More.

Still haven’t pre-ordered the new CD? Need more incentive? Not sure if the thing is going to be any good? Well, I’ve uploaded 2 more songs to the myspace page. Go check ‘em out. And after you get done dancing around the room with a huge grin on yo’ face, go here and order a big pile of 'em before you have to pay regular place like all the common folk.

Lend me your ears!

Remember myspace? Me neither. Well, apparently it was the cool thing before facebook, which was the cool thing before twitter. But that was before we all just got video cameras embedded in our underwear and psychic microchips implanted into our skulls and the world lost all sense of privacy and discretion, but at least we were always up to date on current events and funny quips from John Mayer and Sarah Palin.

No seriously, remember myspace? Seriously, me neither.

No, SERIOUSLY. I'm being serious this time. Some of you have asked to hear some clips of the songs on the new record. I'm going to have some up on the website by the end of the week, but in the meantime, I've posted some songs on myspace. It was weird. I hadn't signed in to my page in like 6 months or something. I felt dirty for some reason. Poor myspace. So judged.

Aaaaaaanyway... go here and listen if you want to get a sense of what you're buying before you pre-order. And remember, you save $3 if you order before the release, which wil be in about 15-20 days.

Orange you ready to hear it?

Come on, you had to know I was going to go there with the jokes.

But seriously.

If, like me, you believe the children are our future, go here now and pre-order.

Pre-announcing the pre-order in advance

OK, the CD is being mastered this week, and we expect for it to "drop" around Dec 15 or 16. But, we will begin taking pre-orders at http://www.rosskingmusic.com/ within the next couple of days. I'll let you know here and on facebook, etc.

If you pre-order the CD, I will guarantee that it will get to you by Christmas. And, pre-orders wil be $9, no shipping cost, for an actual hard copy of the CD. Once the CD is out, it will be $10, and mail orders will include a shipping charge of (probably) $2, so you're saving $3 if you pre-order. Also, since there are 13 songs on the record, it will probably cost more than that on iTunes and in other download spots (they usually charge 99 cents per song). So this is a deal you don't want to miss.

By the way, this is (basically) what the CD will look like:

The left side is the back. The right side is the front. Fun, huh?

So, who wants to buy some cheap, hilarious, educational, and family-friendly music for Christmas gifts? Check back tomorrow bring yo money!

extremely awesome pictures of my face and body

That headline was misleading. The pics I'm referring to are extremely awesome. My face and body are not.

Go see for yourself. Here's a link to the blog of Tim and Kristen Douglass, the very creative and gifted folks who took my pictures for the new record. The current post is about the photo shoot that we did. Listen, I hate photo shoots. The camera adds ten pounds, and I can't use jokes to distract people from my physical inadequacies, because pictures don't contain audio. Maybe someday, when we get the rocket cars and the pills that turn into turkey dinners that are served to us by robot maids. Until then, I have to count on great photographers to make photo shoots bearable. Tim and Kristen pulled it off. I actually had fun. So go check out the cool pics and commentary on their cool blog, and maybe peruse their site as well.

Various and sundry

First, we just sent the kids' project to be mastered. That means I'm done working on it. It also means that, God willing, it will be out in 2-3 weeks. Weird. It only took a year.

I'll be posting something about pre-orders within the next week or so, hopefully. I'm going to make the record sigificantly cheaper for people who order early, so be on the lookout for that.

Second, I need promotional ideas. Who has thoughts on cheap ways to tell as many people as possible about this? I'm not all that savvy with the twitter and the facebook. And I don't think anyone is uing the myspace these days. Anyone? Thoughts? Brilliance? Good ideas will get you free copies.

And speaking of free copies, my recent contest had the worst turnout in RKWT contest history. I guess people don't think Nickelback is as bad as I do. Well, that's just a really sad statement about our culture, but whatev. At any rate, my old pal and former bandmate Alex Burdine was the clear winner, so he gets the prize. Alex, send me your address and I'll get you a copy asap.

Next, there will be a new look at http://www.rosskingmusic.com/ very soon, like this month. No, I'm serious. I have to do it now. Since I have the new record coming out, it means I can no longer have a website that says "under construction." Musicians with "under construction" websites don't sell records. I'm no marketing genius, but I know that much. So you can expect to be slammed with "new website!" posts and emails and tweets and such fairly soon. I'll be trying to get folks to go see it.

Here's a pic that I'll probably use on the site:

I have lots of jobs and passions and hobbies and such, so I thought it would be appropriate. Get it?

Finally, I'd like to start talking about concerts to promote the new record (but also to play my other songs as well, of course). So if anyone would like to talk house shows (or non-house shows) please let me know.

That's all for now.

I want my nickel back, nickel back, nickel back.

While my kids’ record is being mixed, I’m spending the weekend at a conference in L.A. The conference is for Taxi, an independent A&R organization that I’m in. Remember when I sent out those free instrumentals and told you guys to look for them on TV, etc? That was a connection I made with these folks.

It’s been an interesting experience for me, being here. There are about 2500 musicians at the conference: songwriters, producers, singers; pretty much every genre you can imagine is represented. In addition to that, there are lots and lots of “important” industry people here. Well-known songwriters, publishers, record label execs, that kind of thing.

The point of the conference, as far as I can tell, is sort of two-fold. First, we’re here to attend all kinds of seminar classes and informational panels and keynote speakers and such. Those have been pretty good. Classes about what music supervisors are looking for when they are trying to find music for TV shows, movies, commercials, etc. Classes about how to make great sounding recordings without spending lots of money. Classes about how to market your own music cheaply and effectively. Etc, etc.

Second, we're here to network and schmooze and hand out business cards and CD's and such. That part of it is pretty much a nightmare to guy like me, but I'm trying to be teachable and jsut go for it. There's a weird tension in trying to promote yourself while also fully embracing the Gospel. I won't go into all that here. You guys know that I'm always asking silly questions like that and taking all the fun out of stuff.

Anyway...

Right now, I’m in a huge room (The Grand Ballroom!) listening to a panel of big-time record label A&R reps who are critiquing music that is being played for everyone in the room. Basically, conference attendees can put their music in a big box and hope that it will be chosen, at random, to be played. If chosen, their song is played for maybe 45-60 seconds, and then the panel will critique it in front of everyone. If this sounds brutal, it is. I’m sitting here thinking of how thankful I am that I didn’t put anything in that box.

The conference as a whole has been excellent, but this last hour or so hasn’t been too good.

However, here’s something I just couldn’t resist telling you. A few minutes ago, they chose a rock song to play. The song wasn’t bad, but the singer was pretty great, at least within the rock genre. It was that typical gritty rock singer sound, and the singer did a great job with it. But here’s the fun part. One of the panelists is pretty involved in the pop/rock genre and, when asked what he thought of the song, he said this:“It’s not bad, but this kind of song has to pass The Nickelback Test.”

He then proceeded to tell us about this test. I don’t remember what he said, because every time I hear the word Nickelback, and it isn’t followed by phrases like “sucks toilet water” or “is terrible” or "makes me want me to stab my own ears with meat thermometers," my brain shuts down and has to reboot.

After my brain rebooted, I was sort of curious to know more about this Nickelback Test. Could I pass it? Is it a written test? Essay or multiple choice? Would there be a word bank from which to choose answers? How smart and original would a singer/songwriter have to be before they were disqualified? Would there be any sort of physical or medical qualifiers? Maybe you have to have a bad perm-and-dye job to pass? Maybe it would be necessary to bludgeon the listeners in the ears over a 3 and a half minute period in order to pass The Nickelback Test.

I can’t answer any of these questions, because I didn’t hear the explanation of this elusive test.

So I’ve decided to run a quick contest. The winner of this contest will get the notoriety of being honored on this blog, as well a free copy of Words that Rhyme With Orange when it releases here in a few weeks.

Here’s the contest: Come up with a compelling, convincing theory about The Nickelback Test.The theory must answer questions such as these. What is it? What purpose does it serve? How does one pass it? What happens if one fails it? Does The Nickelback Test have an application fee? Maybe a dime or 6 dollars? If one passed The Nickelback Test 5 times, would that make them a Quarterback? If a band consisted of 5 pennywhistle players, could it be automatically absolved from taking the test? Stuff like this. I just need to know.

I'll take submissions for 3-4 days. Enter as often as you like!

Is this the end for me?

It's funny, because as the whole kids' CD developed, I kept making jokes about how I was making a record of "booger songs." At the time, I honestly hadn't written any songs about boogers. That was just my way of joking about it. When I'm insecure about my career, I make jokes, OK? It's not something I'm proud of, but there it is.

Anyway, people started saying stuff like "I can't wait to hear those booger songs!" or "I really need my 5-year-old to hear this song because he eats his boogers" or "my husband wipes his boogers under the couch and I think he needs to see a therapist." I didn't know how to help with that last one, except to advise that husband to be a little more covert about it.

But all those comments got me thinking that maybe I really did need to have a booger song on the record. I mean, I know it's extremely immmature and low-brow and such, but that's exactly the kind of stuff that I find hilarious. Monkeys! People getting pummeled in the crotch! Boogers! That's comedy.

So I wrote something. And when it came time to record it, I decided to invite my old college roommates for the background vocals. I mean, one of them is the VP of a big bank, and the other works for ministry that reaches out to street kids and gangs. Neither one of them has ever sang in the studio or performed at all, really.

So of course they were perfect.

I had to make a video. It is below.

In other news, the CD is now being mixed. The artwork design is nearly done. This means the record is less than month away from release. Thanks for your patience.