I hate it when I fail at stuff.

I really hate it. Especially when the reason I fail is completely out of my control. There's a reason my company is called FIDIM Interactive. FIDIM stands for "Fine! I'll do it myself!" for those of you who never caught on to that. I learned very early on that when it came to creative projects I either do it myself or it didn't get done. With the exception of a handful of close friends and FuMP cohorts that is still true to this day.

In late 2010 I put a project in motion to get FuMP songs up on Rock Band. I had two options here. 1. Hire a company who knows what they're doing to author the songs for me, or 2. Do it myself. My instincts told me to bite the bullet and do it myself, but there are a lot of steps involved in authoring songs for Rock Band, plus some initial expenses, and a steep learning curve. So what I decided to do was try for 1, and if that failed I'd go with 2.

I put out some feelers to a couple of these Rock Band authoring companies and with one of them I struck gold. The guy who ran this one particular company was not only a fan of funny music but he has a working comedy-musician in the family. So he knew first hand where we were coming from and he was excited to be working with us. We set up a revenue sharing agreement, I signed contracts, and we got to work.

The FuMP Core decided fairly quickly that "Dead Again" by Possible Oscar (a cover of the Tom Smith song) would be perfect for Rock Band and that we should have them do that song first. We also submitted "Mallet of Metal" by Consortium of Genius, and then later we submitted "Raichu A Song" by Nuclear Bubble Wrap, "Halloween" by Steve Goodie, and "The Dumbest Song on Rock Band" by me, which I wrote specifically because we had this deal in place and I knew I could get it on Rock Band.

As always happens with these things the company was excited at first, but then it became work, and the updates became slower and further apart. However, in late 2011 we were happy to report that "Dead Again" was live on Rock Band! We celebrated, and I figured things would go a lot smoother now that the first hurdle was cleared.

From all the reports I heard "Dead Again" was fairly successful on Rock Band. It was featured by Harmonix and even ported to the PlayStation network, whatever that means. It was well-reviewed and by all accounts was selling well. But I never got any official numbers from the company.

Then updates trailed off even more. Every few weeks I would ping them for an update and on the few instances where they responded they said they were close, songs were in play testing, things would be posted within a week or so, blah blah blah. Same thing every time. Nothing ever happened and we never saw any money for the sales of "Dead Again." Then they stopped responding altogether.

Then in April of 2012 I found out that the company was shutting down and being sold to another company. I contacted this other company and told them the situation and they said they were sorry about what happened but that was a very common story in the Rock Band authoring world. They assured me they were in the process of migrating assets over from the first company and that we would have some new papers to sign with them and then they would take over FuMP song authoring going forward.

I was excited, but at the same time I wanted to get my song up there as fast as possible. I had just been contacted by a guy who wanted to author "The Dumbest Song on Rock Band" independently so I asked the new company if I could have that song back and let the other guy do it. They said fine, so I sent him the stems and turned him loose.

Same thing happened with him. Updates were initially fast and progress was swift and then he realized it was work and trailed off.

The second company never materialized into anything, either. Beyond that first email from the owner I got no meaningful correspondence with them whatsoever and never received any of the promised contracts. I pinged him several times (most recently January 22nd) but never received a reply.

This morning I was listening to The Scope Show (one of the hosts, coincidentally, is in Possible Oscar, the band that did "Dead Again") and during their news segment they announced that Harmonix will be ending the downloadable content for Rock Band effective April 1st. So that, as they say, is that.

2 1/2 years of coordinating, managing, effort, and aggravation and what do we have to show for it? One song on Rock Band which I've never even played and no money from the sales of that song.

This, folks, is why I do things myself.

I'm going to try one last attempt to contact the individuals at both companies (I'm assuming at this point that the second company has or will be closing down as well) to try to at least get whatever money we (well, Jared, mostly) are owed. I may try to contact someone at Harmonix to try to get a sales report for the song so I can get an idea how much that was but I doubt they'll be willing to give me that information. I'm not going to turn this into another Prince Markie Dee thing because unlike that situation we didn't put out any money up front here. We're just owed royalties on the presumed sales of a song, but that could be any amount.

But I'm more pissed because this just didn't happen. And at this point I'm blaming myself because I didn't take the bull by the horns and learn how to author Rock Band content myself like I damn well knew I should have. I was really looking forward to playing "The Dumbest Song on Rock Band" on Rock Band and now it looks like that's never going to happen.

So when people ask me why I'm so busy, why I take on so much, why I do what I do, this is why. Because if I don't do it it doesn't get done.

New Song and Logan Nominations

As you may have heard Jonathan Coulton, the indie songwriter who inspired The FuMP, was ripped off last week by the TV show Glee. His version of "Baby Got Back" was used without permission or compensation. In response, I wrote this:





Also, two of my songs have been nominated for Logan Awards! The Logan Whitehurst Memorial Award for Excellence in Comedy Music will be given out at MarsCon next month. My song "In The 80s" is nominated for Outstanding Original Comedy Song and "Devo Are You Shoebox?" is nominated for Outstanding Parody Song. Thank you so much to the people who suggested these songs and to the judges for making them finalists.



Unfortunately I won't be able to attend MarsCon this year but I think someone will be streaming it so I'll be able to watch the ceremonies. For more information about MarsCon click here.

Originally posted at DevoSpice.com. You can comment here or there.

Devo Spice Update - 1/25/2013

Hey everyone,

I was hoping to have the next Ridiculous Rap song done by now. Actually I was hoping to have it done by last week, but reality has a way of rearing it's ugly head.

Stupid reality.

I'll try to get that posted soon. Anyway, I wanted to let you know there is one week left to get in on a couple special deals.

First of all, my Mac Face t-shirt design is for sale exclusively during the month of January. So you have until next Thursday to get your order in. Kickstarter rules in effect. So if I don't sell 24 of them I won't make the shirts and everyone will get their money back. If I do sell 24 then I'll make the shirts and everyone who pre-ordered in January will get one. There won't be any extras so if you want one now is the time to order.

And you also have one week left to get in on the FuMP's special January Subscriber offer. If you subscribe to either a Level 1 or Level 2 subscription during the month of January you will get one month free and a free FuMP branded USB drive filled with all of 2012's music. So again you have until next Thursday to get your order in. (Free month offer not valid on 1 month subscriptions.)

So that's all. Arisia was awesome. Next month my father and I will both be guests at MystiCon in Roanoke, VA (http://mysticon-va.com/). And I'm very sorry to report that I-CON has been canceled this year. Not my appearance at I-CON. I-CON itself is not happening this year. Sucks, but whatryugonnado?

->Later…..Spice

Devo Spice Update - 1/1/2013 - New Shirt Design

Happy New Year, everyone!

2013 is going to be the year that I release ALL THE THINGS!  ...that is all the things except the album by Dual Core which is titled All The Things, which is awesome, but not related to all my things and... eh never mind.

--== NEW T-SHIRT DESIGN AVAILABLE FOR JANUARY ==--
The first of the many things I plan to release in 2013 is a t-shirt.  This shirt design, which I’ve dubbed my Mac Face design, was originally created for the video for “Vote For Me” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZJcqRU-37I).  One of my fans emailed me after that video went up and asked me if that design was going to be a shirt. I thought that was a neat idea, so here we are.



Kickstarter Rules In Effect
Shirts have been hit or miss over the years and this is a 5-color print job, which means it’s going to be an expensive run.  So I’m doing this one Kickstarter style.  For the month of January I’m going to be accepting orders.  At the end of the month if I’ve sold at least 24 shirts I’ll print them up and send them to the people who bought them.  If not, everyone who placed an order will get a full refund.  This way I won’t be stuck with shirts I can’t sell and I can order exactly the sizes I need.

If I sell 48 shirts I will also print up some stickers of the same design and everyone who ordered a shirt will get a couple stickers as well.

I’m only going to be making up as many shirts as I pre-sell.  I won’t be making up extras to sell at shows or on my web site, so if you want a shirt you have to pre-order it.  The shirt is available in sizes S to XXXL.

Click here to see the design and order your shirt: http://www.thefump.com/store_release.php?id=107

--== THE FuMP SUBSCRIBER SPECIAL ==--
The other thing going on in January is The FuMP is having a special on subscriptions.  If you subscribe during the month of January you will get 1 month free and a free FuMP branded USB drive with all of our 2012 releases on it.  

Subscribers get unlimited high quality downloads, digital compilations, high quality RSS feeds, 20% off compilation CD purchases, and Level 2 gets you the CDs as they come out as well.

For details and to subscribe click here:
http://www.thefump.com/subscriptions.php

--== IN THE 80s MAKES THE CHARTS ==--
“In The 80s” is now officially a hit!  After hitting #1 on the Dr. Demento Top 10 countdown in September and then appearing again in October and November it ended up being the #4 most requested song of 2012!  You can listen to The Dr. Demento Show over at http://www.drdemento.com.

It was also the #1 song of the year on Ben’s Wacky Radio’s year end countdown (http://www.madmusic.com/wackyradio.aspx)  It was #2 on A-Log’s Wacked Out 40 of 2012 (http://www.madmusic.com/playlist.aspx?Show=AOTA-121229), and #4 on the Mad Music Top 50 of 2012! (http://www.madmusic.com/playlist.aspx?Show=MMDT20_12-FY)

Thank you to all the DJs who have played my music and thank you to everyone who has been requesting it!  It feels great to have a song at the top of all these charts!


--== QUICK BLURBS ==--
There are only 4 days left to donate to the Dementia Radio Indie GoGo campaign.  Go here for that: http://www.indiegogo.com/dementiaradio.  

Also, I updated my songs of the month over at DevoSpice.com, but then realized the Flash player doesn’t work on the new server.  I’ll replace it with an HTML5 player when I get a moment to breathe, but for now the download links still work.

Thanks, everyone!  Here’s looking forward to a great year!

->Later.....Spice

New T-Shirt Design for January

When I posted my Ridiculous Rap "Vote For Me" someone emailed me and asked if the Mac face design I created was going to be a shirt. This seemed like a good idea, so here it is!



I'm doing this sort of like a Kickstarter campaign. I'm taking orders during the month of January. At the end of the month if I haven't sold at least 24 shirts then everyone will get their money back. If I've sold 24 shirts I'll print up the shirts and ship them to the buyers. No extra shirts will be made. If I sell 32 shirts I'm printing 32 shirts, so if you want one you have to order it during the month of January.

As a bonus if I sell 48 shirts I'll make up stickers of the design as well and include a couple of them in with each shirt sold.

Click here to order your shirt!

Originally posted at DevoSpice.com. You can comment here or there.