I finally got a chance to play DDR Universe 3 on the XBox 360 this past weekend. I have had a copy of the game since its release, but no XBox 360. Anyway, the game is quite impressive in terms of options and graphics. Our video is included with the song and it plays in HD. It's actually the highest quality version of our video I've ever viewed. I will say, it's kind of terrifying to see yourself in HD. Right after playing, we flipped the TV on and saw Amy Winehouse in HD and then I felt better about how I looked. Regardless, seeing the "30 Lives" video in such high quality was a real treat.
Anyway, if you have an XBox 360, the game is definitely pretty awesome and has a pretty extensive song list including The Jackson 5, Devo, and Jamiroquai.
Incidentally, the sales of the XBox and PS2 games with our song on it are very close to reaching 500,000! That's pretty amazing to us. We just officially found out that we are included in the DDR X Arcade game as well. It came out in Japan a few weeks ago and is scheduled for release in Europe and the US sometime this year. Hopefully, we'll be able to get some video of arcade and 360 play soon.
We received the very high honors of: "favorite mention of aine studio ops dept in liner notes / fave song list, fave disc list" on the very awesome local music show Boston Emissions.
A big thanks to PCWEI! We're not quite in the top 10, but we're in the honorable mentions, which is quite an impressive list. Awesome!
Honorable Mention - AC/DC, Ben Folds, Born Ruffians, Dr. Dog, Plants and Animals, The Motion Sick, The Felice Brothers, I’m From Barcelona, Kings of Leon, Miniature Tigers, The Rosebuds, The Tom Fun Orchestra, and Bon Iver (For Emma Forever Ago is on a lot of people’s lists this year, but it was on our 2007 list).
"Losing Altitude (instrumental)" is featured on the 8th 2008 episode of the TV show Roadtrip Nation. Skip to 20 minutes if you just want to see the part with the song...
Here is the awesome new music video from ajax rayovac for "love is a twisted melancholy disease"
If you keep your eyes open, you will notice The Motion Sick's very own Matthew Girard playing the trumpet. Mr. Rayovac may also be known to you all as the very talented fellow who led the charge on the Up-Up-Down-Dance Mix of "30 Lives," which is currently featured in Dance Dance Revolution.
Of course, you can still always buy a CD and forego worrying about specific digital formats, but Bandcamp is now selling our music in a wide range of formats including some lossless ones...
Matt and I had a fun time today recording an interview and song performance session with Michael Murie from Boston Music: Seen ( http://bostonmusicseen.com/ ). The show is a really cool Internet and local television segment integrating live performance and interview. Some live footage was recorded at our International Pop Overthrow show at Church last month and today we did some more recording in my kitchen. I'm particularly looking forward to seeing the outcome of our wacky two-person, (some might say) Wesley-Willis inspired performance of "30 Lives," which featured some new arrangement choices, but alas, no dancing. The episode should be out some time in the early months of next year.
The ever-awesome Ryan's Smashing Life has included us on his list of the best 20 albums of 2008 along with Portishead, Ben Folds, She and Him, The Kooks, and a bunch of other great artists!
We're a featured artist on Reverbnation this week! This means you may see us plastered all over Facebook plugins and stuff like that. Rock!
I know I've said it before, but I am really digging using Reverbnation. It has a lot of great features and integrates really well with other sites via widgets. You can actually listen to all of our music on there and we're using them for our mailing list now. They even split ad revenue with artists (50/50)!
This Friday, 11/21, The Motion Sick is taking part in the International Pop Overthrow. We'll be playing with a great set of local acts in a festival-style form: THE INTERNATIONAL POP OVERTHROW FESTIVAL 2008 (http://www.internationalpopoverthrow.com/) 8:30 - Henning Ohlenbusch (of School For The Dead) 9:00 - Salvatore Baglio 9:30 - The Motion Sick 10:00 - John Powhida International Airport 10:30 - Fireking 11:00 - The Doom Buggies 11:30 - 1.4.5. 21+ / $10
Otherwise, you'll be letting all of us voters in The Motion Sick make all of the nation's decisions. While it's true that we should be making the nation's rock, we're not so sure about the decisions...
After you vote, vote again, but this time, vote for us to make the rock: we're in the finals of the Pick the Band competition to open for Vampire Weekend and Black Kids at The Orpheum and voting has now opened!
So we're finalists in this Pick the Band contest. It seems like a pretty great thing. Pick the Band seems like a great idea. They bill it as the first fan-run record label. I guess then it makes sense that they want "fans" to pick the winning band in the contest. So, it will be an online voting thing with music videos, almost identical to the Coldplay contest we were in a while back.
It's tough because we've been in so many of these online voting contests and I am pretty sure that they're never really about whether a band is good or has actual fans. It's just more of a question of how many of your friends you can nag into voting. This doesn't always result in the "best" or even "better" bands winning. We were actually really glad to see our buds in The Luxury win the Coldplay contest and we hope that someone equally strong wins this contest.
We're participating and we're in the running for the prize (playing a show at The Orpheum with Black Kids and Vampire Weekend), but we're really quite burnt out on online voting contests. Let's see, there's been: SPIN Band of the Year (we were finalists on merit, but then lost in the online voting), Lollapalooza (we lost), SPIN Hot Pursuit (we got into the finals without doing any fan voting as an "editor's pick" and then we dropped out of the finals because we didn't want to sign the contract), WFNX Last Band Standing (again chosen as a pick bypassing the voting and then we won the whole thing), and the list could go on for paragraphs...
Reflecting back on these contests, I am reminded that we do very well based on merit, but not so well based on online voting. Why? We're just not so good at making people go out and vote for us. We feel sort of guilty and like we're taking up too much of their time and energy. In the past, we've gotten a lot of votes, even when we didn't win. We know that is because there are a lot of you that get some joy from getting behind us and helping us to succeed. We really do appreciate that and feel like you all contribute to the spirit of this band and of our successes. So, in a few days, voting will begin. We hope that you will support us at that time and we appreciate your help. However, we won't go crazy nagging you, so chances are, we will lose the contest. This will make us sad, but we will take comfort in knowing how much support we receive from all of you and that when judgment is based on merit alone, we usually do much better!
Influenza:
Artists playing the songs they deem most influential alongside their
own material. This night is presented by Aloud, Northeastern Performer
and Powderfinger Promotions.
