Happy Good Friday, readers! Not only is it the day Christ gave His Life for our sins, it’s also—say it with me now—yet another Bandcamp Friday.
I’m not going to belabor all the statistics about the hard times musicians have endured in The Age of The Virus; you can read all about that in last month’s Bandcamp Friday appeal. Instead, I’ll cut to the chase and let you know all the great ways you can support the blog, my music, my book (now on Kindle), or even just me.
For one, I have some intriguing merch available. I’m currently offering two completely original doodles, “Bird of Paradise” and “Bleeding Heart,” for just $10 each. There are no other physical copies in existence, so you’d own these lovingly doodled marker pictures—and no one else. They make great “bathroom art”—the kind of thing that would look good in a guest bathroom, or maybe a tacky beach house.
I’m also clearing out the last few remaining “Flamin’” t-shirts for $15 (plus $5 shipping). These shirts are rare and I won’t be making any more of them.
Most obviously, because it’s Bandcamp Friday, Bandcamp is waiving the commission it takes on sales of musicians’ work TODAY, Friday, 2 April 2021. You can pick up my entire discography for $19.98 (or more, if you feel so inclined), a full 35% off the price of buying each album individually. To purchase the full discography—seven releases in total—you can view any of my albums (like Electrock EP: The Four Unicorns of the Apocalypse) and find a button/link that reads “Buy Digital Discography” (unfortunately, there’s no way to supply that link directly).
You can also purchase albums individually, either at their listed price or higher. Here are my seven releases, in chronological order:
- Electrock Music (2006, $5) – Twelve tracks from my senior year of college, all instrumental MIDI tunes. I gave physical copies to my Fiction Writing Workshop class; I wonder if they still have those little homemade copies.
- Electrock II: Space Rock (2007, $7) – I’m obsessed with the idea of the sci-fi rock opera (I actually tried to write one for piano and vocals back in 2012-2013, but never finished it)—it’s the most decadent, self-indulgent form of musical expression. That was the driving spirit behind this rockin’ collection of out-of-this-world jams.
- Electrock EP: The Four Unicorns of the Apocalypse (2012, $4) – My younger brother introduced me to a song call “Biomachinery” by some melodic death metal band, and the rhythm of that word inspired the lead-off track of this four-song cycle, “Cyborg Unicorn.” Of course, the instrumental chorus of that track is basically Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll,” so it’s true what they say: composers swipe from each other all the time.
- Electrock Retrospective, Volume I: Dance Party (2013, $3.60) – I had a number of tracks stored up for a never-completed Electrock III, so I thought I would begin dribbling them out as part of repackaged “retrospectives.” This first one, Dance Party, features “Robobop,” which is also a perk for $5 subscribers to my SubscribeStar page.
- Electrock Retrospective, Volume II: Technological Romance (2013, $2.14) – Technological Romance features “Pwrblld (Ballad II)“—with apologies to Chicago’s “You’re the Inspiration.”
- Contest Winner EP (2015, $5) – This album is my tour de force. I recorded it in a real-life studio, overdubbing my vocals with my piano part. It was an amazing experience, and these tunes are staples of my live shows (especially fan favorites “Hipster Girl Next Door” and “Greek Fair“).
- The Lo-Fi Hymnal (2020, $4) – I started playing piano at my little Free Will Baptist Church about a year ago, and I began taking little recordings of offertory, invitational, etc. I compiled the four very lo-fi recordings into a short compilation. I’m hoping to record a second volume soon.
An easy (and free) way to support me is to “follow” my Bandcamp page and my Amazon author page. I post updates about new merchandise, new music, and other interesting offers about once a month to the Bandcamp page, and new books will pop up on my Amazon page as they’re published. It’s a good way to keep up with the latest news on my musical adventures.
Another free way to support me is to turn off your ad-blocker. The site delivers several thousand ad impressions monthly, but most of those are blocked, which means they don’t pay out. You can usually find the ad-blocker as a little widget or icon in the upper-right-hand side of your browser; click on it and it will usually give you the option to “pause” or stop the blocker from running on this site. I know ads are annoying, but seeing a few DuckDuckGo ads helps out in an incremental way.
Even if none of that entices you, no worries! I’m just glad to have you here, reading my self-indulgent garbage and my lengthy advertisement posts.
Happy Friday!
—TPP