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April 19, 2008
update
sorry it’s been so long since i’ve updated, i didn’t take your donations and run off to vegas. first i was busy and happy, recording four new songs and getting back into the swing of things and then, before i had the chance to tell you about it, things changed when i was informed of the death of my friend Dean. he was a great guy and was taken from the world too soon. my condolences to his family on this tragic loss…
dean lowtrip
8/8/82 – 4/10/08
rest in peace my friendso, the news. with the help of your donations and the catalyst of a last minute song request for something in the UK i was finally able to get into the studio. instead of doing the one song that was requested we managed to pump out four songs in four days and i think they came out pretty good. my plan is to make a music video and then release an enhanced EP to tide you over until more donations are raised and a full length can be made. since 3/4 of the songs are pretty old it will be nice to get them out since i’m sure a lot of you have heard them live or as a live b-side on the “kevin is gay” UK single. now they’re all properly recorded and just need to be mastered. the track list, in no particular order (well, i guess in the order we recorded them) is:
swan song
stuff to live for
white baby
heart carl
think of it as a little pu-pu platter (not to be confused with poo poo, google it) that represents the different things you might be hearing on the new record. y’know… vibes, man. a little bit of the old vibe, a little bit of danzig in a dress vibe, a little bit of foil-wrapped chicken vibe and a little stripped down acoustic jam vibe. don’t forget the mustard dipping sauce, it goes great with vibes.
it sure is nice to get to do things my way for a change, this whole getting dropped thing is super rad, though it does make doing certain things more difficult (touring and anything else that involves money) . joe cardamone (who also now has an ebay store, check it out: http://myworld.ebay.com/gangbangpark/) and i got to do our first real recordings as a co-production team and our buddy chris rakestraw engineered. micah even came down to do his thang like he used to, since we did those songs together so many times it was the only natural choice. it was fun because back in 2004 when we were recording Hearts and Unicorns the same group of people were in the studio during basic tracking back when chris used to work at paramount studios so it was a cool little reunion.
all of your donations helped make it possible to go in there at the drop of a hat. but on the real, recording is not cheap even when you do it in a cheap way. people keep kind of telling me how i should do this new record and saying i can make it for free but unfortch it doesn’t really work like that, especially if you want it to sound good and don’t own any recording equipment. studio time must be paid (which is in the $400-500 range for a small, unfancy place)engineers need to be paid to turn dials, musicians need to be paid, even if it’s just buying their lunch, mastering is a whole other studio and price, eventually the production of a tangible cd must be paid for, the list goes on but i am trying to keep it as cheap as i can. besides, if i listened to strangers telling me how to make my record it’s like being back on a record label except without the money and free lunches!
so thanks to everyone who has and continues to make donations and purchase things from the giant drag ebay store thing (link to that in the post below this). i haven’t reached my goal yet so please keep on donating and/or buying my crap on ebay and the tunes will keep coming. plus you get the added bonus of having your awesome name on an album if your donation is $75+ (i’d like to put everyone’s name but then i wont be able to afford all those pages of cd layout, the bigger your donation the bigger or special-er it will appear and the big donators get even more special treats! all donations are being kept track of for those who are donating in increments), even if you have no musical skill, you get to be on an album and be like totally famous!
as soon as i pay for these four songs to get mastered i will shove them up on myspace, i really hope you like them. i continue to be touched by the support everyone has shown me. i cannot thank you enough.
xoxo annie -
March 21, 2008
linkz
it’s been brought to my attention that my ebay store is a little hard to find so here is a link to it (thanks kevin):
of course not even 24 hours after my post about American Idol’s charity stuff they run some footage of Fantasia and some dude giving people nets in Africa! obviously they read this website and did that right quick so they wouldn’t look bad. i hate when that happens!
Happy Good Friday, So-So Saturday and Easter Sunday!
xo annie
p.s. check out the donation button at the top/right under the empty upcoming shows (thanks for the tech support micah!) -
March 19, 2008
yenom deen eye
that title there is an old swahili saying, in english it roughly translates to something like ‘please put a money in my bucket’. my bucket, in this case, would be the paypal donation button for the Giant Drag Relief Fund. i know this comes at a rough time since American Idol will soon be doing their “Idol gives back” thing where they have people from Fox shows and movies lip sync to “stayin’ alive” between clips of Seacrest giving starving Africans MacBook’s and saying they too want your money in their bucket so they can buy more computers, but i can promise you that 100% of the money you put in my bucket (minus the 2.9% those assholes at paypal take from me for no good reason) is used for the GDRF. i don’t know how Idol does things but if there’s one thing i’ve learned this year its that donating to charity isn’t always what it seems and a percentage (larger than 2.9) goes somewhere else. somewhere mystical? somewhere in some guy who brings Paula Abdul her medicine’s pocket? i am not sure. i gave them 50 bucks last year because i felt bad for the people on tv, mostly the African kids who had to listen to Carrie Underwood, she’s good at singing and all but i bet they’d rather have some food. they looked really hungry and you can’t fill your belly or swat the flies away from your eyes with a country song. but i digress, i gave $50 and i don’t know where it went, i think i bought a white kid a book when i was clearly trying to buy an African a mosquito net and a cliff bar. nobody even thanked me AND i used my Amex so including interest…you get the picture. i’m not saying give me your money instead, i’m just giving you a firm promise i wont be buying lap dances with it (i use my Amex for those).
some of you have asked if you could bypass paypal and send me a check directly. yes is the answer. email me (annie@giantdrag.com the same email as for the paypal donation thing) and i will give you an address where you can do such a kind thing.
oh and all of you who live in another country and are using the paypal, feel free-er than free to pay in your native currency as in most cases it is worth more than the american buck. even Australia is catching up.
anyhoo, incase you are hearing about this for the first time, the way to donate for now is by going to www.myspace.com/giantdrag and clicking the donate button in the Bio section, or if you know your way around paypal you can just use my email address i’m told. I’d like to thank everyone who has donated so far from the bottom of my heart, i am really so grateful. whether it be the one dollar that my best friend Joe donated (which worked out to be 61 cents.. and the smallest donation) or the donations with a couple more zero’s, i really appreciate your support more than words can convey. and i’d like to thank the fans who suggested this donation thing. you, my friends, are wise people.don’t like donating but still like Giant Drag? well i have opened up an ebay store, which is a lot more work than i thought it would be so there’s not too much stuff but there will be more soon (i’m trying to figure out the whole shipping thing and how to make it the cheapest but even with Audrey’s help it is confusing). feel free to email me suggestions of anything you might wanna buy because i want it all out of here. bag of sun chips? lock of hair? i got you. and everything in the store, which is called “giantdragstore” (inventive, i know. someone took “giantdrag” AND “giant_drag”) can be autographed by me, to you, if thats something you might like. right now its mostly Giant Drag stuff and like two cd’s that aren’t by me but soon i’m going to be putting up clothes and other stuff.
don’t like donating, ebaying or Giant Drag? well i don’t know why you’re reading this, you confuse me.
love and thanks,
annie -
March 14, 2008
alright, its working again
i have proved myself to paypal to be…myself and they have re-activated the donation button for the Giant Drag Relief Fund to get this record paid for (even though those assholes are taking a percentage of every donation, jerks) and to put the random grape in my belly. so if you’d like to lend a hand and be a part of the next Giant Drag record please go donate. soon i will announce the rewards for the specific donation amounts sometime later and Audreytern will help me keep records of everyone’s donations/total amounts. its been brought to my attention that jill sobule (she sang that song about kissing a girl) did this…i’d like to believe it was my idea first and i just needed help to do the dang thing. i’m told she has prizes like “for X amount you get to have your name in a song and maybe even have it rhyme with something”...sorry, i am not going to do that, unless someone donates 75 grand in which case i will name the whole album after you. but hopefully my rewards will be just as fulfilling without being so…uh… not my style?
to donate please go to www.myspace.com/giantdrag and see the button in the Bio section, or just use annie@giantdrag.com if you know your way around paypal.
hopefully micah will put the button right here soon because i don’t know how.
thanks!!!
annie -
March 8, 2008
regarding that last post
i can’t seem to do anything right when it comes to these internet machines! the only way to donate at the moment is to go to the “Bio” section of Giant Drag’s myspace page or maybe by entering in annie@giantdrag.com on paypal.com? what happened to letters and books? my heads spinning, sorry for the confusion!
www.myspace.com/giantdrag
hopefully a smart person will come fix this for me soon. until then i’ll be in my kitchen throwing coal in my stove so i can make some toast.
thaaaanks!!!!
xo annieUPDATE: PayPal is giving me problems and making me verify crap. no more donations can take place until next week when i verify my existence to them. ugh, this is so frustrating! thanks to the people who made donations in the 24 hour time window where this worked. i really really appreciate it, though they will be sitting in limbo for a few days. i will let you know when its back up, if you aren’t over it by then…why me?
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March 8, 2008
i get fries with a little help from my friends
many people have suggested i take donations to wrangle up enough money to get this new album recorded and release it on my very own record label and finally today this dream has become a reality! well, not the dream of the money to pay for the album, the dream of putting up a paypal donation button. with your help my broke ass can get things a-movin’ and give you some new music, if you want that. do you want that? i want to give it to you. oh yes, i want to give it you. in the near future i will also be putting up an ebay store where you can buy my stuff, like all of my stuff that wont fit in my car which is where i might be living if i don’t make this dang record soon. its been sitting stagnant inside me like a constipated BM and if i don’t push this record out soon i’m afraid of breaking my toilet brain with the immense volume of my musical turd. not that the album is going to be crappy…you know what i mean.
if the link i post below looks more like alien scribble than a donation button, please go to www.myspace.com/giantdrag and find the button in the latest blog or the “about me” section.
i thank you all very much for your support, donations or not you have kept me from turning in applications at cheetah’s and other fine exotic dancing facilities with your kind words of encouragement.
those who make certain sized donations will get certain surprises but i can’t reveal them or they wont be a surprise. now i will paste in the thingie for the button thingie, fingers crossed!