing songwriter, but there are certainly more songwriters than there are TV writers.
I don’t have a solution at this time–I just wanted to address everyone. The music industry already has so many other problems, so let’s deal with this one and get it out of the way.
I wrote about the story behind my new EP, “Your Last Day Alive,” in my last post, but I wanted to give you an even deeper look into what inspired the songs and the message behind the EP. So below you’ll find a video I made. Hope you enjoy it.
It all started out one day when someone made a comment that really hit me. I went to the store, bought Damien Rice’s album “9,” hopped in the car, and started driving north. I ended up driving through Big Sur to Monterey and must have listened to the CD at least 20 times. It made me think, was I being honest enough in my songs? Were my songs reflecting enough true emotions? Was I saying enough? I am thankful for the comment the person said to me that stuck in my mind, because it broke me down to a point where I could really get to know myself and what’s important in life. Following that, a girl entered my life and I fell hard. I never knew I could have such strong feelings and then she messed me up. I ended up writing some songs during this stage of my life that I feel were best expressed acoustically with a heavy focus on lyrics. More lyric-centered than anything I had written in the past. I wanted these songs to be honest, passionate, and painful–something everyone could listen and feel a connection to. The three songs from this EP were written, and the project was titled “Your Last Day Alive,” after a line in one of the songs, called “Life’s Too Short.” The title “Your Last Day Alive” was meant to be all the honest confessions and things you’d like to say if it was your last day alive. Oddly enough, the EP was finished on 9/11.
I didn’t record these songs for any commercial reasons. I didn’t write them to sell. I wrote them simply because they meant a lot to me and in case I died, I didn’t want them to die with me. I encourage you to take a listen and see if these songs end up meaning anything to you, the way they mean something to me. Maybe someday I will tell you what the person said or who the girl is that inspired these songs.
See, you scratch my back and I will scratch yours. Thanks, you know I love you.
