Get it from nulldevice.bandcamp.com, Nilaihah Mail-order, iTunes, Amazon, and other fine retailers.

Fri June 25th – Madison WI – The Frequency
Sat June 26th – Milwaukee WI – Club Anything
Sun June 27th – Chicago IL – The Darkroom
Mon June 28th – Quad Cities IA – Lumpy’s
Tue June 29th – Columbus OH – The Shrunken Head
Wed June 30th – Pittsburgh PA – Garfield Artworks
Thu July 1st – Baltimore MD – The Depot
Fri July 2nd – Philadelphia PA – The Fire
Sat July 3rd – Washington DC – The Meeting Place/Midnight
Mon July 5th – Tallahassee FL – Engine Room (TDC Only)
Tue July 6th – Atlanta GA – TBA (TDC Only)

The way it works is this – tracks and albums are submitted for consideration by the artists, and then people from all over the place log in, listen and vote.  Round one determines the nominees, round two determines the winners.

There’s a nominal fee for voting.

Normally I’m opposed to nominal fees, but I heartily endorse dropping a few bucks to become a MAMAs voter for a few reasons.  One, our huge egos and fragile self esteem rely on the constant praise that a MAMAs win would bring, two, it’s a fantastic way to hear a whole bunch of exceptionally talented local acts in a variety of genres and three – all proceeds support music programs in local schools.

That last one is a big deal.  I’m talking 100% of the money that comes in goes to helping school music programs buy and repair instruments, keep teachers, and keep programs going.  The MAMAs organization has done a stellar job of this over the past several years – donating thousands of dollars worth of band and orchestra instruments to area schools, showcasing unique school performing groups, and raising awareness of the good works done by many of these teachers and students.  I have a really soft spot for school music programs, since it was a succession of really fantastic school music programs in elementary and secondary school that kept my own love of music alive, refined it, taught me a lot of skills, and generally gave me a much brighter outlook on the world than I’d probably otherwise have had.

The awards show in May is also a good time.  Like most awards shows, it runs long and there’s always a bit of overblown speechifying, but there’s also a ton of really great performances.

So it’s a good cause, and could help us win something.  Head over to www.themamas.org, register, listen, and vote!

At The Frequency, Madison.
Dane101 5th Anniversary party
Little Red Wolf
German Art Students
Guante and Big Cats
Null Device

 9pm $7, 21+

Should be one heckuva show. Little Red Wolf does a sort of alt-country-folk-rock-bluegrass-pop kind of thing with a healthy dose of vocal harmonies, German Art Students is a group that for years has been making nimble, quick-witted new-wave-influenced pop music, Guante and Big Cats is layered, politically charged hip-hop and then there’s…well, then there’s Null Device.

It’s pretty cool that we get to play this gig, since these are some great bands (I’ve been trying to put together a show with GAS for years, but scheduling has never made that possible until now).

More info at Dane101.com

Woo!

The next album will be titled “Suspending Belief.”  It’s almost all recorded and mostly mixed.  We’ve been playing a few tracks from it live for a while now, and we’ve got a few more in the pipe.

Yesterday, it happened again, to another friend, DJ and tireless promoter of local music.

Mike Carlson, a guy who I’ve known as a DJ in Madison as long as I’ve lived here, watched his house burn down yesterday.   Thankfully, nobody was hurt, but preliminary estimates put the damage at over a quarter of a million and the human damage is more – his family are now without a home, clothing, and belongings. Mike’s lost the records and CDs he uses to ply his DJ trade.

Mike, both as a DJ and as the owner of MCAudio, has been a fixture of the Madison music scene for decades.  He’s also a genuinely nice guy.  I don’t know a DJ or a band in town that he hasn’t helped.  Certainly, he’s the guy who spun Null Device discs before anyone else would touch them, regularly throwing our poorly-recorded cover of “Wicked Game” into big night sets. Last time I saw Mike, it was sort of by accident – Wendy and I had wandered over to the Great Dane for a late snack and drink, and he happened to be DJing. He came over to our table, bought me a beer and an apple turnover (!) and talked excitedly about new dubstep records he was getting in the store. He’s always enthusiastic about music, and about the people who make music, and you can tell he’s a guy who loves what he does and loves sharing it with others.

Every few times I see him, he tells me “you know what I’m really digging these days? That acid jazz.” I usually joke that he has so much vinyl that he’s merely rediscovering stuff he’s owned for years and just forgotten about. I won’t be able to make that joke anymore.

A few people have already set up donation points on paypal:
http://www.paypal.com and send money to mikeandfamilybenefit@gmail.com

If you’re in Madison, you can donate a nonperishable food item at MCAudio on University Ave.

UPDATE:

Dane101 is on this.  So is The Onion AVClub.

And there’s already a Benefit tonight at The Inferno:

Tonight (1/27) at the Inferno (1718 Commerical Ave.), a benefit show for Mike Carlson. No cover at the door,  taking donations of both non-perishable food items and money. Starts at 9:00 p.m.  DJs Eurotic and Alan!, + more.

One of those has been confirmed now. Null Device is going on a short tour with our compadres/former guitarist’s band The Dark Clan.

June 25th-July3rd

Dates to follow once they’re all confirmed. Madison, Milwaukee, Chicago, Pittsburgh, B’more, DC, Richmond are all in the works. A few more waiting for finalization.

If all goes well, we’ll have some brand new album goodness by then, too.

Null Device is 15 this year.

FIF-FREAKING-TEEN.

Officially, anyway. There were pre-95 noodlings, and our first album on a real label didn’t come out until 2003. But 1995 is when Dr. Goedken and I started writing together, and when we started getting rather serious about making music.

Lots has happened in those fifteen years, and a lot of things have changed. It’s been pretty fabulous so far, and we have no plans to stop anytime soon.

Happy 2010!

I gave it a shot.

It’s not my finest work, certainly.  The vocals are a little weak, the lyrics are a bit…um…but considering the whole thing was recorded, start to finish, in the span of about 4 hours, it’s not bad.  From recording dhols and dumbeks, to programming the beats, to orchestrating the chorus and the vocoders – everything was done on a chunk of saturday afternoon and sunday morning.  I’m rather pleased, especially given the bulk of the entries were of the singer-songwriter variety – not unexpected, since you can’t beat a guitar and voice for expediency in sketching a song – so the fact that I multitracked and arranged a 3-minute pop song in an afternoon makes me feel pretty danged good.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/monitormix/2009/11/these_people_recorded_a_song_i_2.html