...and now, a word of sponsorship.

Man, it's been a while since I've posted something besides free music. Anyways, the order of business today is greeting cards. Now, you may have already purchased cards to send to your families, friends, coworkers and the like. I understand that I'm posting this a bit too late for this holiday season, but I'd still like to get this out there. I'm writing this to support Guatemala Greetings, a maker of handmade greeting cards based in the town of Magdalena, Guatemala. Magdalena has a very special place in my heart. I've gone on two mission trips there already and am currently fundraising for a third. I work in the field of micro-finance there, and Guatemala Greetings is a program which we work with. By purchasing greeting cards from Guatemala Greetings, you are supporting families in one of my favorite towns on earth, providing employment to women from low income households as well as funding a pediatric clinic. The cards are somewhat expensive, but in my opinion the benefits far outweigh the price.

This is what charity looks like.

Please visit their website at here. The link will open in a new window.

Guitarman out.


PS: If you're curious about the work the Students International micro-finance team does in the town of Magdalena, head over to the site leader's blog for more information. Again, the link opens in a new window. There's even pictures of me on there.

I'm baaaaaaaaack. With free stuff. Again.

Well, it's been a while since I've posted anything. Life has kept me pretty busy lately, what with school projects, teaching myself Japanese for no legitimate reason, working on my eagle project, and fundraising for my third mission trip to Guatemala. Needless to say, I'm glad that school is canceled today as a result of heavy snow. I now actually have time to post more stuff. Huzzah. Anyways, on with the free stuff:



This is without a doubt one of the greatest free album I have ever encountered. That's saying something, because I sift through quite a lot of the stuff. Hailing from Sweden, Machinae Supremacy incorporates a SidStation into heavy metal music. A SidStation is a type of musical synthesizer sound module which uses SID chips from the ancient Commodore 64 computer's sound system. Basically, it's a device for making chiptune music. This seems like an oddball choice for a metal band, but it fits in seamlessly with the band's sound. Machinae Supremacy's latest work, Rise of a Digital Nation, was featured by the band on The Pirate Bay. For those of you who don't know, The Pirate Bay is a controversial Swedish website which is a notorious den of internet piracy. That's a rather bold move, to officially release your latest album on one of the most well-known centers of illegal activity on the internet. Whatever floats their boat, I suppose. Anyways, head over to The Pirate Bay to pick up this album. And while you're there, PLEASE don't pirate anything. I don't want to condone that sort of behavior, and don't want to be dragged into a court of law over something like that. Don't get me in trouble people! XD

Anyways, here's the album webpage: http://www.riseofadigitalnation.com/
Here's the band's webpage: http://machinaesupremacy.com/
Here's the webpage for SidStations: http://www.elektron.se/products/sidstation

I'll post again soon this time. I promise.

Guitarman, out.


PS: I have no idea how to embed a Soundcloud player that starts automatically, so I've left up the previous Radio of the Guitarman album. Sorry about that, but it shouldn't be too much of an inconvenience.

The name is misleading

Well, it's been a while since I posted something new, so here goes. This is the last artist from that music dump I promised but that never really materialized. This time, it's one hell of a misnomer.

Brad Sucks (name of the band, not my opinion) is a bit of an oddity. From listening to them, one could hardly guess that the "band" consists of one man who is responsible for all the songwriting, lyrics, performance  and recording. That's pretty freaking impressive in and of itself, but Brad Sucks has value beyond the novelty afforded it by its lack of other members. Stylistically, the band creates a strange hybrid of indie rock, electronica, and punk that in my opinion actually works quite well. The lyrics are one of the strong points here, with their sly wit and self-depreciating humor. The only flaw to be found is with the recording quality of the first album. When played at a decent volume, the treble from the distorted guitars on tracks like "Bad Attraction" can quickly induce rather severe headaches. That being said, that track I mentioned is still one of my favorites. Headaches alone can't stop me from listening to music of such high quality.

Royalty-free music for professional licensing

It is worth noting that all music by Brad Sucks, including the individual instrument tracks from his recordings, is available from his website free of charge. Here's a link: http://www.bradsucks.net/

PLEASE ignore the first track

Seriously. Judging this album by its bizarre first track would be a massive mistake. Oh, and before I forget, this post is a continuation of the music dump I promised back in July but never actually delivered. This would be the second of the three bands I said I would feature. Now that we've got that out of the way...

Royalty-free music for professional licensing

Cool Cavemen is a French funk-rock fusion group that, on their latest album "Multipolar", decided to dabble in a little funk-metal as well. The production values are high, the rhythms are contagious, the lyrics are hilarious. I simply cannot recommend this band highly enough. That's why I will be very disappointed if you judge them by the uber-silly first track of the posted album. I might even be upset enough to hunt you down and bludgeon you with a giraffe. I wouldn't actually be able to do that, but I might be upset enough to want to. But I digress.

There's just a few things I need to get out in closing. First: Cool Cavemen has bilingual French and English vocals, though they won't usually have both on a song. It's one or the other. Second: this album, just like most things on this blog, can be downloaded free of charge, courtesy of the artist. (There's a button marked "download" on the player. It's not rocket science people!)

Well, that's it for the second part of the music dump. In a few days (depending on my internet) I should have the third part up as well. Until then!