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get live at leopold bros. and help hurricane victims

Derek Sivers, president of CDBaby, has created an easy way for you to both donate to the Red Cross for Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, and get great new music at the same time. A number of artists, myself included, are donating all profits from their records sold through CDBaby to the Red Cross.

So, just purchase live at leopold bros through CDBaby and the profit from your purchase will go to the Red Cross. My friend Jon is also doing this for his record; check out Yochannan’s Worshipmusic (inna DJ Shadow kind of style – great instrumental hip-hop).

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live @ leopold bros now available at CDBaby

chromedecay has recently begun setting up shop at CDBaby, and we are pleased to announce the first chromedecay release is now available via CDBaby:

Bill Van Loo: Live @ Leopold Bros.

AllMusic’s Andy Kellman had this to say about Live @ Leopold Bros:

“Live at Leopold Bros. is a practically flawless quilt of Bill Van Loo’s micro-tech productions in the form of an hour-long mix. Flowing smoothly with unpredictable spontaneity but coming off as meticulously mapped out at the same time, these ten tracks form a thoroughly enjoyable, all-in-one evidentiary record of Van Loo’s ability to craft a wide spectrum of sounds and moods that alternately translate to the living room and the club.” – Andy Kellman, All Music Guide

CDBaby will also be handling digital distribution for chromedecay releases, which means that we’ll start showing up on iTunes, Rhapsody, and other popular digital download services soon (probably in a week or so). The upcoming “chromedecay tracks pt2.: 2001-2005” will also be available via CDBaby, iTunes, and the other digital download services once it’s complete (getting closer every day…)

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announcing chromedecay tracks pt. 2: 2001-2005

Back in 2001, I released a limited-edition CD called “chromedecay tracks: 1996-2001”. My friend Harrison burned 50 copies on his duplicating machine that would print on the discs, I designed a cover in Photoshop, and I had something I could give out to people as demos and promo items, with an intent toward getting the material released on a proper record label.

That never happened, so “chromedecay tracks: 1996-2001” remained a limited-edition promo-only piece. I did release an edit of one of the tracks on the Planet E compilation “All Access”, but that’s as far as that material ever went.

Fast-forward to 2005. A lot has changed in the 4 years since the release of the first “chromedecay tracks”: I’ve broadened my musical horizons significantly, switched my primary compositional platform from MacOS 9 and Studio Vision Pro to OS X and Logic, and become a Christian in the summer of 2003. All during that time period, I’ve been writing music that I intended to be released on various labels as various projects. For one reason or another, lots of those projects never panned out, so I’m sitting on a ton of material. I recently decided that I would make that material available.

I’m still finalizing the tracklist, artwork, and release format, but it will be between 10 and 13 tracks, with color artwork and CD-R media. I’ve already made a few of the tracks that are going to be on the record available for free download, so they should act as a nice bit of promotion for the record once it’s all tied together. I expect to have it ready for purchase in the next few months.

Exciting stuff for sure! Thanks for all the love and support over the years.

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new blog

I’ve decided to split my Internet presence into two halves: “business” (chromedecay.org) and “personal” (billvanloo.com).

To that end, I’ve set up this new domain, billvanloo.com, to host all my personal stuff – info about me, my personal blog, and family photos. This site is very much a work-in-progress at the moment, but will be added to in the upcoming days and months.

So, why the split? I just switched web hosting providers (to DreamHost, who I heartily recommend), and they offered a free domain regisration. Since I’d thought about having “billvanloo.com” for a while, I decided this would be a good time to acquire it, so I did. The thought of then splitting things up seemed like a natural one.

I’ll be using the chromedecay blog to post about my music, and about the music that I’ll be releasing. Read more about that in the next post.

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upcoming gigs in May

I’ll be playing two upcoming gigs in May.

Thursday, May 19, 2005: solo at Agora Coffeehouse

I will be playing a solo set of music. Sometimes on guitar or electric piano, sometimes off laptop, sometimes improvised, sometimes arranged, sometimes contemplative, sometimes active. Should be fun.

Agora Coffeehouse
4930 S. Hagadorn Rd.
East Lansing, MI
(inside University Reformed Church)

featuring:
Radial Angel
Bill Van Loo
+ one other act TBA

Doors open at 7pm; I’ll probably go on around 8. $6 recommended donation

Saturday, May 21, 2005: Bill Van Loo + J. Schnable at The Modern Exchange

Josh and I will be playing a duo set together, in the same vein as the set we performed last January at the Shelter in Detroit (archive from 1.31.2004 courtesy Paxahau). We’ll be pulling out all the stops, with dual laptop + trigger pad + effects + instrument madness. We promise to look you in the face and not stare into our laptops all night. Promise.

Thinkbox – Session
Join Thinkbox, the Windsor/Detroit experimental audio/media collective, for
a night of audio and video experimentation. Also come visit Southgate’s
hottest new performance venue “The Modern Exchange”.

When: May 21, 2005
Where: The Modern Exchange, 12219 Dix, Southgate, MI, 48195
www.themodernexchange.com
Who: Thinkbox’s Chris Bissonnette, Chris McNamara, Steve Roy, Bill Van Loo + J. Schnable.

There will be Thinkbox merchandise such as cds, cd-rs of live performances,
t-shirts, and more.

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audioscrobbler knows me now.

One nice thing about using Audioscrobbler for a while – top ten lists sure are easy!

Here’s my top artist list, for example, after using the service for about 4 months:

1 Sara Groves
2 Mars ILL
3 Sufjan Stevens
4 Mat Kearney
5 Johnny Cash
6 Bill Van Loo
7 Sev Statik
8 Deadbeat
9 Enter the Worship Circle
10 Daniel Lanois
10 The Shins

All in all, a pretty good representation of what I’d consider my favorite artists at the moment!

My user profile at audioscrobbler: bvl @ audioscrobbler

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mmm, SUGAR

My good friend (and the lifeblood of our office at work) Raquel has opened a business selling cakes. And, oh, what cakes they are.

Here’s her site: sugar’s.

I can personally vouch for how amazing her cakes are, both from eating them all the time at work (mmm, birthdays!) and from a customer’s perspective, too – I ordered 4 cakes for my wife Sarah’s 30th birthday and every one was so, so good.

So, go buy an amazing cake from a small Detroit baker!

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seven swans

I know this is the second post about Sufjan Stevens in a short period of time, but I just got Seven Swans, and oh man it’s good. I know I’m about 6 months behind all the really cool kids, but oh well.

Wow, what a great record. “Abraham” literally took my breath away the first time I heard it. The sacrificial ram / Christ symbolism really hit me hard.

Go listen to this guy’s records! Reviews from two different angles:

Review of "Seven Swans" at Pitchfork media

Review of "Seven Swans" at Christianity Today

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audioscrobbler!

After using Audioscrobbler for about a month and getting some tracks built up in the system, I have to say I’m really enjoying it.

I actually find myself checking my own page a lot just to see the trends in what I’m listening to. Kinda self-obsessed and weird, maybe, but that’s OK, I guess. One thing that’s a bit weird is that I find myself thinking “I wonder what Audioscrobbler will reflect if I listen to this…”. Big audioscrobbler is watching!

bvl @ audioscrobbler

I really dig the new features that I’m seeing now – Weekly Artist Chart and Weekly Track Chart. Gives a nice look at what’s being played.

One last thing I find interesting – it even tracks plays from a shared iTunes library. The Sara Groves record that’s listed pretty high in my list is actually on a friend at work’s iTunes shared library, and it still tracks me playing it. As a side note, I really, really like that Sara Groves record – she’s an excellent singer-songwriter with a literate, Christian perspective, and the record has really great production; some roots rock shades, some modern rock leanings, some stripped-down ballad-ish pieces – good stuff.