Presenting…

Foreshadows Digital Gift Package! Too late for this one!
Order a copy of Foreshadows by Friday, December 16, and we’ll mail you a postcard designed by Joshua Wentz to present as a gift. This card will bear a secret code download three complete stories, their accompanying illustrations by Talon Dunning, and three MP3s featuring advance mixes of music from the forthcoming book+CD. In addition, this digital package contains a fourth bonus track, “Executive Memo,” an exclusive track created by the album’s co-producer, Bilian.

Also presenting…

LE Upgrade Bonus! Last chance for this one!
Order a copy of the open edition of Foreshadows: The Ghosts of Zero by Tuesday, December 20, and you may find it has been magically transformed into the super special LIMITED EDITION instead, featuring signature from all 29 authors and musicians, and which otherwise sells for $99.  But hurry! There’s limited time for a limited edition of awesomeness.

Matthew, who is short of one block, identifies himself. Very good, Matthew!

Sure, you may have heard My First Sing-Along Dictionary, the collaborative musical anthology wherein we paired the deviant lexicography of Ross Horsley with the twisted songwriting talents of a host of Very Us Artists with questionable tastes, back in 2010. You may have even seen the little booklet that went along with it. But did you know that there is a little video running around on the Internet that teases you with moving pictures of said booklet and snippets of said album?  Well, you do now!

Vimeo style (superior):

YouTube style (popular):

Now be a dear and tell your friends. Impress them with your unsavory sense of humor.

This is the proof in the pudding. We're legit. Too legit to quit.

PS Although our Forging Foreshadows campaign through Kickstarter may have ended, anyone can still help support this project and even pick up some sweet rewards. Just have a look at the PLEDGE list on our Kickstarter page and get in contact with us through veryusartists.com/contact and let us know what you’re interested in. Some of those rewards will likely no longer be available, but we’ll see what we can do. Either way, your support of the Foreshadows project and independent artistry would be very much appreciated!

The scale of this project by VUA standards is quite huge, and that includes financing. In order to make that happen we have been running a sponsorship campaign through Kickstarter. Kickstarter projects are independent efforts by real people endeavoring to do something they love, something fun, and something of note. It’s about incorporating as many people as possible into the creative process, and offering all sorts of unique and interesting rewards for their generosity!  Have a look at the video we put together that explains our project by clicking below.

As you can see above, things are going splendidly well, but there’s still a ways to go. Please consider backing this unique project, brimming with potential. And check out the complete list of terrific rewards here: foreshadows.net/ks.

For starts, veryusartists.com has been gutted and rebuilt from the ground up. It’s wearing the original skin designed by Joshua Wentz (albeit with a few nips and tucks here and there), but there’s a lot more functionality and fun to be had, thanks to Kevin Teague! A limited version is up and running right now, but one by one, new and/or revamped bits will be rolling out. Check back later. You’ll see!

William Ian Jaws, Visual Approximation

But most importantly, I’d like to announce that William Ian Jaws—or Bilian, if you please—has joined us as a fellow Artistic Director. I’ve personally been working on music with Bilian since the late ’90s, but it’s been well over a year now that we’ve been working together on VUA. You’ll find his indelible stamp all over various projects in the works, and VUA’s output will be the better for it! But now it’s official. You heard it here first. World, say hello to William Ian Jaws.  Just be careful.  He bites!

In the midst of producing the next VUA album, co-producers Bilian and John LaSala recently got Josh Wentz  on the horn for a bit of a chat and to preview some of the new music. And you can hear it on his new podcast, Radio non Grata.  Go have a listen!

Last year, the Very Us Artists cobbled together a mighty fine 16-track whopper of an album we like to call (because that’s its name) Roughly Produced Masterpieces.  It paid no mind to such feeble restrictions and overrated qualities such as consistency, genre, or rationale.

A host of RPM luminaries mingled with RPM newbies, churning out some terrifically rough spots, some glimmeringly smooth spots, some chillingly cool spots, and some singe-your-eyebrows-off hot spots.  It’s all over the map.  It was roughly produced, and it was a…masterpiece, for lack of a better word.  I’d also like to think the artwork was the embodiment of all the music it contained: roughly produced (in this case, fully hand-made) and quite the masterpiece.

Can you deny it?

For those who didn’t see and hear it, it’s in the 2008 Jukebox, of course.  But it’s also here, freely downloadable: Roughly Produced Masterpieces

This year, things will be quite different.  It’ll be a collaboration (rather than just a compilation) yet possibly requiring a bit less work on any contributor’s part.  But like everything we do, it’ll be an experiment, so who knows what will come of it.  This year, I’m putting out an open call for anyone to submit non-vocal music made during February ’09 of any style that I (John LaSala) will then personally turn into a song.  Send me your music (without vocals!), I will write lyrics and melodies, sing it, and weave all the songs together to make some kind of yet-to-be-specified concept album drawing inspiration mostly from the music that comes my way.  Each song on the VUA album will be a kind of collaboration between you and me. And if you want to also put the song on your own RPM album (or preferably some alternate mix of it), that’s just fine, too.

If you are interested, send me an e-mail telling me what you’ve got in mind.  (Don’t send any music yet!)  Since it will be important to get submissions sooner rather than later, it’ll be kind of a first-come-first-serve situation.  That is, depending on the number of responses, not every submission will necessarily work out for being turned into a VUA song.  So I guess we’ll just see how it goes!

So why would you want John LaSala singing with your music?  What kind of music would his voice be good (or particularly bad) for?  The next VUA blog post will give you an idea.

To read this remotely-conducted bloodbath, get yourself a copy today. And the logomachical showdown between him and us is only a drop in the bucket of all the cool stuff you’ll find between (and on!) the covers. There are contributions from several other Very Us Artists in there, too. It’s only $12 and all the proceeds go to charity, specifically The Anti-Cruelty Society. Being rather unfond of cruelty, your animal friends will admire you for it.Order HEY Junction!or even better: Subscribe to HEY! Quarterly(Either way you’ll be a hero to your animal friends.)

You should read it. It’s really great! But don’t take our word for it. Prove it to yourself. Of course, it’s also available on Amazon and places like that too.

And why not read the first chapter for free? Here it is: sample chapter

So, a super-big congratulations to Jeff. We’re quite proud.

*At some point in the future, somehow or other, Jeff will likely become a Very Us Artist. As gazing into the future is speculative at best, it’s hard to say just how this may come to pass. But being John LaSala’s kid brother, a little bullying and arm-twisting shouldn’t be ruled out. So, taking advantage of the time machine we’re using to produce The Future Is Now, let’s just say that in the future, Jeff is a Very Us Artist. Thanks for playing along.