The light at the end of the tunnel on a recent project is opening wide. A project I’ve been doing for John Michael Kane has been completed today. I’ve been mixing it up and down with a large selection of songs for John and now it’s over.
The beauty is, a lot this music will be getting heard relatively soon on sports programs and other things TV related. John is part of a library that gets his songs licensed on TV. It’s a beautiful thing.
In front of the last mix for John Michael Kane.
This particular song is called “Won’t Stand Down”. Seems like I went alphabetical in the song order or I could been saving the best for last. Either way, I’m happy, he’s happy. We’re all happy with the end result. May the music grace your ears before too long.
— Jody
Here’s a question that I’ve been getting recently: What songs are left? Meaning, what of the 72 songs that I started with for the next CD are now being considered for the next release. No need to ask any more. Why? Because the list is here [in alphabetical order]…
American Mayhem
Careful
Femke
Imagine Life
In Disguise
It Burns
Jupiter Bowl
Love Takes A Holiday
New Here
Stand My Ground
Stand Up
Things Left Unsaid
Thump Thump Thump
‘Till We Meet Again
Touch
Vaporize Your Heart
Waiting On One Thing
You Can’t Hear
Of those 18, there are a few more that I’ll axe from the list to get it down to the final group. I’m spending time pouring over each song. Debating on the arrangement. Making necessary lyric changes. Ending with any transitions between parts that need to be made. After all that, it will be time to assemble the proper crew to help out with the recording process.
I’d love to get your help with offsetting the costs of the recording process. Please share the love of this page and help it go viral (click here).
Stay Tuned!
— Jody
There’s less than a week left in a cool little project of putting your ears to good use. I’ve been having you the Unity 42 fan to help pick the songs that will be presented on the next CD. It started with over 70 songs and has been an adventure getting them down to a studio manageable amount of 12. What I’m saying is song voting is coming to an end.
It will end on the 30th of June.
After which comes my process of going through the chosen songs to make tweaks to the arrangement, tempo, and any lyrical content that may need modifying. Once that’s done I should be heading into the studio with a band of friends to knock out the recordings. It’s exciting to have all this going on.
Thanks to everyone that has been participating. If you have participated yet – why not?
— Jody
For those of Unity 42 and beyond who are not aware, I am part of a side project. I had a musician friend come to me wanting to write a sports anthem and thus started a new project. I can say that don’t kick the baby is smart advice, but Don’t Kick The Baby is also the name of the band or rather the project.
What did we do? We wrote a soccer (football for our worldview friends) anthem. It’s called Go Get The Goal. Much like what I did for Do You Want To Play, we did numerous versions for different leagues. So far we’ve covered the US, England and Australia. Coming soon we’ll be doing versions for Latin teams, and then we’ll be going after many more languages and countries. Our goal is to cover the world with a soccer/football anthem.
As of right now 4 of the 7 albums we’ve done are on iTunes and Amazon. Later this week should see the other 3 being released. We’re excited. We’re so excited we have a Twitter handle and an official website as well. They’re still in their early stages. We’d love it if you’d follow us on twitter and tweet about us as well as finding us on Facebook, spread that gospel of soccer.
It’s said that Don’t Kick The Baby is smart advice, but the smarter advice is to get the song then go out and get the goal. You’ll be happy you did. We’ll be happy you did. I’ll be happy you did. It’s a super win situation.
As I’m closing in on the songs that will wind up on the next release, I’m looking into other aspects of things that need to be brought into order. I put out calls to the musicians that I will be hiring to record the other instruments. I’m planning on going as live in the studio as I can for this next excursion into recording. I’ve talked the drummer. I’ve talked to the bassist. I’ve talked to the 2nd guitarist. I’m still putting out feelers for backing vocals. Beyond the studio I’ve been revamping my business plan into a shiny new PDF file. This is the point where I say: help me find angel investors.
Actually the reality is, I’m looking for investors in general, Angel or otherwise.
Do you know of such people? Would you be willing to link up a musician who has all the pieces of the puzzle to make things happen? I’ve got the proper connections to make a go of taking my act on the road and being successful with it. The only missing element is the money to make it happen. Being so inclined to make that link, I’m more than happy to sign an NDA. I’m also inclined to have you point them to the following special page: On Records Investor Proposal.
It’s not for the faint of heart. So please only do so if you’re serious.
For you, the helpful fan and music buff who wants to see a musician make it to the top without a label and with your help, I’ll make it worth your while. Details only given to those who are absolutely serious about this. It’s not a joke. Please contact me and lets get the ball rolling. Be a part of the magic and watch what happens!
For everyone else interested helping out. There is going to be a kickstarter campaign coming for helping to raise the money for the recording part of it. At this point, I’m looking at raising nearly $15,000 to cover recording costs, in about 4 chunks. Videos and details will be coming very soon.
So not only am I asking you to help me find angel investors, I’m also asking for you to be one as well.
It appears that a recent request for a copy of a song I’ve written has sparked a little interest across the internet. The song in question makes an appearance in the movie Lucky starring Colin Hanks. Recent traffic to my little corner of the web has shown that there’s a growing interest in this song. Such that people are looking for the words. I’m announcing that I’m posting the Happy When I’m With You lyrics in my lyrics section.
If the interest continues I may very well see what can be done about releasing the song to iTunes and other digital outlets. In the meantime if you’re landing here due to wanting to find a copy of the song and/or lyrics then you’re welcome to purchase the song directly from me. You’ll even get a better version than what could be bought via iTunes or Amazon.
There is one catch…
In order to read the lyrics you’ll have to login to the website. Easy enough to do with your favorite social ID. No extra site info to fill out. Just pick your favorite one and away you go. You’ll get the words directly from me. What can be better?
Thanks for stopping in. Take a look around and explore my sound a little further.
My first trip to GDC has come to an end. What a trip it’s been. Having never been to GDC before, I really didn’t know what to expect. I would consider myself a veteran of conventions that gear strictly around music. GDC breaks that mold. Here are some of my thoughts via my GDC It’s A Wrap feelings.
First is that the Moscone Convention Center is a little unconventional. That’s an oxymoron right? Unconventional convention… Hmmm. Why do I say that? My usual convention examples are things like NAMM. Where you’re almost entirely in one building. One enormous building. In terms of actual floor space, I believe NAMM is very well larger. In terms of sprawl, I have think that GDC is larger.
Second, I may be wrong about this, I felt there were a lot more people at GDC. Despite that, the crowds were easier to move around in. That was kinda weird.
Third, there is a totally different sense of community. Maybe it’s been a state secret, but there’s a whole different mentality with the music community that gathers in the video game market. In film, it’s very cutthroat. In TV, it’s very cutthroat. In the world of the Major labels it’s very much a mentality of, we’ll take everything we can from the creator and then chew ’em up, spit ’em out and leave out in the desert to die. In video games there’s a huge sense of camaraderie. I think that has to do with the market being newer, easier to move in the new digital era and the fact that it takes a large number of people to produce the product over a course of time. I like that vibe.
Fourth, the businesses involved are very open to new people approaching them. This is very different from my list of people in remark three. There’s a very interesting thing at GDC, they’re very open to people coming up and putting it out there they want to work with you. Here’s something to think about. They had people at each business dedicated to talking to those who are in school and wanting to work with that business. They also had people dedicated to talking to professionals looking to branch out. The school lines were usually long. The pro lines were generally very short. Made it really easy for me to walk right up and talk to a lot of people.
Like any convention, there’s always a few nut cases. GDC is no exception. See below:
God Hates Game Designers
I’m happy I went. I met a great deal of new people. Thus I have a lot of new possibilities planted for music. That is a wonderful thing. Plus it doesn’t suck that quite a few people were asking about my music as an artist and not just a composer. Bonus!
I look forward to going next year. I’m hooked.
p.s. here’s a shot of me sitting in a game consul that costs $15,000. Was it cool? Yeah, it was damn fucking cool for a video game. Very realistic race car driving game. The only thing missing from it is the G forces you’d feel.
Awesome Race Game
p.p.s. here’s another shot of me sitting on a throne for the game Game of Thrones.
King Jody for Game of Thrones
From San Francisco, say see ya GDC it’s a wrap.
I got an email recently. One from someone who had seen a movie that was released mid year last year. The movie in question actually has me scratching my head about one of the supposed stars in the film. As it turns out, a song that I had a hand in writing and performing called “Happy When I’m With You” was in this movie. In a way, I could say it’s lucky music in a movie.
The flick is called Lucky. It’s main star is Colin Hanks. Son of Tom Hanks. Other stars include Jeffery Tambor, Mimi Rogers, Ari Graynor, and Ann-Margaret. If I were prone to playing the Sesame Street game of which one of these is not like the other, it would be Mimi Rogers. Why? Well, quite frankly due to the fact that she is credited with a starring roll and I couldn’t find her in a single moving image in the movie. That’s pretty Lucky if you ask me.
Music can often make or break a film. While I would like to think the song I co-wrote in the film made the movie, it did fit very well and didn’t break it. How it got in was a little strange and how it got credited was a bit of a mistake. See, I did write the song with Johnny Elkins. I did perform all the instruments (except for the drums, they were done by my buddy Donny Gruendler). I did sing the song. Where it names the artist performing it should have said: The Pieces. Somehow it got credited to me – Jody Whitesides. Additionally, it got credited with the wrong title too.
I’m not trying to hide from something I created. It was an agreement Johnny and I had that it would go out as a band name rather than a solo artist. Despite that, somewhere along the line, there was miscommunication on the credits part and I got named. Not the end of the world. Oh well.
Getting back to the original first line here. Someone wrote me an interesting email. In it, he had stated how he tried to find the song on iTunes, Amazon, and other digital sites and could not find it. Then he went on to explain how he tried to find it on YouTube, other places and then pirate sites. All to no avail. He likened it to a search of Bigfoot and Nessie. This made me chuckle and I was flattered. Flattered that someone would go to such lengths to find a song from a movie.
Needless to say the song was not released on a soundtrack. Johnny and I never thought of releasing the song. It’s a catalog type of track, that wasn’t really intended for sale. However, I loved the email so much and I felt this fan really wanted the song. So we made an agreement. He sent a $1 and I got him a copy of the song for his very own.
I’m going to guess that you’re reading this post right now having searched for Happy When I’m With You as co-written and performed by Jody Whitesides. Which means you’ve seen the movie and now wondering where you can obtain a copy of that song. Which to me is lucky music in a movie. You can contact me and I’ll work it out with you on how to get the song. I also appreciate that you want to purchase it and not pirate it. That means the world to me.
There’s an adage that states, better late than never. That is part of the story line behind this movie. Those words also fit the fact that I didn’t post this sooner. What this means is it’s my first appearance on Apple’s trailer website. I couldn’t be happier in that I did all the music for this trailer of Father Of Invention starring Kevin Spacey.
Here’s the link: Father Of Invention <- to the page at Apple’s Trailer Website.
If you’re more inclined to see it right here, then look below.
Enjoy!
p.s. – if you’ve seen the movie, let me know. I’ve yet to see it and I’m a fan of Kevin Spacey.