New to Soft Charisma? Don't know what you might be interested in hearing? This Review should help!

A month ago I was contacted by a guy in Alaska (of all places, not so much sun-light!) who needed some light in his life. He found that in the form of purchasing all three of my currently available albums:

• Life Inside The Robot Man (2008)
• Livin' In The Project (2007)
• The Lo-Fi Adventures (2007)

Now I don't actually think I brought him a lifetime full of light, but from his review, he seemed very inspired by what I've done with the Baritone Ukulele. From talking with him, he's also a poet / musician / song writer. I've decided to cover one or two of his songs in the upcoming Breakfast With Friends album due out in late 2009.

ANYWAY, check out his review of the three albums that I mailed him last month. I really feel this is dead-on, but I simply must learn to make julianne fries. Here's an excerpt from the introduction of his review.

From "Soft Charisma" by D'Mo:

The title of this post refers to an indie folk musical artist I've recently discovered and become quite a fan of. He plays baritone ukulele, sings and he can make julianne fries! Okay, that last one was a joke, but I'm going to review 3 of this artists albums in hoping that you, my loyal, non-existent readers may enjoy his music as well.

In other news..

I'm still recording Breakfast With Friends and am not sure when it will exactly be out. As of right now, it *could* be out late 2009. I hope not, because I like summertime release shows better! I need to reorganize the track list so it makes sense, right now it's just a list that I've been adding to for my own reference. I should also figure out a good stopping point to stop adding to it!

New Studio Setup, First New Song from Breakfast With Friends and other stats

First, I want to really thank everyone's response to the Life Inside The Robot Man release! Over 200 torrent downloads to-date, and I've been cleaned out of all 50 CDs that I had manufactured. Still countless other streams and downloads across the web contribute to an overwhelming appreciation that I have for everyone who has made this possible including:

• Ryan Ragus: The primary sound engineer for Life Inside The Robot Man
• Baron Gomez: Helped get Life Inside The Robot Man off the ground by contributing his sound engineering skills at the start of the album's production
• Justin Bonnet: Designed the Life Inside The Robot Man CD artwork
• Justin Houston: Recorded the very first High Fidelity tracks in Soft Charisma's entire history
• Daniel Candiotta: Provided his USB microphone to help keep Soft Charisma's music sounding as good as it could until the new Studio Setup was complete
• Andrew Savage: Sold me my first 4-track recording setup in or around 2002, which provided me a means to begin perfecting my sound and style

New Cover from Breakfast With Friends Available

With that said, the next few albums should have a great new sound that I've been developing. The first track I recorded just a day after my new Studio Setup arrived, is a cover of Over At The Frankenstein Place from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. You can hear it on the new T61 Soft Charisma profile located at www.thesixtyone.com/softcharisma. T61 (The Sixty One) is a new beta music discovery service that allows you to actively participate in finding new music and sharing it with other people. There has been a great response to what has been uploaded to the profile so far, and I'm definitely looking forward to the many great things to come to T61.

New Studio Setup

The new Studio Setup is complete and here's the breakdown of the operation:

• Pro Tools LE v7.4
• digidesign m-box 2
• Shure KSM27 Studio Condenser Microphone

Now this is a huge upgrade from a USB dynamic microphone! This setup was modeled after the setup that Ryan Ragus would bring over for late night recording binges to finish up Life Inside The Robot Man. So now I am free to record on my own schedule -- AND in my birthday suit I have to add! Okay so maybe the birthday suit thing might be a bit unnecessary, but being able to experiment on my own time makes things a lot easier and I don't feel as bad :-)

CD Release - Life Inside The Robot Man

The release was a big success -- on a small scale of course.

Release Stats:

• CDs: 46+
• Downloads (torrent): 75+
• Release Show Attendees: 45~ (estimated)

That's pretty good for a relatively unknown Soft Charisma. So if you haven't already gotten the CD and you're a digital kind of person, Soft Charisma endorses torrents of it's released albums. The last three are available for full download from The Pirate Bay and Demonoid.

Also, be on the lookout for the next album as it pieces together. Chocked full of covers, Breakfast With Friends will be a treat for anyone sharing a similar taste for music with Soft Charisma. Rough drafts of songs will start popping up as soon as I get enough money saved up for a condenser microphone.

CD Release Show - Life Inside The Robot Man

Soft Charisma has just scheduled the CD Release Show for Life Inside The Robot Man. The plan is to release the Album online in July, and on August 2nd have the CD Release Show at the Art Six Coffee House in Denton, TX. Most up-to-date show information is on the Shows page. Information about the album itself is on the Life Inside The Robot Man album information page.

Merch Ordered

Ordered 500 Stickers, 4 Medium T-Shirts (2 black, 2 white), and 25 CDs (10 Livin', 15 Lo-Fi).

Everything arrives late this week so let me know if you're weary of ordering online and I can get you a shirt or whatever you wish.

New Songs and T-Shirts Arrived!

I finally put up Think Of Happiness, after it's been sitting around waiting for you to hear it. The second new song is A Matter Of Fact which I finished this morning.

Also, the shirts arrived and I am amazed at the quality! You should consider getting one with your next paycheck. I'm ordering 10 more, so you can also purchase them directly from me if needed.

New Song, imeem, and T-Shirt Talk

Added the rough draft of the new song titled A Matter Of Fact. As usual, you will need a imeem account to listen to any Soft Charisma songs that are in progress. I will tell you now that if you sign up, you won't receive spam or open your wallet to the internet. It's free and won't bite you. I put finished tracks onto Last.fm where you can listen / download them without an account. The reason behind putting tracks onto imeem is to restrict access to a song and it's mp3 which may be updated a few times until it's completion. This prevents multiple versions of Soft Charisma tracks on the "internets".

I just ordered 5 shirts, in two separate orders; The first order will arrive this afternoon (I ordered 2 days ago), and the second order just shipped out this morning (I ordered last night). So you can say that I'm excited about this our new T-Shirt distributor, SpreadShirt.

Added Shows / Open Mic Nights

Finally put up the Shows and Events page. It has documentation on most events Soft Charisma has performed at. If you're wondering when Soft Charisma will play next, send a booking inquiry and request Soft Charisma to play at your venue / house / apartment or wait until the CD Release show coming alongside the upcoming Life Inside The Robot Man release.

Minor Tweaks

Updated the home page with new songs and information. It's now dynamic so I can easily manage it and keep you up-to-date directly from the home page on any progress. Also, updated the code on the site so it runs a bit smoother and added some minor design tweaks to the boxes and merch page.

Merch Added

Added some T-Shirts and CDs to the Merch area. Right now you can order the shirts direct from the distributor, SpreadShirt. I'm working on linking up the CDs so you can order those as well.