Anniversary has been named one of the best netlabel releases of 2005 by some Italian site/blog. I'm not sure how many netlabels there are, so this might not be a big deal, but I intend to use this as an excuse to drink heavily tonight.

If you can speak Italian, check it out: http://www.movimenta.com/netlabels/bestof05.html

Work has begun on the new EP, Out of Sheerest Frustration, which will be released on Agriculture Records. I have no other details at the moment, but it will happen sooner rather than later.

Also, I've discovered an ancient scroll containing information on DIY screen printing. As a result, Lost on Purpose t-shirts now exist. I'll get some photos up soon, they're pretty cool.

Inactivity is stifling. I think I'm going to post a handful of demos within a week or so to clear my head. I've actually been writing a ton lately; I've got my hand in a few fires so I'm interested in seeing what develops.

Does anyone else use last.fm? It's another one of those music aggregators (like gnoosic), only it's very sophisticated. You actually download a plugin for winamp or media player or whatever you use, and it sends song info to the last.fm servers. Once you listen to enough music you get 'neighbors' who are into the same stuff as you and the program is able to make suggestions as to what else you might like. For all I know I'm the last person to know about this, so sorry if you wasted your time reading this paragraph.

My only New Year's resolution is to write more often in this news section.

Do yourself a favor and visit PaulMusgrave.com. Read. Enjoy.

I just stumbled across a super cool site called Gnoosic. It's one of those little programs you've heard about where you type in what you like (in this case, three bands) and it spits out names of bands you might like. The answers are all based on the bands that other people have inputed since the site's creation. It's a lot of fun to play around with. Of course, I would appreciate it if everyone would enter Lost on Purpose at least once, but I'm not gonna twist your arm.

Wow, it's almost been a month since my last post. What's happened since then...

I went home to Ohio for the holidays.

Not much else.

I had a good sports week while in Ohio: I saw the Cavs beat Chicago, then I watched them beat the (formerly) 24-3 Detriot Pistons on TV, the Browns beat arch-nemesis Baltimore (I'll ignore the previous week's beat down handed out by former arch-nemesis Pittsburgh), and Ohio State won big over Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl (best game of the week). I know a lot of you music lovers care about sports. Really.

I've also mailed out a bunch of copies of the new CD to reviewers, radio stations, labels etc, so it will be a good 6 months before I hear anything from them.

I have a short soundtrack to work on for the time being (for a super top secret project), but without promising anything, I think there will be more music coming to the site in the next few months.

Well, I got the covers for Anniversary last Friday but due to a bout of flu I haven't gotten around to adding a paypal button for it on the music page. I'll probably have that up tonight. I only got 150 copies and at least 30 of those are going to various reviewers/labels/radio stations so order fast.

Just a few more days til Anniversary will be available for purchase...

Ohio State made me very happy today...

If you haven't already discovered wikipedia you're missing out on the best site on the web. It's essentially an open-source encyclopedia that anyone and everyone is free to contribute to. You'd think that the resulting entries would lack a certain grace and style, but in fact they're extremely erudite. The best part is that every cross-reference, even every tiny mention of another topic has a link associated with it - so you can effectively get lost on the site, clicking from subject to subject, getting deeper and deeper into detail and then resurfacing in a new subject... and all the while you're learning about fascinating things.

A long time ago I had heard that Shell (the petroleum company) was exploiting the African people and environment in its search for new oil deposits. For a brief while I attempted to boycott Shell, but I never heard anything else on the subject and pretty much forgot about it. Then today I found some information on wikipedia about a Nigerian named Saro-Wiwa who was one of the most vocal opponents of Shell's destructive tendencies and of the Nigerian military government's repression. He was executed by the government 10 years ago to the day - here is a statement made by him just before his execution:

"I repeat that we all stand before history. I and my colleagues are not the only ones on trial. Shell is on trial here, and it is as well that it is represented by counsel said to be holding a watching brief. The company has, indeed, ducked this particular trial, but its day will surely come and the lessons learned here may prove useful to it, for there is no doubt in my mind that the ecological war the company has waged in the delta will be called to question sooner than later and the crimes of that war be duly punished. The crime of the company's dirty wars against the Ogoni people will also be punished.

On trial also is the Nigerian nation, its present rulers and all those who assist them. I am not one of those who shy away from protesting injustice and oppression, arguing that they are expected of a military regime. The military do not act alone. They are supported by a gaggle of politicians, lawyers, judges, academics and businessmen, all of them hiding under the claim that they are only doing their duty, men and women too afraid to wash their pants of their urine.

We all stand on trial, my lord, for by our actions we have denigrated our country and jeopardised the future of our children. As we subscribe to the subnormal and accept double standards, as we lie and cheat openly, as we protect injustice and oppression, we empty our classrooms, degrade our hospitals, and make ourselves the slaves of those who subscribe to higher standards, who pursue the truth, and honour justice, freedom and hard work."

The Anniversary EP will be out in a week.

Good news - Anniversary has at last been released on Sundays in Spring. They're slightly higher quality mp3s than the ones I have on this site, so if you've been dying for a little extra fidelity - well, die no longer.