||:Jared:||

My collaboration with FANG is live! FANG is a menswear brand (NYC) that observes and celebrates the contemporary male experience through their modern clothing line and I am honored that they choose 4 of my songs to represent their fall release. I am proud to be a part of their fall campaign and their sophisticated take on this world that we share. Check it out...!

Born in New York City and inherently cultured,  FANG is a menswear brand that observes and celebrates the contemporary male experience — the feeling of being masculine, feminine, and everything in between. Conventional men's clothing suggests either confinement or unshapeliness, almost something to hide; the FANG collections challenge this status quo by bringing forward fashion designs that are aesthetically-inclined and forward-thinking while simultaneously offering comfort and support for every body.

I have discovered Dolby Atmos and am hooked! Spatial audio has long been a dream and tv’s and consumer level speakers are starting to be Atmos compatible. Logic Pro 10.7 allows you to mix for Atmos and there are even rumors that VSX (a genius product by the team at Steven Slate) will be coming out with a Dolby Atmos mixing room. Oh, I so hope that this is true! 

Atoms = 9.1 surround sound. The 9 speakers are placed in specific locations surrounding the listener on each side as well as above and below which essentially drowns the listener in frequencies designed just by people like me! 

I mean it is Dolby and Apple! That alone is access to a vibrant enough community but when you start adding services like YouTube premium and Tidal into the mix, it is hard not to jump on board. Youtube alone is enough to convince me. 

To help ease my workflow, and learn from the masters, I often times hire a mixing and a mastering engineer. I have been super happy with the formula I have developed however I just sent my first mix off to Audio Animals to try out their Atmos mixing and mastering service. There are a few other rumors about an Atmos premastering service, however Audio Animals is the first team I have encountered with clear, concise, and affordable pricing options. Digging through their website I really enjoyed the a la’ carte approach for the various add ons. I however, went for the full mother load while screaming to an empty room..."give me all the add ons!" I look forward to receiving a full Atmos mix and master, a regular .wav stereo mix and master, mp3, and stems. Rather than a variety of stem configurations, I decided to get all the individual processed tracks, which is a killer option. That will give me the ability to create any stem configuration that I may need  down the road and is going to greatly enhance what I do! .

I am really looking forward to having some fun with Audio Animals. It sounds like they are open to creativity and creativity is what it is all about!

...stay tuned

:)

The pandemic has brought a couple of exciting projects into my life that I am grateful for. One of them being a collaboration with the Boise State Jazz Orchestra. Derek Ganong, their fearless leader, dreamed up a collaboration with the BSU jazz musicians and independent composers to create a unique collaboration involving mixed media. The idea was to approach big band music through the eyes of EDM. The challenge was that the piece, employing EDM techniques, needed to be able to be performed live. With social distancing protocols, this became difficult. The live performance had to be bagged and the focus shifted to recording a cd of the music to stream for the Gene Harris Jazz Festival.

However, with social distancing, even recording a cd with a jazz orchestra was a bit of a struggle. Players ended up recording their individual parts on their own and then submitting them for a final mix. Can you imagine adjusting intonation and tuning without having a full ensemble as a reference point? How about even working on groove? We see videos done this way all the time on YouTube and it takes actually going through the process to understand the hurdles one has to jump through to pull this off. I am glad I had Derek to work through this process with and am excited about the final outcome. 

I started the project wanting to re-envision one of my older pieces. The original version of Big Perm was always a tongue-in-cheek protocol in my eyes; a "finished sketch" of sorts. I thought this would be a great opportunity to see what new life I could squeeze out of an old project. I was surprised to see that, under the influence of this project, Big Perm became a whole new piece. Cry Baby is Big Perm re-envisioned. Cry Baby is the sibling to Big Perm with the same DNA seen through a blending of different perspectives. This is the power of collaboration that I love so much. Collaboration opens your eyes to new ideas and forces new experiences. For me, collaboration is the right hand to creativity.

So with that in mind, I am proud to share the Boise State Jazz Orchestra, under the direction of Derek Ganong, debuting Cry Baby as part of the Gene Harris Jazz Festival!

*click here for the SoundCloud Link*

Thanks Music-News.com for featuring the release of our brand new music video! Click here to check out the feature! 

"Project213 is an explosion of ideas. Thriving in a laboratory of instruments and embedded in a collection of odd circumstances, Jared Hallock’s eclectic approach to self-expression cascades his musical perspectives over punk and rock sensibilities. 

Last year's releases “Naughty Jenny” and “Shit’s so Cool” have solidified the group's multifarious approach, and “Bleed With Who?” further enhances their slightly-psychedelic perspectives. “Bleed With Who?” is a song about the death of your ego; a song about finally realizing that you are a pretty butterfly. 

Riding high on the momentum from last year's video release of “Naughty Jenny”, Project213 takes a bit of an artistic left turn and lands somewhere in between the minds of Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock. Their new music video for “Bleed With Who?” offers a visual and aural exploration of metamorphosis via blooming butterfly imagery juxtaposed over crunchy guitars, and pounding drums. 

Rather than a traditional narrative, the visuals for “Bleed with Who?” offer a moment in time when the subject of the song is busy decomposing into beautiful butterflies. A whole onslaught of these metaphors make their way from a shattered head and ride the breeze, rhythmically pulsing with life, onward. The story of both the video and the song is found in the direction of their flight, most whipped away on a breeze, with a few breaking away and forging a new path."

Thanks homies, oh and a special thanks to Ryan Donahue for the incredible artwork and digital design.

P.S. - Here is a lyric video if you prefer actually knowing the lyrics:).

Film festival season is upon us! But honestly, when isn't it film festival season? Not sure, but I did get the opportunity to work with the Lady Filmmakers Festival this year once again doing music for their Bumper Reel. Last year I was able to attend the festival, nestled in Beverly Hills 90210, CA, and was blown away by the films I saw as well as the associated art, music, and photography. They even let me performed on my vibraphone for one of the after-hour shindigs and this year I will be doing a performance via Skype! I gotta admit, I kinda look forward to not having to move my instrument to perform. These streaming performances could be my new jam.

...here is the bumper.

Oh DAYUM(!) I am excited to share the album cover for our new single, "Shit's so Cool". This time around I decided to collaborate with my good friend and bandmate, Ryan Donahue (Saint Monday, The Dirty Moogs). The photo below is what Ryan was given as "material to work with". I of course had to go get punched in the face first, bruise appropriately, and then pose. 

The song was originally titled "Sweet Hummingbird Food" because of the lyric that states "Girl, you're a tear on a cheek, sweet hummingbird food". I worried though that the title sounded a bit too "bluegrass" and actually misrepresented the flavor of the song. It didn't take me long to realize that if I work with an artist like Ryan, he would be able to visually represent that lyric, leaving me free to call the song by what I at one time considered as an alternative title, "Shit's so Cool".

So, the pic below is the final version for the cover of the single! I am so proud to have this represent my work! Thank you some much Ryan for your artistic insight! The single will be out soon and I can not wait to share it with the world!

Oh hey Ryan, "You're the only reason why all this shit's so cool"  *wink wink*

So this Covid-19 thing has been crazy, right? The whole experience has been so confusing, not knowing what to do and how to act appropriately in a world that changed overnight. Being stuck at home has forced me to finish a backlog of projects and clear my mind and reality in a way that only forced isolation can. I even caught myself cleaning all of my baseboards with Q-tips. 

It is weird being in my mid 40's and essentially grounded. 

Fortunately, technology has progressed in such a way that it allowed a collaboration with Apricott Films to come to life! This turned out to be a fun little project about the moment the world shut down. This short film taught me and the team how to push through some creative challenges and develop certain skill sets that weren't needed in our old reality. I am excited to carry these skills forward into whatever our new reality becomes.

Art adapts and grows. Art allows us to still be heard when the rest of life and the world are shut down. What were you doing when Covid-19 hit? Were you stuck anywhere? Did you survive the Toilet Paper Shortage of 2020? Can you relate to the three stories in this film...

It was fun writing the music and doing the sound design for this little gem. It helped me to stay connected to friends and kept me active in a time when activity was difficult to accomplish.

As a side note, the music in this film provides some insight into Project213's next release. It was used as thematic material allowing this film to be a glimpse into a moment in time we all shared while at the same time providing a taste of what's to come....from Project213.

The world of cryptocurrency and more specifically, blockchain technology, is opening the doors to so many exciting opportunities. It is starting to hit the music world and I couldn't be happier about that. For one, it should completely change the game of music publishing and artist rights. Blockchain technology is an intimidating topic and many people think of Bitcoin when they hear the term. What I am excited about is the changes it is making in the world of contracts. It allows for a decentralized ledger of agreements that can't be cheated. It is a self-checking, self-regulating, self-governing system that allows a layperson the ability to create contracts. Whether the contracts are for partial song rights or real estate, the basic premise is the same. For those of you a little more familiar with cryptocurrency, or those who want to dig deeper, the Etherium network is especially exciting and emerging as the go-to network for smart contracts.

Let's jump to the world of music. Are you familiar with Vezt? They refer to themselves as the "first music rights marketplace". A place where people like you and I can buy rights to songs and share in the earnings. In fact, I have bought rights to about 12 songs already and am excited to actually have access to some big-name artists like Beyonce. Here is a certificate for one that I bought not too long ago. 

Along with Queen B, I have bought rights to songs by Tone Loc, Johnny Cash, Billy Idol, Lil Wayne, Fergie, Missy Elliot, Machine Gun Kelly, Panic! At The Disco among several others. Contrary to what you might think, you can get started for as little as $5.00. 

How does it work? Vezt is on the Stellar blockchain which allows song rights owners to sell off portions of their rights for a specific period of time. So if we use the Beyonce example from the picture above, one of the songwriters on the track (Jonathan Myvett) is offering up 3.125% of the portion of his songwriting rights for 5 years and he is looking to raise $21,000. So if you have $5 to spend you can actually buy $5 worth of the 3.125% of the song that is available on the marketplace. And all of this is accounted for automatically on the Stellar network and the royalties you earn are deposited into your account quarterly.

Vezt guarantees that you will make your initial investment back (minus some transaction fees), but the idea is to make a little more than your initial investment. Basically I will earn my portion of the Beyonce song for the length of the term, which in this case is 5 years. Once I make my initial investment back, the rest is profit. If I never make my initial investment back in the 5 years, the term will be extended until I do. 

Not only is all of this an exciting and fun thing to be a part of, but it is helping to flush out my catalog and build a foundation for my publishing company, Jaycent Publishing. There will be a future blog post all about that but in the meantime, I am glad I have names like Lil Wayne on my publishing roster helping me to hedge my investment a bit. Thanks, Lil' Wayne and Beyonce for all your help!

It looks like Naughty Jenny is hitting the film festival circuit! I have always loved participating in film festivals and it is kind of the Colossal Cinematic Showcase to get the party started for Project213 this year. This particular showcase will be filled with a bunch of old friends and I look forward to spending the time with them, even if I have to wear a colossally cinematic facemask. Oh and speaking of festivals, I realized that I never expressed my gratitude to the Blow-up International Arthouse Festival for last year's inclusion of our experimental film, Nocturne ((psychosis)). Chicago plays a great host to the arthouse film community and it was an honor to be included. Check out the laurels to both festivals below, and I'll see ya at the movies.

Covid19 sure has caused some changes in the music industry. In my opinion, some of these changes are good and will hopefully remain a part of our musical landscape long after we have this virus under control. ArgosTV, and the streaming of "living room concerts" is one of the good changes. These unique concerts and performances allow us to see the intimate side of performers. They highlight that we are all human, sharing this existence from our homes and sharing the similar goal of just trying to find ways to connect with life and the situations we have grown accustomed to. I am thankful that Argos Productions has included me as a regular performer on their streaming service; a service that has rapidly become treasured by many other performers as well! For me, ArgosTV has become a way to show my inner world of music. It allows me to perform on instruments that are too big and burdensome to move around to different locations. It allows me to experiment with ideas and have access to a full studio of sounds and toys should I need some last-minute "alterations" to my sonic landscape. In short, ArgosTV is allowing me to express my creativity in a brand new way. I hope you follow Argos Productions and support ArgosTV...it is jam-packed with crazy inspiring stuff!