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.

Foreshadows: The Ghosts of Zero is a project with a long history. It’s been in the works for nearly three years, going through several stages of evolution along the way. But its final form, a combination book and CD, will be released on February 21st, 2012—well before the Mayan Long Count calendar runs out and the next big apocalypse craze comes to head. Meanwhile, as of today, this thing can be preordered in the aforementioned VUA store.

And it comes in two flavors!

The Open Edition: This is a full-length CD with music from 11 musicians, mixed and produced by VUAgents John LaSala and Bilian, mastered at The Vault. This music served as the launch point for the accompanying book, which contains 15 short stories and a 4-part serialized novella.  A total of 18 authors came together to write this book, including the likes of Keith Baker, Robert J. Randisi, and Ed Greenwood (creator of The Forgotten Realms!)  The book itself is a hefty 6×9 quality paperback, features cover artwork by Michael Komarck, and includes 19 illustrations by the immensely talented Talon Dunning. This monster sells for $36.

The Limited Edition: This version features foil-stamped lettering on the book cover, is signed by all 29 musicians and authors, and is limited to only 100 copies. Particular limitation numbers can be claimed on request (such as #19 of 100), on a first-come-first-serve basis. And we’ll even hand-write a dedication inside up on request! This beaut sells for $99…while supplies last, of course.

LE Upgrade Bonus! Anyone who pre-orders the open edition between now and December 21, 2011 earns a chance at having theirs freely upgraded to the Limited Edition.  How about that!

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.

We'll beat Jeremy with a stick.

In brief

Here it is finished, wholly, and ready for your questionable pleasure. My First Sing-Along Dictionary, the little project that began with the 2010 RPM Challenge and wrapped up last week with the addition of a very special bonus track, may be heard, seen, reviled or marveled at—and either way, sung along with—at veryusartists.com/mfsad. You can listen right on the page and even flip through a digital version of the accompanying book. Or you can download them all, either one by one or in one big ZIP file, whatever your pleasure. It’s all there, all free!

Bonus!

“What’s this about a bonus track?” we pretend to hear you ask. Well you see, a few weeks ago Ross Horsley (a chief corrupter upon our impressionable minds, who also has a book coming about based on the My First Dictionary blog, by the way!) held a caption competition for the image to the left. And the winner’s submission was to be turned into a song—a bonus track for the album.

This is what we sent Richard, it's the only one like it!

Well, the mildly disturbed Richard Smith of Leeds was dubbed a supra-genius for his My First Dictionary-style definition of “anonymous,” and so Leicester’s one and only ButterflyPolite did us the honors with the Johnny-come-lately “This Song Is Anonymous (We Do Not Know Its Name).” It’s a laugh-riot. So do check it out!

Give us a shout out

Now, if you like our little record—and our little book—do us a favor and tell a friend. Better yet, tell an enemy. Tell a member of the Academy. We’d really love a Grammy, if only to further enrage Stephen Colbert for taking his Best Comedy Album award this year.

Thanks for reading. Very impressive. Now go download this album, if you haven’t already.  It’s free!

This past February, the Very Us Artists hatched a diabolical scheme with a like-minded fellow named Ross Horsley.  This ne’re-do-well perverts good, wholesome children’s illustrations from a simpler time into post-modern strokes of blue humor and black comedy.  The nefarious deed is made all the worse by labeling his mischief with the innocuous moniker, My First Dictionary.  How quaint.  How unassuming.  How devious.  And frankly, we love it!

For example:

But that wasn’t enough.  We couldn’t leave well enough alone.  We got the sick notion in our collective mind that these naughty “definitions” ought to be further demonstrated through song.  And so, My First Sing-Along Dictionary was born.  10 songs, each paired with a new bit of lexicographical roguery crafted by Ross Horsley, for your questionable pleasure. For free.

It begins innocently enough with “The Very Us Artists Have Cut A Record,” and every few days a new song will roll out until it culminates with an unspeakable end a few weeks later.  Fun for the whole family!  Well…maybe not the whole family.

Here are 5 ways to follow along:

Keep an eye on My First Sing-Along Dictionary’s home, veryusartists.com/mfsad

Visit this album’s home away from home at Alonetone (a damn fine place for musicians.)

If you do the RSS thing, subscribe to My First Dictionary here or just pop in every few days.

If you do the Facebook thing, go and “like” the My First Dictionary fan page over there.

And while you’re at it, get some likin’ on at The Very Us Artists fan page, too! Each song will be posted over there, as well.

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.