| December 02, 2002 Hello! For those of you who celebrated Thanksgiving, happy Thanksgiving a little late. For those of you who will be celebrating Christmas, Merry Christmas a little early. I am glad we are at the final month of 2002, it was a tough year for a lot of people and frankly, I am happy just to be able to update this months news. Still working on Replica, stay tuned! Maybe this month? Hope so but it is very hard getting things done during the busy holidays. You may have noticed towards the end of November I was asking for votes for The Snuff Pop Inc's Forum "Song Of The Month" contest on the main page. I am happy to announce that Static Space won the contest and actually broke the record for the number of votes it received! So, to those of you that voted, thanks a lot! This will generate a decent amount of exposure for Static Space and Dimension Zero. Many thanks to Ant of Snuff Pop Inc. for all of the promotion he has been doing for Dimension Zero. If you haven't checked out the music of Snuff Pop Inc., I highly recommend you click this link and check it out: See you soon and have a great holiday, Monty November 01, 2002 Hope everyone had a great Halloween! Unfortunately, Replica was delayed and didn't meet the Halloween deadline. All the parties were the weekend before anyway right? Sorry if this was an inconvenience to anyone but it will be published soon. Join the mailing list to be sent an email when it goes live on mp3.com. When a song is published, especially on the Internet, it could be around forever (hopefully :) ). So, I want to make sure it is the best I can make it. John Dante of Beat Audio added my Public Enemy remix to the Beat Audio playlist on October 04, and is using it in his DJ sets around the globe so you may hear the remix in a club near you. If you are into retro computer art and music I highly suggest checking out MindCandy Volume 1: PC Demos. It's a compilation of the early PC demo scene compiled on DVD. I wrote a post about it in the message area, click here to read it and find links how to purchase it. Dimension Zero's home base, mp3.com, was given a makeover. I really like the new pull-down menus and for the most part like the new look. I'm not really sold on the gold and black combo but it looks better than it did. mp3.com also divided its charts into streams and downloads. Since I am a firm believer in getting the music to anyone who will listen, Dimension Zero will be in both charts. Feel free to download all you want, burn the tracks to CDs, and give them to your friends. The Internet is a very, very good thing for the music scene. I'm not waiting for everyone else to figure this out, so the downloads stay on. Amazon will also be my home base for high quality (192kbs) downloads so expect to see Replica there as well in 192kbs quality. See you next month, Monty October 01, 2002 Ahh, it's October, I love the air this time of year. Hello. Well, as you can see from my Halloween banner ad at the front of the page, Replica will be published October 31st. So, come and download it Halloween morning, transfer it to your iPODs or burn it to a CD, and blast it at your Halloween party. If you are feeling extra giving this Halloween, download it, burn it to CD-R and give it to trick-or-treators and help spread the music of Dimension Zero. That would make my day. It will be fresh out of the studio. Static Space (Dark Matter Mix) however has been put on the back burner and will be released soon after Replica but not with it. I will be devoting all my attention this month to turning Replica into the best song I can. Dimension Zero was featured on the front page of Java Music on September 07. Thanks Java music! Dimension Zero was also accepted to be a part of the Snuff Pop Inc. forum last month which I am very happy about. The forum has only accepted 21 artists in two years and the talent found on the forum is excellent so I am happy to be a part of it. The SPI forum also promoted Dimension Zero at the top of the station with a banner ad (which they created) calling Static Space a Masterpiece. The SPI forum went out of their way again and got Dimension Zero airplay on NessRock radio. Thanks Ant! Not only is their station great, the music of Snuff Pop Inc rocks, I highly suggest checking it out by clicking here: That's it for the update this month. In closing I want to talk about the RIAA's multi-million dollar campaign featuring Britney Spears, Nelly, Sting, and many others. Their message is that downloading music off the Internet is stealing, and they want you to feel guilty. I'm sure many fans will cry that Britney is only making 25 million this year instead of 30, brilliant idea RIAA using millionaire celebrities to get the point across. Still, where is the legal equivalent of Napster so I can pay for Internet downloads? It's not MusicNet, and it's not PressPlay. I want entire catalogues, live performances, interviews, videos, no copy protection, and no monopolies. Everything I can get from p2p. You give me that, then I will pay. This TV campaign is just another example of how stupid the major labels are. They are focusing (and blowing millions) on copy protection and attempts to make their best customers feel guilty instead of providing us with a good legal alternative to purchase Internet music. They just don't get it. So, I encourage you to download even more music. Maybe if major label record sales drop 50% the majors will realize THEY NEED TO CHANGE THEIR BUSINESS MODELS. mp3.com can't sell major label music because the labels won't let them, Liquid Audio is almost out of business because the majors make them charge a few dollars for one download. Napster could have worked, but the majors stopped that too. They want total control. Today the Attorney General of Utah announced that these same major labels preaching to us about the evils of downloading are paying Utah residents 67 million in legal damages for illegally inflating the prices of CDs (Read the article). This is just the tip of the iceberg of how corrupt and immoral the major labels are. So really, whom is stealing from whom? Later, Monty September 02, 2002 Hope everyone is having a great labor day weekend. Right now I think I should be boating or something instead of writing this update. If you are reading this today, why aren't you outside? Well, this update won't take long. I plan on working on music all day long today which is always fun, though, not as much fun as boating sounds right now. My girlfriend and her best friend are celebrating their graduation from the University Of Utah by taking a cruise to Mexico this week. I took them to the airport at 4:30am this morning so not only do I really have the urge to be on a boat under the sun I am a little hazy from the lack of sleep. Anyway, on to the updates: Forget almost everything I said about my new song, Replica, last month. I scrapped everything I did last month, and started over. The whole Jazz/Industrial mix just wasn't working. I started from scratch, and only kept the lyrical ideas. However, this time, I am very happy with the results. If this song was written for commercial radio, I would be about 90% done with it. Work on it has been very fast, very smooth. I'm taking the demo to my vocal coach next week to work on the vocals to get them as good as I can do them. Though, the vocals are more about attitude than good singing chops. The song is following the musical path of Static Space. Pop-Industrial is probably the best way to describe it right now. The tempo is 131bpm, and it's by far the most aggressive song I have done. I'm taking live drum performances, and chopping them up. I'm taking electric guitar riffs, and making them as big and loud as I can. My only problem with this song is the "pop" part of it. It's too predictable, too mathematical, just like everything else on the radio right now. But, I am going to change that. Either through production, or through arrangement. If that doesn't work, I might just stick a wild instrumental at the end of the song. I'm trying to establish a balance between predictable but catchy pop, and un-predictable but still interesting soundscapes. I'm going to take the next month and a half trying to do this, and see what happens. I would say from this aspect, it's about 60% complete. My remix, Static Space (Dark Matter Mix) is about 25% done. I haven't given them equal attention like I had planned. But, either way, I plan on to publish both at the same time. My goal is to publish Replica and the remix on October 31. That's right, Halloween, my favorite holiday. I think the tone and subject mater of both songs will be good for the holiday. So, check back Halloween morning, download the songs to your iPODs and blast them for your friends at your Halloween party. They will be fresh out of the studio and perfect for a party. Leonid Kayumov, a professor of psychiatry at the university and director of the Sleep Research Laboratory at Toronto Western Hospital has found that EEG brain scan recordings converted into musical compositions in a computerized process -- sends sleepless patients to dreamland faster. I read about this on wired.com, you can read the article by clicking here. I also posted it on the Dimension Zero message boards in the general discussion area. Anyway, I found this fascinating and came up with this idea. Why not get my own EEG scan, convert it to a musical composition, and write a complete instrumental around this composition? I bet it would sound wild. The process creates a midi file, which I could easily import in to my recording software (Pro Tools). Since it's for treating people with Insomnia, I thought I would entitle the track Insomnia. But, I may come up with a better name. Anyway, I sent an email to Leonid yesterday about doing this, and I will let you know what I find out. Well. This has been an exciting month for Dimension Zero. Here is what has been going on outside of the new songs: A writer/director of B - horror films (my favorite kind) has asked to use Static Space in his new vampire film. He also asked me to score one of the scenes. He also has colleagues who regularly make B -horror films that are interested in using my music. Now, I don't know much about these people yet. Nothing is finalized, and the details of the film are still being worked out. So, something may happen, and nothing may happen. But, I am excited. I have always wanted to be involved with low budget horror films, and always wanted to be involved with film scoring, so, there you go. It could be a start. Sam Raimi made The Evil Dead about twenty years ago. A low budget horror movie favorite of mine. Now, he just made Spider Man, the most successful movie opening ever with Danny Elfman scoring. So, you just never know, gotta start somewhere. My long term career goals are to stop Dimension Zero in roughly 12 years and move on to full time film scoring and running the Liquid Records label. Static Space was featured on the front page of Gods Of Music (www.godsofmusic.com) for two weeks. Even when artists do get featured, it's usually only for a day or two. So, someone must really like me over there. Thanks GOM! Oh yes, I also added the new reviews section I was talking about last month. Click on the Press/Reviews link at the home page to read the God's Of Music Review along with others. Live In Excess is featured as the dance track of the day today on the well respected site, Garageband (www.garageband.com). It will only be featured today, but here is the link anyway: http://www.garageband.com/genre/dance Dimension Zero is also part of the 72 Free Music Downloads directory. It is a directory of free downloadable music from 72 of today's best independent artists. Take a chance and expose yourself to some cool, new sounds. You can download the free directory at www.bob-baker.com/freemusic Dimension Zero's momentum is constantly increasing thanks to you. Thank you for supporting my musical efforts and making all of this happen. I'm excited to see what the future brings. That's it for this month. Thanks for reading! Monty August 21,2002 I posted this in the message area, but I thought I would include it here as well: Vote on BET and support Public Enemy
and Dimension Zero! August 01, 2002 Another month gone, it's amazing how fast time can fly! Anyway, on to the updates: I have decided to change my strategy a bit to pick up the pace. Instead of publishing one song every four months, I have decided to publish two songs every four months. This means I plan to publish roughly an albums amount of material (12 songs) every two years. I think this pace will be perfect. Not too fast to inhibit the growth process, and not too slow to get in the way of my goals. I am alternating each day between the two songs, which gives me a pretty good balance. I think the songs will cross-influence each other a bit, and I am able to make more progress because I don't get bored. The songs will be published in pairs, which will be an improvement I think. The two songs I am working on right now, are, Static Space (Dark Matter Mix), and a new song, entitled Replica. The Static Space remix right now is a 150bpm trance influenced remix. I am pretty bored right now with a lot of electronic music, so hopefully I can get it to deviate from the classic trance song but still make it club friendly. I'm also not sure if 150bpm is the right tempo. The original song is 110bpm, and I used a program to speed up the vocals to match the 150bpm tempo and it sounds a little too fast. So, that probably will change. But, for right now, it's 150bpm. The second song, Replica, is 92bpm and is more of a jazz/blues/industrial track at the present. Replica is in its early stages, so it could turn into anything. Right now I am just working on the music and lyrics (no vocal melody yet). The music consists of live drum performances layered with industrial back beats, a guitar riff based a lot on the classic blues riff, and jazz male and female scat samples. The idea is to create a song that sounds positive, uplifting, and has a somewhat danceable beat, layered with negative undertones and lyrics. I want this song to be playable at a club, yet not be too commercial or generic. Actually, the lyrical concept is somewhat directed at clubbers. Right now I have a love/hate relationship with "mainstream" pop-rock music. I like how pleasing and generally acceptable a good pop/rock song is, but at the same time there is SO much of it, that sounds so similar in concept, it drives me insane. I am going to make this song somewhat pleasing, yet try to make it offer something unique and fresh. If I can do that or not is one thing, we shall see. As you can see from the description, mixing industrial with blues and jazz doesn't sound like what I have been doing in the past. I'm struggling with the concept as to what my sound is, and what I want it to be. For now, I look at it this way. If it's me doing the music, it has to sound like me to some extent. Even if I try to go wayyyy left, and then wayyy right, it will probably have a common thread in the sound whether I like it or not. I just hate it when bands try to do the same sound over and over. I own many albums that sound like 10 songs based on one concept, and that's boring. I understand the marketing behind this when you are selling an album, but that's the beauty of the Internet, download what you like, and don't what you hate. I will soon be adding a review page to my press area. Sites are emerging that review tracks, not albums, and that's a beautiful thing. I have two reviews of "Static Space" that I am going to publish soon, and am waiting on another one before I add the review section to the site. I have uploaded my music to the following foreign sites after stumbling across a web based language translator. I have noticed these foreign web sites don't list USA when asking where you are from, and they place Rap, Hip-Hop, R&B, and many others under a genre called: Black Music. Is that racist or what? Anyway. If you speak German, Spanish, Italian, or Portuguese please check out my page on the sites listed below and let me know if my translator really screwed something up. I'm sure it did. www.mp3.de (Germany), www.mp3.es (Spain), www.mp3.it (Italy), http://mp3.clix.pt (Portugal) Other than that, everything is going well and Dimension Zero is steadily gaining momentum. The only promotion I did for "Static Space" was email my mailing list, and the site got pretty good traffic from that getting 328 full listens and 1139 page views in July, and that’s just on the mp3.com page. “Static Space” has also been staying in the top ten in the Amazon downloads Goth/Dark rock genre, and doing well on many other sites. Not bad! Thanks for reading, see you in September! Monty
July 01, 2002 Four months since my last update. Whoops! It's only supposed to be one month. Some people thought I was dead, no, I am not dead. When I die, I will make sure my will gets someone to update my news page. :) The fact is, I didn't really have much to say so I waited until I did. I think I must have broken some sort of a record as to how long it takes to record and publish one song. Oh well, I'm happy with the results, it's finished, and in the whole scheme of things what's four months anyway, right? So, let's see... I just finished writing my mass email campaign announcing the new song, "Static Space." In the campaign I mentioned I have a news section so I thought I better right something current, so here I go. :) If you got the email message, some of this information will be redundant. Static Space is finished, finally. Expect a club remix within the new few months to be published (this time I really mean few months :) ). The remix will be called "Static Space (Dark Matter Mix)." An edit of my Public Enemy #1 Remix will be included on the Japanese release of the new Public Enemy album, Revolverlution, as a bonus track. The Japanese release will go on sale July 29th, and can be ordered from Amazon by clicking here Though Amazon doesn't say what the bonus track is, I have a publishing contract from Slam Jamz saying it's my remix so hopefully it is. If you aren't in Japan, the cost of the import is $32.99! There is talk about releasing a best of PE classic remixes on CD and Vinyl domestically, where the full version of my remix would be included. However, nothing has been confirmed about this so it's hard to say if it will happen or not. Dimension Zero is now a registered trademark (actually a service mark) in the USA. $400 and a year waiting is all it took. If you want to see it, go to www.uspto.gov, select "Trademarks" then click on go. Then, select "New User Form Search", in the search area, type in "Dimension Zero", click on submit query, and there you go. I now have 10 years of name protection (in the USA) and a nice gold certificate from the copyright office saying so. There is a Swedish metal band called Dimension Zero, and a few people have mailed me about it. The Swedish band is just a side project for everyone involved, and is mainly popular in Japan, AND it's Death Metal. So, it probably will never be a problem. But, I have been using this name since 1992 and wanted some legal protection should I ever need some. I find it pretty strange my first national release (my PE remix) ended up being released in Japan first! But, the remix is clearly not a melodic death metal remix. I added a message area to the site because I thought there were not enough message forums in this world and I wanted to add more! Actually, Dimension Zero originally had a message forum in 1992, so we now have come full circle! The reason why I added the forums were because of my "beta" song idea (click here to read about my "beta" song idea). But, I made some forums for fellow artists and for general chat just for the hell of it. Why not? Has anyone ever used EZBoard before? It's very difficult just to create *ONE* forum. So, if any of you are reading this that are from my BBS days (Dr. Faustus, Medicine Man, or anyone from the Dead Hackers Society) I welcome you to post a message in the forums just for old times sake. Come on Faustus, I want to see twenty pages of hehehehe's! :) "Get To You" made it to the quarter-finals on MakeAStar.com a month or so ago. There was a link up on the site for a week or so to go vote for it. It lost eventually but it was a fun two weeks! I have started taking singing lessons. If anyone ever wants to do something extremely embarrassing (and pay a lot for the privilege) I suggest doing this. I have only had three lessons so far (I have two a month) but they are EXTREMELY helpful. It made me think of my voice in a completely different way, as an instrument, with strings and with various places for sound to vibrate. I now understand what vocal technique really means, and how important it is. I think this will make me a better singer, hopefully it will. My teacher is a female Jazz singer (Melissa Pace) and she rocks! If you are ever in Salt Lake City, check out the Zanzibar, she performs there a lot with her Jazz band. It's down town, right next to Brewvies Cinema Pub. Next comes guitar lessons! Lets see, new images have been added to the image area, and...that's it. Expect an update around the first of August, I won't be slacking this time. Have a great 4th of July weekend! Peace out, Monty March 01, 2002 Hello! Well, what can I say. Static Space is still not finished. However, I promise to finish it this month even if I have to work on it during the nights and weekends. It's not that I have been low on ideas, or lazy. I just haven't had the time to work on it as much as I need to. I have about 4 minutes nailed down and I think the track will be about five and a half. I want to make sure it's the best I can possibly make it. So, this month I will make the time no matter what! I will complete the pre-published version of the song by the end of this month. After I finish a song I like to email it to a group of people to get their feedback before I publish it on mp3.com. This way, I can make final improvements to the mix and get a feel of what people think of it before I publish it rather than after :). So, it will be published on mp3.com early April for sure. If you would like to download the pre-published track at the end of this month and make suggestions to it send an email to info@dimensionzero.com . I will email you the download link which will be on my private web server rather than here on mp3.com. I would really appreciate your help! The more feedback the better I think. I just got back from the mp3.com ACE (Artist Community Event) in San Diego and it was amazing. I had a great time, met a lot of great people, and learned a lot. I think this is just the beginning of a great convention that is going to get huge over time and change peoples lives. Anyway, a fellow mp3.com artist, Joe E. Daddario (www.mp3.com/songman) was taking photos of the event and took a picture of me and my girlfriend Jennifer. Anyway, since you can see the mp3.com logo in the background I thought I would upload it to my artist page. So, if you click on the images tab you will find it there. Thanks for reading! Monty
February 08, 2002 7 Days late on the news this month. This pretty much represents how last month went. Busy, busy, busy. Unfortunately, not with music. As you have probably already noticed, Static Space still is not finished. I have been getting heat for taking so long on this track so I apologize. I have had to spend more time than normal lately with my job outside of music. Also, last month my car was totaled. It was parked in front of my house and was hit while I was asleep. It is strange to be woken up by the police and see your car, tree, and mailbox destroyed. It was caused by a young girl driving to high school who didn't de-fog her windows all the way but was still driving about 40mph. Luckily nobody was hurt and she had insurance. Anyway, the time I spent dealing with insurance companies, getting a replacement car, getting bids on the other items damaged, etc, probably could have been enough time to finish the song. Sure, I could have compensated by working late nights or weekends but I did not. Anyway, I will do everything I can to publish it this month but I won't make any promises :). Since January 3rd I have only spent about 4 days on it but things seem to be slowing down a bit now. The only major delay this month is I will be spending a week in San Diego for the mp3.com Artist Community Event. So, if you are going to ACE I will see you there! Today I signed a contract with www.musicrebellion.com to distribute my music through them. It's a paid download music site. The people there are very cool so you should check out the site. I hope it does well because the paid music download business is a difficult one. Last month I also signed a contract with the new Napster to distribute my music there. The new Napster is a subscription based service and it is currently in beta form. When it launches it will contain both major label and independent music. This is the first service to do this, and actually pays majors AND independents. I encourage you to sign up for the new service when it launches to help support the digital music revolution and your independent artists. Right now, there is absolutely now way (at least on a large level) to generate revenue for independent artists through on-line distribution. This has to change and can only with your support. Until next month! Monty
January 03, 2002 Happy new year! Finally, it's 2002. A lot of difficult times in 2001 and the new year always seems to give everyone a mental clean slate. I hope everyone had a great new year and Christmas. I think this new year is going to be a very exciting one. Well, you might have noticed that the main menu on my mp3 page changed a bit. I deleted the sections help and archive, and added a new section, press. I also added my email address to the main page so it's easier for people to contact me. The reason I added the press section, is because Mauricio Saravia of www.artistinterviews.com interviewed me and I wanted to make it available from here. So, if you want to read the interview click the press link on the main page. Mauricio is a very nice guy who is assisting with the launch of the new site and has also published two books, "The Odd Lot" in 1991 and "Esencia" in 1998. Artistinterviews.com has interviews of musicians, painters, writers, models, actors, anything art related. This year also marks the one year anniversary of the news section on www.dimensionzero.com. Because of this, I have archived last years news. So, if you are interested in what went on in the life of Dimension Zero last year check the archive section. Ok, so now the music update. Well, this is the last time I promise to finish a song during the holidays :). Though I made some great progress on "Static Space" it's not as close to finished as I had hoped. This is due to the fact that I took two weeks off doing absolutely nothing constructive (Snowboarding, Zelda 64, and visiting) and it felt great. Haven't had a vacation that long since high school. Anyway, I will be working on it a lot this month and I expect to have it finished by the end of the month. If you want to be emailed the day it's published I encourage you to sign up for my mailing list. Well, that's it I think. It feels like I am forgetting something...hmm...Oh yeah. I added a non-professional photo of me in Six Flags California and put it in the images section. Since a lot of people have been asking what I look like I just quickly uploaded that one. Eventually I will get some professional pictures taken. Anyway, thanks for reading and see you next month! Monty
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