Independent Filmmakers rejoice! Because the only thing more fun than filming a short movie about your favorite subject (Zombies!) would be scoring it with music from your favorite band (Jagged Spiral!)

Thanks to NationUndead.com now you can do both! Nation Undead gives you the genre and storyline as a seed for your independent film. Get some friends, a video camera, a case of Newcastle, and a few gallons of fake blood, and make a movie that Quentin Tarrantino could only dream of making.

When you're done, you'll need to add in some music to add extra punch to your production. Of course, Jagged Spiral has you covered. I've uploaded the entire INSTRUMENTAL VERSION of Days From Evil to the Nation Undead website, and it's FREE for you to use in your movie, just make sure to list Jagged Spiral in the movie credits.

Need some spooky background music? Check out the beginning of Run.

Need music for a chase scene? Check out Hallowed Ground or The Last Song.

Having an all out Zombie Bar Fight? You can't go wrong with Let It Out.

God forbid you have a moment of Zombie Emotional Interlude, then you'll find yourself in need of the tender acoustic moments in Lament.

Even if you aren't scoring a Zombie film, feel free to download the Instrumental tracks from Nation Undead, share and enjoy!

If you want to know more about the Nation Undead project, I recently interviewed the creator, Patrick Pierson, you can read the interview on conradzero.com.

-Z

Labels: music, Product Endorsement

If you click over to the Merch page, you will find the first track from the Days From Evil album, "Forced Entry" is available for download.

For Free. Gratis. Kostenlos.

Of course, don't let that stop you from giving us money, whether by using the donate buttons inconveniently located at the bottom of the page (consider it a virtual tip jar, if you will) or by simply e-mailing us your credit card number and pin, or your coworkers credit card number and pin for that matter.

A better idea is to visit this page to discover the myriad of other ways you can support independent bands like Jagged Spiral. You shouldn't be surprised to discover that a lot of them don't cost you anything at all.

One of the ways you can help us out is by spreading the word. Tell people to download the latest track and give it a listen. If it doesn't click with you, no worries, we won't be offended, but come back next week for the next track; Days From Evil is pretty diverse, and you might be pleasantly surprised.

For the next nine weeks, we will be posting all nine tracks from Days From Evil. It's a concept album, so I suggest you listen to the songs in order to get the full effect...

really loud...

with headphones...

in the dark...

completely naked.

Enjoy,
-Z

Labels: Audio, Days From Evil, music, Website Update

This ain't your older sister's Smashing Pumpkins, mind you. This is the New, Improved Version! Hey this is 2007 man! We gots to have flying cars, world peace, and top-fucking-notch audio production quality! Just go to their myspace page, and listen to the old stuff. Then check out the track Let me give the world to you from their upcoming, inappropriately named album, 'Zeitgeist'.

....

um, What the Fuck?

WHY DOES THIS SOUND LIKE SHIT?

Oh, that's right, it's the Smashing Pumpkins; they always were always hit-n-miss. Their good songs were great, like "Zero" and "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" - good enough for me to overlook (overlisten?) Billy Corgan's voice which is, at times, *Worse* than Ozzy Ozborne. :( But if this is the single, how bad will the rest be?

The new S.P. single sounds like it was recorded on a rusty shoelace using a microphone that was stuffed in a shoebox full of those orange circus peanut candies. Listen closely, you can almost hear the band playing the song in the next room....

So instead of becoming some kind of 'New' sound, and amazing us with ingenuity, the new SP is sounding awfully indie. I would call it grunge without the harshness that made SP interesting in the first place. Watered-down-grunge? Wouldn't that be Sludge? Yep, I think Sludge is the new Grunge, just add water.

Well, the good thing is that squishing the piss out of the file by compressing it into .mp3 format can't possibly have an adverse effect on the audio quality.

-Zero

Labels: Is This Art?, music

Interesting article in an old Extreme Tech issue. By interesting, I mean more than a little galling.

It's amazing how much contempt people actually have for "average Americans." On the one hand, you have the writer pointing to the consumer as THE arbiter in all things tech, as in noting that we (the consumer) don't want multiple standards. This is absolutely true: when I buy a DVD, or a laptop, I want the thing to Just Work; it's why people are still buying Apple Computers. The things Just Work.

On the other hand, this constant harping on the public's inability to "understand" what "good audio" is absolutely insulting. It's like this: people don't care. They just don't. People don't want "high fidelity" sound because the sound they have is good enough.

Does vinyl sound better than CD? Arguably. Do CDs sound better than mp3s? If the mp3 is ripped at a low bitrate, sure. At 160 kbps or above, does it really matter? Stop for a minute and listen to your surroundings; it's probably pretty loud. Is that extra dynamic range really gonna make much of a difference on your evening commute, sitting next to a cattle truck on 494? Not really.

It's not that I don't care; as I guy who is into all things audio, I want my music and movies to sound great. That they don't is lamentable. But don't blame the technology, and don't blame the public. Blame the people producing all of that crass, relentlessly mediocre material, and the executives who have so much contempt for their audience that they're convinced that's what we really want.

-josh

Labels: music, sound