Adam Bender

So many solo albums!

Published by Adam on September 27, 2014

Now I’m not saying I’m getting old or anything, but I seem to have hit that age when all the songwriters from the bands you like decide to go solo. You know, stretch their wings creatively, as it were.

No, seriously. I think I’ve bought more solo / spin-off albums this year than any other year in my life.

Anyway, where there’s a theme, there’s a blog post, and so I now present to you: “So many solo albums!”

Damon Albarn – Everyday Robots

Let’s be honest. Damon Albarn (Blur, Gorillaz) has been a solo act for a while now. I mean that’s why Graham Coxon ditched Blur (the first time) right? Gorillaz is collaborative in the sense that any song with “featuring” in the title is collaborative … which I guess is, sort of collaborative.

But I digress. Albarn brings his best creative juices to his first true solo album. This is classic Damon — happily sad (or is it sadly happy?) tunes with social commentary and intriguing bleeps and bloops. It’s not exactly the kind of music you’d blast out of your convertible in the summer, but cuts like “Mr Tembo” are sure to get your head pleasantly bobbing.

Dan Wilson – Love Without Fear

You know who Dan is. He wrote “Closing Time” for his old band Semisonic.

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end,” so after Semisonic, Dan began scooping up Grammy awards left and right for his writing with acclaimed acts like the Dixie Chicks and Adele (He wrote “Someone Like You”).

On his second solo album, Dan once again shows his songwriting chops. There are a bunch of a really solid songs on this one, including “Your Brighter Days” and “I Can Never Stay Mad at You.”

I must admit there’s nothing on the album quite as shout-along-fun as the best Semisonic tunes, but Dan Wilson is a guy who doesn’t write bad songs. Hell, even “Get a Grip” was catchy, and that was about masturbation.

Owl John (eponymous)

Okay, so that was two guys from the ’90s in a row. But here’s a more modern example — Singer Scott Hutchison from Scotland’s Frightened Rabbit released an album this year under the name Owl John.

I’ve got to say, while I’ve always liked Frightened Rabbit a bit, Owl John has fookin’ swooped out of the fookin’ sky and made that fookin’ bunny its fookin’ supper. (Sorry for all the cursing but that’s how they roll in Scotland. Just sayin’.)

Whereas Frightened Rabbit songs can sometimes get a bit rambly, the songs on Owl John are always tight and melodic. My only complaint is that the album ends too soon. Here’s hoping Owl John isn’t a one-off.

Grant Nicholas – Yorktown Heights

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdkVXRvoD2s

Right, so technically with the guy from Feeder we’re back to the ’90s, but the band’s best album Comfort in Sound came out in the mid 2000s, all right?

Feeder has lately seemed to be undergoing a sort of identity crisis, at one point even pretending to be a new punk-ish band called Renegades, before releasing that album under the name Feeder anyway. I think the problem is that they have three types of fans — the ones that like that hard and fast songs, the ones that like the more mid-tempo, orchestral epics, and the ones like me who like a balanced mix of each.

With his first solo endeavor, Welsh singer/guitarist Grant Nicholas has indulged in his more thoughtful acoustic side. For the most part, it works. These songs are full of hope, and on catchy single “Time Stands Still,” Grant sounds happier than he has in years.

My only worry is that Grant is going to start putting all his quiet songs on solo releases and all his more rocking songs on Feeder albums. Comfort in Sound struck the right balance of both and I’m hoping we’ll see another album like it in the future.

Tweedy – Sukierae

That’s Jeff Tweedy, from Wilco, and his son Spencer. And on his debut solo album, the Tweedys (Tweedies?) sounds pretty much like Wilco.

As he admits on Sukierae: “I’ve always been low key / Well, you know me.”

Now, I don’t like all of Wilco’s albums, but I was a big fan of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and their last album, The Whole Love. This solo album is much in the vein of those two releases — bluesy rock with a sprinkling of distortion, robotic blips and a little county twang for good measure.

With 20 songs and a runtime of over an hour, it’s not exactly the most focused release. But it’s all very listenable, perfect both for concentrated headphone sessions and those other times when you just want some nice background music.

I’m not exactly sure why Jeff Tweedy decided this couldn’t just be a Wilco release. Politics? Wanting to sound like a brand new act? But I can’t complain about the results.

Julian Casablancas + The Voidz – Tyranny

They can’t all be winners. Spinoff albums often are about indulging a band member’s more out-there ideas, and on Tyranny the singer from the Strokes indulges.

For me, the worst Strokes songs are the ones where Julian screams a lot and — conversely — the ones where he’s awkwardly quiet. This unfortunately is a good summary of Tyranny.

There are a couple of songs with catchy riffs (“Crunch Punch”) and there are moments I would deem intriguingly ambitious (“Nintendo Blood”) — but mostly this is a weird and overlong album. It’s not anywhere near as “bad weird” as MGMT’s infinitely disappointing self-titled release last year, but I got nightmarish flashbacks all the same.

I mean, whatever happened to just sounding cool for three minutes?

Let’s hope Julian’s gotten the strangeness out of his system for the next Strokes LP.

That’s it for now, though a couple of weeks ago I learned that Tim Wheeler from Ash is preparing a solo album, too. Something tells me I’ve got to go find out what the kids are listening to these days.

By the way, if you agree or disagree on any of my reviews above, I’d love to hear it. Please leave a comment below!

DIY government surveillance in Watched Sweeper game

Published by Adam on September 15, 2014

Ever wonder what it would be like to be the NSA or another government surveillance agency?

In Watched Sweeper, a new HTML5 game about surveillance, players must observe a crowd and arrest people who don’t look like true Patriots.

As that old saying goes: “Patriots are the true. Heretics are the damned.”

Once you’ve given it your all to separate the Heretics from the Patriots, you’ll want to check out my novels WE, THE WATCHED and DIVIDED WE FALL (where the above quote appears). If you submit a high score, you’ll be treated to a discount on the price of the eBook version of WE, THE WATCHED.

You’ll need a recent browser capable of rendering HTML5 to play. I programmed Watched Sweeper in Clickteam Fusion 2.5 and used the HTML5 exporter.

Please leave any feedback on the game in the comments below.

Click here to play. Happy watching!

Note: Sorry, high scores are currently broken.

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It’s a myth that New York publishers will market your book better, says Guy Kawasaki

Published by Adam on July 14, 2014

Guy Kawasaki talks to media in Sydney. Credit: Canva

I’ve always been envious of traditionally published authors.

I am the self-published author of two dystopian novels and I know there are advantages to my way, including greater control over the final product and more revenue per sale… but marketing is not easy and it’s certainly not cheap.

So, while self-publishing is going OK for me, there’s always been a voice in the back of my head saying, “This would be so much easier with a New York publisher!”

I have to admit I was a bit surprised when Guy Kawasaki said that’s all a myth.

Guy, the former chief evangelist of Apple, is the author of 12 books and recently self-published one all about this topic called APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur. At a recent media breakfast in Sydney, he said self-publishers can find just as much success as authors with New York publishers–if not more.

“The publishing industry is a very interesting place because it used to be an oligopoly where a few dozen firms in New York controlled the whole world. That is no longer true because of self-publishing and Amazon.”

It can take a year to release a book under the traditional publishing model, he said. “As a self-publisher, from the time manuscript is done–which I can determine–8 hours later it’s for sale on Kindle.”

That all sounded good, but I couldn’t help but feel that Guy might be forgetting that getting initial sales depends on marketing. Maybe Guy is famous enough to sell his own book to thousands of people, but what about the rest of us? I had to ask, wouldn’t a relatively unknown author still get better marketing from a big New York firm?

Guy said no.

“The fact is that they only do those kind of things if you are Hillary Clinton or you’re David Beckham. They don’t do it for the other 10,000 authors every year because frankly they can’t call the New York Times 10,000 times every year.”

In many cases, even traditionally published authors end up doing their own marketing, he said.

“The irony is, if you are lucky enough to garner interest from a New York publisher, one of the first questions they are going to ask you is, ‘What’s your marketing platform?’ Which is kind of ass-backwards because the reason why you’re going to them is for their marketing platform.”

If the publisher actually took care of marketing, Guy said the 90-10 revenue split between publisher and author might make sense. But if that’s not going to happen, it makes little sense for the author to give up 90% of the sales, he said.

With self-publishing through Amazon, the author keeps 70% of each sale. “That’s five times better than what you would get from a publisher,” he said.

The good news, he said, is that self-published authors today have a free marketing platform to get the word out to their audience: social media.

“I’m not saying everyone is guaranteed a bestseller, but at least everybody has a shot and you’re not at the whim of someone in New York.”

Adam Bender is the self-published author of two dystopian novels about surveillance: We, The Watched and Divided We Fall.

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Noir, cowboys and asteroids: What I’m reading

Published by Adam on June 20, 2014

Not sure if you knew this, but I regularly review books on Goodreads. I have an author profile there as well, so please follow! Anyway, thought I’d share a few of my latest reviews.

Countdown City by Ben H. Winters

I love the premise of this series. An asteroid is about to crash into Earth, destroying everyone… but Detective Henry Palace wants to keep on solving ordinary murders and missing person cases.

In the end, you get a compelling mystery that would work as a novel in its own right, surrounded by an equally gripping per-apocalyptic atmosphere, all injected with a healthy dose of conspiracy theory!

Countdown City reminded me what I loved about The Last Policeman (the first entry in the series), and I think Winters’ writing is even stronger in this second book. Looking forward to the next one!

Valdez is Coming by Elmore Leonard

I loved how compact and straightforward this Western was. It’s got everything you want for the genre–a character seeking justice, a power-mad cowboy, gunfights and chases through the desert.

My only complaint is that the love story is a bit thin and not so compelling.

Overall, this is a blast and a good choice if you’re just getting into the genre.

Scene of the Crime by Ed Brubaker, Michael Lark and Sean Phillips

A gritty crime/noir from one of the best crime writers in comics. Ed Brubaker writes an interesting mystery and the memorable characters here really bring it to life. The people in this story feel human thanks to their flaws, baggage and, yes, senses of humor.

Also loved the art by Michael Lark — that guy knows how to draw a vintage car, man.

The deluxe hardback is a real treat. The printing really makes the artwork pop and I appreciated the behind-the-scenes look on how this story came together.

Greenwald takes NSA to task in surveillance book

Published by Adam on June 10, 2014

It’s easy to feel a bit of information overload when you first learn about an information leak revealing that the NSA has spied on regular American citizens and that major Internet companies like Microsoft and Facebook have helped them do it.

Glenn Greenwald is the reporter who read through countless documents provided by the whistleblower Edward Snowden and wrote the first news articles bringing that information to the public’s attention.

Now, with his excellent book No Place to Hide, Greenwald offers an insightful and comprehensive discussion of the controversial documents. Greenwald clearly lays out the most significant revelations and why they matter to everyday people.

The first part reads like a spy novel, grabbing the reader from the first page with an exciting account of how Snowden first contacted Greenwald, their secret meeting in Hong Kong, and the ensuing behind-the-scenes drama to get the information into the newspapers. While some have criticized the Snowden leak as threatening national security, the book highlights the care and scrutiny with which Greenwald and his collaborator Laura Poitras handled the classified documents, seeking to shine light without putting anyone’s lives in danger.

The next two sections contain less narrative, spending more time explaining the most significant revelations and why surveillance is harmful to society. While they don’t read quite as fast as the thrilling opening, these parts are great for anyone who had trouble keeping up with the Snowden leaks and what they meant.

Greenwald closes with a critical and thought-provoking discussion of the American media and what he perceives as journalists’ growing sympathy to the government. In Greenwald’s view, journalism has lost its investigative edge, giving too much power to the government to decide what information is published — and perhaps more critically — what information is not.

As a journalist, I found this section fascinating. While it paints a dismal picture of corporate media, the book’s existence provides optimism for the rise of independent journalists to maintain the mantle of the Fourth Estate.

Adam Bender is a tech journalist and the author of two dystopian novels about government surveillance. You can find his books WE, THE WATCHED and DIVIDED WE FALL at most major online bookstores.

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