Monday, June 16, 2008
CORRECTION: L.A. Living will air Thursday, 5:30pm.
Just got back from the TV taping. They told me the show will now be airing on Thursday instead of Tuesday.
Maybe they wanted to watch the game, too. ;)
Monday, June 16, 2008
If you're in Los Angeles, check out KSCI Channel 18 on Tuesday at 5:30pm. I'm being interviewed by Bell Tsou on the chinese talk/variety show L.A. Living, along with my director from the "Sublingual" music video, Karen Lin. I'll also be performing a couple songs live in their studio and screening the music video.
And yeah, that's the same time as the Lakers game! So either set your TiVos for channel 18, plan to skip the first quarter or so, or just switch over during the commercials to watch me stuttering in chinese.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
My buddy Max just told me that he's been putting up his "unofficial" music videos for "Radiant" on YouTube. Shortly after I recorded the album last year, he started making these kind of random, often silly, music videos in his spare time, with the intention of making a music video for every song on the album (a la Beck). He's putting together a playlist, so people can access them all in one spot. So far he's done about half of them. You can check em out HERE
Clearly they're totally different in mood from my official music video (Sublingual), but they're a lot of fun and I love em.
Apparently, you never know when you're gonna hang out w/ Max and end up in a video. Here's who I recognize so far:
-Celeste (if you watch her long enough it looks like she's blinking in time w/ the song)
-Margaret(?)
-Bling Bling the Panda (star of Max's award-winning short from SDAFF)
Lookin forward to the rest!
"Chancho, when you are a man, sometimes you make music videos in your room... it's for fun."
- Max, aka Maximus aka The Mystery Parade aka Inkling aka half of the Saturday Afternoon Hungarian Lunch Club
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Really awesome post on channelAPA for the "Sublingual" music video, calling it "just what we need for APA Heritage Month." They were also cool enough to include shout-outs to Karen and Chop Suey, as well as mentioning AngryAsianMan.com and AliveNotDead.com:
Check it out here
According to their "About" link, channelAPA started up the day AZN Television shut down, and on less than $60. Hey, that's about how much I'm gonna be able to spend on my next album, so ain't nothin wrong with that!
When you're this indie, every show of solidarity counts for a lot... Thanks guys!
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Just wanted to announce that the music video for "Sublingual" has made its way online. You can watch it on YouTube here or check out a high quality version on my website here.
Big thanks to Phil at AngryAsianMan.com, Patrick and Mark at AliveNotDead.com, and my publicist Kim for helping to spread the word about our project!
For those of you who missed the screenings at my release party or at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, where it closed out the music video program, the video was directed by Karen Lin and shot at a historic Chinese restaurant in downtown called Chop Suey. The video was a big community effort, with costumes and props being donated from East West Players and Little Tokyo Service Center, as well as many generous friends and family members. But, of course, immense credit really remains with Karen, producer Jorge Agraz and the rest of our crew, who blessed the project with more skill, soul and just straight up raw ass-kicking power than I could possibly have imagined.
Be sure to watch for cameos by our editor Vincent Tsu (as a rich businessman) and my good friend, graphic designer and filmmaker Max Medina (making his auspicious screen debut with broom in hand).
If you're curious about the process of making the video, there are a ton of photos from the shoot on both my Facebook page and my AliveNotDead.com profile, taken by both Max and photographer Rachel Tejada.
As always, you can purchase "Sublingual" along with 9 other songs off "Radiant," my second full-length release, on iTunes, as well as eMusic, Rhapsody or Napster.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Thanks to everyone who showed up at the music video release party on Fri night. It was awesome getting to share it with you all. Unfortunately, the surprise performance only seemed to surprise around half of you; it's like you EXPECTED me to do something unexpected...
This weekend is also gonna be a big one for our music video, as it's having its official film festival "premiere" as part of "The Gift of Sound + Vision" music video program at the 24th Annual Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, organized by Grace Su. Grace not only oversees the music video program at the film festival, but she's also putting together the official afterparty at Libertine on Sunset, "NO NEED FOR EAR PLUGS!" (I'm not sure if that's the actual name of the show, or just like a mantra, but I'm seein it everywhere in all caps)
Grace invited me to do a set during the afterparty, along with Karin Anna Cheung and Big Phony. So those of you who were at Komuzika are already acquainted w/ all of us. Apparently, it's being hosted by Kathy Uyen... who was also at Komuzika. I know that kind of makes us sound like a little cartel. Or... a traveling circus. Oh, and there will be FREE BEER for the first hour. FREE BEER. It seems like whenever I do a show w/ free alcohol, my draw increases exponentially. Freakin alkies. The event should be called FREE BEER- NO NEED FOR EAR PLUGS!
Here's the info for the music video program at the film festival:
The Gift of Sound + Vision
Sat. May 3, 7:45pm
Directors Guild of America, Theater 2
7920 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90046
More info and ticket purchasing info can be found here
The Facebook event page for the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival
And here's the info for the afterparty:
NO NEED FOR EAR PLUGS!
Sat. May 3, 9:30pm
Libertine
8210 W. Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90046
The Facebook event page for NO NEED FOR EAR PLUGS!
Friday, April 11, 2008
Pretty big news that I've been holding back for a while... my new music video is finally FINISHED. Some of you have been seeing these random photos I've been posting up on my Facebook or MySpace or AliveNotDead profiles... they're all photos from our music video shoot back in December.
The story goes even further back than that, when I first contacted an incredibly talented music video producer-turned-director named Karen Lin, asking if she'd be down to discuss working together. Completely defying logic, she agreed. On reflection, I must've told some colorful lies to make her think I was someone who could live up to her high standards. Karen's worked with artists as diverse as John Legend, Death Cab For Cutie, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Stereophonics, and many more she's too modest to tell me about. The second big piece of the puzzle came in the form of the historic Chop Suey Cafe & Lounge in downtown L.A., where I'd previously organized our Komuzika nights. When Karen saw the restaurant, she fell in love and came up with a concept that no one (besides her) thought was even close to being in the realm of possibility on our shoestring budget. From there, the whole thing just kinda snowballed. I'm still in disbelief when I think about the stars that aligned before the morning her thirty-person crew rolled into that restaurant.
Anyway, if you wanna hear the whole story, you can ask Karen herself, or our producer Jorge, or Max (who made his screen acting debut with an apron and broom), or several other crew members, all of whom are going to be joining me at the restaurant that served as our music video location when we celebrate the release of the music video on Friday, April 25. We'll be screening the music video at 9pm in the restaurant. Also, I'll be selling some special edition CDs of my album "Radiant," all of which will include a couple really cool surprises with them (for those of you who were at the last Komuzika: no, I don't mean the Office Depot logo on them...:).
Here are the details:
"Sublingual"
Music Video Release Party
Friday April 25
Screening at 9pm, No Cover
Chop Suey Cafe & Lounge
347 East 1st Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012
A week after the release party, on Saturday, May 3, the music video will have its official film festival premiere at the 24th Annual Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival at the Director's Guild of America. Hopefully, that will be the first of several film festival stops it makes. You can find out more about the film festival screening and how to get tickets at festival.vconline.org. I'll be there (because there's nothing quite as funny as seeing your face on a big-ass screen) and hope to see you guys there as well. More information about the official film festival premiere will be coming soon.
Finally, as a reward for those of you who've actually been trying to figure out what all those strange objects were in the pictures I've been posting, I've uploaded a grip of photos that Max took during the first half of the music video shoot that should explain things. You can get a close-up view of what it was like to be in the middle of the shoot (and how much Max likes to take photos of props). You should be able to find these on most of my sites without having to poke around too much. In a week or so, I'll follow up with photos from a very gifted photographer, Rachel Tejada, who was there to scope out the second half of the shoot.
Looking forward to hanging out with you guys at the release party!!
Sunday, March 16, 2008
NEXT SHOW March 21
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Boston Progress Radio just posted the contents of my iPod and my mind. Well, in a way...
From the site: "Shuffled! is a new feature on BPRLive, in which we ask some of our favorite people on the scene to set their mp3 player of choice to random, and tell us about the first few songs that they hear."
My entry went live on the site today. Check it out here. And leave a comment to give 'em some positive reinforcement for continuing to support me!
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
I voted today. Then I ate chinese food. I think my fortune says it all:
For those who can't read the crappy photo my Razr took (probably everyone), it says: "Life is a series of choices. Today yours are good ones."
Monday, February 4, 2008
I've never made a political blog posting before, but here goes: everyone vote tomorrow. I'll try to keep this as short as possible, but I'm not sure how successful I'm gonna be.
For most of my life (indication #1 that I'm going to be unsuccessful in keeping this short), I've been pretty apathetic politically; I just shied away from it. But then our current president came into office by God knows how close of a call, and I realized that there was a reason why people always said every single vote counts: because every single vote counts. Ask yourself this, do you want this man to be making decisions for you and your friends and family? That article was from eight years ago, and now it's come back - thanks to the internet - and a lot of people are acting like it's the first time they've seen it. Well I said this eight years ago and actually had people defend him... now I'm saying it again, and I hope more people will agree with me this time around: no one who uses the term "gook" will ever, ever be fit to be my president.
On the positive side of things, there is some evidence that the terrible time we've been put through as a country may be on the wane, if we make the right choices. Although I'm still very jaded about politics, as I'm sure many, if not most, of you are, I personally believe change has really become unstoppable now. There are no guarantees that every promise will be delivered when the person to affect that change takes office, but let's give our hope a fighting chance. Isn't that the least we can do - vote with some measure of hopefulness? After all, that's the essence of what we're doing when we exercise our fundamental rights as citizens. There's a reason our Constitutional law is rich with cases detailing the battles to protect our right to vote: that reason is staring at you in the mirror.
My brother sent me a link today to this song. Even more inspiring to me than the video, though, was reading his process. It's a lesson about how artists can exercise true power by reaching beyond themselves and connecting with their audiences in pursuit of a common goal. The music industry - and even the so-called communities we often find ourselves in as independent artists - too often reward shallowness and self-centeredness. It's inspiring to see artists who have been successful give back by also using their influence for the greater good.
So please... get off your ass and vote. Not just tomorrow but whenever you have the opportunity to, because every single vote counts, and you better believe that includes yours.
Friday, January 11, 2007
Yes, those are rose petals on the runway. Here are a couple photos from last weekend, when I was playing at the Miss Los Angeles Chinatown Fashion Show. I think I was there to provide the male point of view, because I was the only one with a Y chromosome to step foot on the stage that day. At any rate, it was a great show. And I learned that Miss Chinatown contestants have to change really, really fast. Unfortunately, these photos don't give a sense of how huge and beautiful the ballroom was, so you'll have to take my word for it.
I didn't sell too many of my CDs, even though they were super limited-edition (from having been burned on my Mac at home and then sharpied on). Maybe Office Depot and charity fashion shows don't have the same target market.
Tuesday, January 1, 2007
Definitely one of the coolest things anyone gave me this holiday season. My pal Max always has something quirky up his sleeve... Thanks buddy.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Hey everyone,
In celebration of the holidays, I'm rolling out a little promotion for my friends and fans.
If you buy the entire album, "Radiant," on iTunes anytime between now and the end of December, I'll send you a link to download the complete production demos (in MP3 format) for the record, including a never-released song that I've never played or performed.
These are the raw, unmixed and unmastered demos with placeholder instrumental tracks, loops and keyboard sounds filling in for the real band. My bassist and drummer played along to these demos as scratch tracks during the recording of the album. Essentially, they're the "Radiant" worktapes. And like I said, you'll also get an eleventh song that wasn't included on the finished album.
As an extra bonus, I'm also including one of the unreleased versions of the album art to go along with the production demos that you can throw into iTunes. This was part of the original batch of album covers done by my graphic designer/creative cohort Max Medina.
Just email me at scott@scotttang.com with the date you purchased "Radiant" on iTunes (so I can verify it with my digital distribution accounting), and I'll send you the link to download the demos.
If you've already bought the album, just email me, and I'll send you the link.
Happy holidays, everyone!
Scott
Friday, December 7, 2007
The 2008 Annual Miss Los Angeles Chinatown Pageant is coming up right after the holidays, and along with that, the Charity Fashion Show, on Saturday, January 5. This year, I'll be doing my part to help out during the charity show by performing. Supposedly, a bunch of songs from "Radiant" are also being worked into the show somehow.
Here's the important part, though: the fashion show is to benefit two really great charities: Project Cuddle (www.projectcuddle.org), organized to stop the abandonment of babies (statistics indicate that nationwide, 57 babies are abandoned every day), and Living Grace (www.lgrace.org), a counseling organization for Chinese American families, communities and churches.
If you would like to help out, too, you can do so in one of these ways:
-monetary donations and sponsorships
-donations for the silent auction held just before the show
-support by placing an ad in the program book
-attend the show by purchasing a ticket
All this information and more can be found on a .PDF file I've uploaded to my server at:
www.scotttang.com/2008fashionshow.pdf
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Got word from my man Giles Li over at Boston Progress Radio that one of their staff reviewed "Radiant" as part of their Featured Artist series. What I dig about this review is that the writer clearly isn't a pop music listener, yet she still connected with the songs.
Anyway, reviews can be hard to come by for an indie artist (it's like finding money in your couch, except it's a $20 bill), so please leave a comment at the bottom of their page to show some love right back. Something like "Buy this album NOOOW!" will do, but, you know, feel free to improvise.
The full review can be found at http://www.bprlive.org/2007/12/03/featured-artist-scott-tang/ but here's an excerpt:
"This album may make you want to get into your car, blast the tracks and reminisce about past love or fantasize about new ones. It also reminds me of parts in old TVB Chinese television episodes where either a couple finally gets together after torturous years of keeping their love from each other (this is where a Scott Tang track would start playing), or the part when the couple breaks up but you know they still love each other so it makes you want to jump into the TV to tell them that there is still hope. Although pop albums are not my music of choice, I found “Radiant” to be refreshing at times and perhaps renews my hope that real love exists. Aside from the sometimes very cheesy (or maybe I’m just too jaded) lyrics that yearn for true love, listen to the awesome piano composition in the background. Some tracks to listen for on the album include “Olvera Street,” “Sublingual,” “Life With You,” and “For The Record.” But personally I would love to hear “Olvera Street” flipped into a hip-hop remix (Isn’t love always remixed anyway?)."
Thursday, November 30, 2007
Music dream (dreamnopodie?) No. 1
OK, last night I had a dream. Well, I have dreams all the time, but this one was about music, so I'll share it.
I dreamt I was walking around in a forest with my brother Jeff. It was the future. There were all these pianos everywhere. But - I guess, being the future - pianos were different than we think of them now: they were all sort of DJ pianos, electronic hybrid things with turntables on top and few working keys, if any. No one played real instruments anymore.
It was fall, and leaves were blowing around, and in the middle of the clearing, my brother and I saw the one piano that was different from all the rest. It was a huge, old black grand piano, and sitting at the bench was a man wrapped in what looked like black bandages. Even his mouth was covered. When he got up and left, Jeff and I looked at each other and walked over to the piano. He helped me prop the cover up - it seemed to unfold like some ancient secret - and I muttered, "let's take the top off this baby and see what she can do." (did I watch Top Gun last night or something?)
I started playing an old song. I didn't recognize the make of the piano - it wasn't a Steinway, like the ones I grew up on, but the keys looked like ivory: cracked and discolored, like those old pianos. Unbelievably, it was in tune, though the sound it gave off was kind of brittle and raspy. When I started singing, my voice was older, too, and full of little cracks, just like the keys.
As I was playing, the scenery changed (you know how dreams do that) and suddenly it was night, and we were in the parking lot of this strip mall, like the ones that are everywhere here. But we were still with the piano; it was like it had transported us. There was a homeless guy with suspenders holding a sign up nearby. I think when the Writer's Strike ended years and years ago, he had just never gone back to work. More and more people started coming around, old friends who hadn't heard a real piano played in ages. One of them somehow got talked into buying dinner for the homeless writer.
Even though it was like the middle of the night, this sort of budget Japanese restaurant was still open and we all shuffled in. The kid working there held up his fingers, like, "three?" I nodded. Wait, no. I shook my head. "four?" I nodded. No, wait. How many damn people were with us again? That's when I woke up. I guess my brain sensed I was trying to make it do math, and went, "zzz... *snort* what?? Math?!"
Theeee END.
Monday, November 26, 2007
So apparently there are a few used copies of my last album, "Late Night Drives," floating around on Amazon.com. One person is selling it for $4.95. That's cool; they bought it, they didn't like it or whatever, they're selling it for half off (or the story I prefer: someone's girlfriend bought it at a show, they had a big fight and in a jealous fit, the boyfriend stole it and threw it up on Amazon to make a quick few bucks). But what is with this person who is selling it for $39.98??
I wanna tell this guy, "Hey man, it's hard enough to sell my records for $10, good luck selling it for $40!"
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
They just gave me an "official artist profile" on the totally kick-ass Chinese social networking site AliveNotDead.com. This site was started by some filmmakers in Hong Kong along with a couple guys I used to train in wushu (Chinese martial arts) with. The awesome thing about it is that it was started by Chinese entertainment folks, and they've stayed truly artist-friendly by continuing to feature the blogs of people like Jet Li, Daniel Wu, Van Ness Wu, etc, while also supporting indie Asian-American artists, filmmakers, athletes and designers. I don't know where else you can find a place like that. Check out my profile at: www.alivenotdead.com/?scotttang and make your own while you're at it!
Monday, November 12, 2007
The first "official" review of "Radiant" is up on FR*A, courtesy of their senior editor (and apparently, resident air drummer), Eugene Kim. You can check it out at www.futurerockstarsofamerica.com or just go straight to the review here.
I also wanted to let you guys know I have a new artist page on Facebook for my music. They just started this thing called Facebook Pages, which is great for musicians, because it lets me put all my music stuff in one organized space and use my personal one more for things like throwing sheep at people. I haven't totally figured it out yet, but it does appear you can become by "fan" and add me to "your music." I don't know exactly what will happen if you do those things, but let's do it!
Finally, thanks a lot to Phil at AngryAsianMan.com for plugging "Radiant" on his awesome site. If you guys don't know about AAM, you're seriously missing out on the best site for Asian-American related news. I've always wanted to buy his "Nobody loves an Angry Asian Man" shirt, but I thought it would be better suited for someone who looked like he was ready to kick your ass (and most days, I just look I'm ready to go back to bed).
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Hey guys, I just wanted to send out a big thank you to everyone who's been supporting "Radiant" in the form of song dedications and song adds on Facebook. Check out how easy this is:
Just go down to the songs on my page and click "Add to profile" or "Dedicate." It takes one click!
If you really love the songs and wanna take them with you everywhere, click this one:
Also, if you happen to find yourself in Orlando, FL these days, go to JB Robinson Jewelers in The Florida Mall. You may hear my album playing in the store. Find this girl -
- and give her a high five! Because she bought my album, burned it onto a CD and is playing it in the store she works at! Score one for the East Coast... you rock, Joanna!
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Just wanted to throw a quick entry up to plug the photographer who worked with me recently to do photos for the new record, Joe Wu. If you're looking for a photographer, just ask yourself: do you love taking bad photos? If so, don't call Joe. But if you wanna work with like the Harry Potter of photography, his website is joewuphoto.com. Tell him Scott sent you (I dunno if that'll actually do anything, but you know, it just sounds like something I should say here. :)
Also, thanks to Boston Progress Radio (bprlive.org) for playing the new album and Eugene at FR*A for the shout-out. And everyone who's dedicating the songs or adding them to their profiles on Facebook... You guys are rockstars!
Finally, if you're buying the tracks on iTunes, feel free to gimme some love in the form of a customer review. Thanks!
Friday, October 19, 2007
Hey guys. Sorry for the long, long wait. My second album is finally done! For those of you who waited so long, I feel like I owe a bit of an explanation. So here it is, in one sentence (though a rambling one): I've been really, really busy with my non-musical life and I self-produced this record, which took much longer because I had so much more time to fuss over it. I think it was worth the wait, though, and I hope you do, too!
You can buy "Radiant" through iTunes, eMusic, Rhapsody and Napster, and you can even get ringtones at GroupieTunes. I've also uploaded several of my sites with streaming versions of the songs, and on the ones that would let me, I uploaded the whole damn record, so you can listen to every single track (I even threw the lyrics up this time).
In addition to my official site (scotttang.com), you can now also find me on iLike, so if you're on Facebook, you can add my songs to your profile and help spread the gospel of Asian-American indie music! I'm also on some really cool new artist-friendly social networking sites, like Virb.com, HumbleVoice.com, and AliveNotDead.com. Of course, I'm also on Myspace and Facebook, so you can hit me up there, too.
Take care and enjoy the new music!
