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My Body Belongs To Me

I recently illustrated and animated a short film called “My Body Belongs To Me.” It’s based on the children’s book by Jill Starishevsky, aimed at bringing awareness to the difficult subject of child sexual abuse. The film is intended to be a free and highly accessible educational tool for parents and educators. Working with director Josh Franer and producer Michael Solomon, we aimed to create something engaging and empowering to young kids. You can watch and learn more about it here:

http://is.gd/5NVHlg

If you find it helpful, please consider sharing with parents, educators, and others. An estimated 1 in 4 girls in America are sexually abused by age 18, and 1 in 6 boys are as well. Educating kids and providing safe avenues of communication can make a big difference.

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Fixed and Fallen audio visualizer example

This is a demo of an audio visualizer I created in Flash called Fixed and Fallen. It can generate a kind of map of the overall rhythm and dynamics of a piece of music.

Every fraction of a second, the loudness of incoming sound is analyzed while a grid of colored circles is generated. The size and color of each circle is determined by the degree of loudness at the moment it is generated (large & red = loud; small & blue = quiet). The entire grid also pulsates in realtime in response to loudness. After a while, each fixed circle eventually falls or drifts off the screen.

I used an excerpt of Brian Eno’s “Ambient 1: Music for Airports” in this example because of its long stretches of quiet punctuated by piano notes.

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Odds of Survival “You Will Be Rescued” now available

“You Will Be Rescued,” the debut album by my band Odds of Survival, is now available as a digital download from bandcamp. It is also available on iTunes. We greatly appreciate all the people who made our Kickstarter campaign such a great success, and we’re very excited to finally release this music out into the world. I hope you enjoy it.

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Running Wild music video

I recently co-directed a music video with officerfishdumplings. It’s for Running Wild from the album “You Will Be Rescued” by our band Odds of Survival. Digital download is available from bandcamp. Click the settings to view in fullscreen HD!

Editing & image processing by Shawn Feeney
Cameras by officerfishdumplings, Shawn Feeney, Cari Levay and Scott Roy
Thanks to Moncef Belyamani for the use of his camera

“Running Wild” written by Scott Roy
Produced and arranged by Odds of Survival:
Scott Roy (vocals, guitar)
Shawn Feeney (drums, vocals, vocal synth)
officerfishdumplings (guitar)
Altay Guvench (fiddle)

Mixed by Tyler Wood
Mastered by Joe Lambert

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Odds Of Survival: You Will Be Rescued

odds_coverI’m very excited to announce the release of “You Will Be Rescued,” the debut album by my band Odds Of Survival.

Odds Of Survival is Scott Roy, officerfishdumplings, Altay Guvench, and myself. We began recording in September 2010 at our guitarist’s house. Bass in the kitchen, piano in the living room, accordion in the bathroom, and drums next to the futon. We each pushed each other to record the best performances we could, and the result is something none of us could have made on our own. It’s been described as Doomgrass, Gothic Americana, and “Willie Nelson meets Radiohead – they get into a fight.” I primarily play drums and sing backing vocals on this 11-song album.

Today we are launching a Kickstarter to help us release “You Will Be Rescued.” Pre-order by Feb 25th 12pm PST to get the album at a 20% discount. I created the album art (shown here), and we are offering 16×16″ signed posters at the $40 pledge level. We will perform an album release show in San Francisco in late February.

I feel that this is the best body of music I’ve helped create in my 20-odd years of being a musician. It was a real labor of love. I hope you enjoy it!

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The Adam “MCA” Yauch Memorial Jack-o-lantern

Adam Yauch (August 5, 1964 – May 4, 2012), MCA of The Beastie Boys, rapper, bassist, activist. In middle school, my friends and I would lip-sync every word to “Paul Revere.” In high school, Paul’s Boutique changed the way I thought about musical construction, and nothing was as satisfying to play on my bass guitar as MCA’s killer line from “Gratitude.” And in college, tracks from Hello Nasty were always in the air.

In addition to his musical pursuits, Adam founded the independent film company Oscilloscope Laboratories. Using the pseudonym Nathaniel Hornblower, he directed many of the Beastie Boys’ videos. A practicing Buddhist, he supported the Tibetan independence movement. He succumbed to salivary gland cancer at age 47.

Thanks for the music MCA, and may we never rock the mic with the pantyhose.

See the time-lapse carving video here.