Spooky Season II: Rise of the Cryptids, which released with a Bigfoot-sized thud last Friday on Bandcamp, is out on all streaming services today, Friday, 13 October 2023.
Readers should be able to find the album in the following places:
Happy Listening!
—TPP
I released Spooky Season II: Rise of the Cryptids last Friday, 6 October 2023. Sales were… disappointing, but actually exceeded my normal sales, so I suppose I am happy about that.
Regardless, I am proud of the album. Most composers are not appreciated in their times, and my instrumental music is definitely “niche.” I enjoy the process of composing, editing, and publishing music, so that’s something.
But I digress. This week, I thought I’d feature the opening track from the album, “Bigfoot Boogie.”
Special Note: I will be donating 10% of all gross sales for TODAY, Friday, 6 October 2023 from my Bandcamp page to the Music program at my little private school. That includes my new album, Spooky Season II: Rise of the Cryptids, which released today. It also includes purchases of my full discography (just $20.89) and merchandise. If I make 50 sales of any kind today, I’ll double the donation. If I make 100 sales, I’ll triple the donation.
To celebrate another Bandcamp Friday, I have a brand new release: Spooky Season II: Rise of the Cryptids! It’s ten tracks and nearly fifteen minutes of music, so it’s 3.5 times longer than Spooky Season.
Like Spooky Season, Spooky Season II: Rise of the Cryptids features full scores for every part, as well as around 130 MBs of bonus content—videos, pictures, and even some live performance footage. It’s my most feature-packed release ever, and it’s only $5!
Also, look at this sweet album cover:
It’s the finest quality MS Paint can provide!
Speaking of my last release, Spooky Season, a collection of seven new compositions with a spooky, autumnal vibe, hit streaming platforms on Sunday, 1 October, but is also available for purchase via Bandcamp!
Spooky Season is just $5, and includes full scores and individual parts for every track—a $28 value!—plus a bonus track. It’s also crammed with videos, handwritten manuscripts, and other goodies.
The first Friday of a bunch of months in 2023—February, March, April, May, August, September, October, November, and December—will feature this pro-indie music observance, a day on which Bandcamp waives its usual 15% commission on sales.
In other words, when you buy my music, almost 100% of it goes to me, instead of almost 85%.
Currently, my entire discography of eleven releases is $20.89, a savings of 50%, which is not bad for eleven releases. That’s $1.74 per release—not too shabby! To purchase the full discography, click on any release, and you’ll see the option to purchase all of them.
You can also listen to a ton of my tunes on YouTube (and it’s free to subscribe!).
I’m also selling all of my paintings for $10, with free shipping in the United States, regardless of how many you purchase. They’re one of kind, so once a painting is purchased, it’s gone.
I’ve also joined Society6, a website that lets artists upload their designs, which can they be printed onto all manner of products (like this throw pillow, or this duvet cover). Why not get a bookbag with a mouthy droid on it?
I only get 10% of the sales made there, but some of the stuff looks really good—I really want these notebooks with my “Desert View” painting on it (now SOLD!). Some of them are straight-up goofy, like this church doodle I made celebrating the presidential pardon of Roger Stone (the description for the piece is “Anger your friends with this doodle commemorating the presidential pardon of America’s most dapper political operative“).
I have a few new paintings in the works, and hope to be attending the South Carolina Bigfoot Festival to try to hawk some of my works. We’ll see how that goes!
My first book, The One-Minute Mysteries of Inspector Gerard: The Ultimate Flatfoot, is $10 in paperback, and just $5 on Kindle.
My second and newest book, Arizonan Sojourn, South Carolinian Dreams: And Other Adventures, is $20 in paperback and $10 on Kindle.
Finally, after I finish Offensive Poems: With Pictures, my planned third book, I’ll be uploading those doodles to Society6 as well. I have high hopes (perhaps naïvely) for this book, but we shall see. The doodles are some of my best work—and in glorious color—and without notebook paper lines!
Thanks again for your support!
Happy Friday!
—TPP
Ah, yes—autumn. Music sounds sweeter, food tastes better, girls look prettier. What is it about the autumn that rings everything in a warm, golden glow? Is it the coming crispness in the air? The shorter days, the chilly nights? Or perhaps the leaves falling from the trees, the continuous cycle of death and renewal circling ever onwards?
Whatever it is, it’s a great time to compose and play music. As I noted last year, it’s “the time of year when my personal creativity seems to spark.” Indeed, the sequel to Spooky Season (now on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube), Spooky Season II: Rise of the Cryptids releases tomorrow, Friday, 6 October 2023 on Bandcamp.
I’ve been using a free trial of Noteflight to compose lately, and I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s very robust, although it (surprisingly) lacks some of the depth and breadth of sounds as my ancient copy of Cakewalk 3.0. Unlike Cakewalk 3.0, however, it will run on a modern operating system, so it’s good enough for me!
I don’t have a nice, tidy composing routine like Gustav Mahler or Beethoven. I kind of jot down ideas in my music journal when I have a few spare lines of staff paper, then try to expand those motifs into full pieces (or just compose twelve-second pieces—ha!). Then I slap everything into Noteflight approximately whenever I feel like it, or when I’m on a composing tear and can’t stop!
With that, here is 6 October 2022’s “TBT: Mahler’s Composing Shack“:
I’m hosting a FREE online listening party for Spooky Season on Sunday, 1 October 2023, at 7 PM Eastern Standard Time. You can RSVP here.
After the unusual success of “Skeleton Dance No. 1” on YouTube, I knew it was time to compose “Skeleton Dance No. 2.” As is often the case with sequels, “Skeleton Dance No. 2” is far more developed and fleshed-out (no pun intended) than its predecessor.
Spooky Season is upon us, and yours portly can’t get enough of it. Pumpkins. Ghosts. Skeletons!
So this Sunday, I thought I’d look back at the scant skeleton posts on this humble blog:
Happy Sunday—and Happy Listening!
—TPP
Other Lazy Sunday Installments:
I’ve been composing like a madman while I still have a free demo subscription to Noteflight. I’ve already composed Spooky Season, and have a sequel composed and set to release on 6 October 2023 on Bandcamp, then to all other streaming platforms on 13 October 2023. The sequel, Spooky Season II: Rise of the Cryptids, is ten tracks, and will be loaded with bonus features, including the videos featured in today’s post.
One of my favorite pieces from Spooky Season is “Bavarian Bop,” a short piece for small instrumental ensemble that I also rearranged for solo piano. It’s a little Oktoberfest-inspired bit of musical whimsy.
As I’ve delved deeper into YouTube, I’ve discovered the platform has a little blog for creators that points out the major Internet trends of the moment. The Internet is constantly evolving, with new trends and memes coming and going the shifting tides—but faster! Apparently, Gen Zers are running around calling charisma “rizz.” We have always been at war with Eurasia!
One meme doing the rounds is the “canon event” meme. The meme comes from Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), where multiple Peter Parkers (or their equivalents) from multiple universes all experience certain “canon events,” which are (allegedly) unalterable: the bite from the radioactive spider; the death of a beloved family member; the loss of the love interest; etc. In meme form, YouTubers and TikTok(k?)ers will feature milestone or rite-of-passage events as “canon events,” often remarking, “I cannot interfere.” These events are typically something cringe-inducing or silly, like picking a weird name for PlayStation online.
I find the concept of “canon events”—what we used to call a “rite of passage”—interesting, and thought I’d hop on the Internet bandwagon with a little piano piece called “Canon Event.”
The cinema is either making a major comeback, or it’s enjoying one last gasp of box office dominance before fading into obscurity. Either way, it’s a great excuse to look back on some past posts about the movies!
Happy Sunday!
—TPP
Other Lazy Sunday Installments:
There is little I love more than playing and singing my humorous original songs. But a close second is subjecting my readers to my bizarre short piano compositions. So, why not look at back at some of my weird piano music?
Happy Sunday!
—TPP
Other Lazy Sunday Installments:
The Portly Politico 