You all thought we’d disappeared, right? My bandmates have been abroad in various other countries (probably catching a variety of stomach bugs) and since I’ve had a few stalkers - er, fans - complaining about the lack of new tunebacks, I whipped one up today.

This is a song for people who take a stand against the ignorant world hegemony and tell ‘em all where to go. Treehugger is a website that has become one of my most-read examples of this lately.

I did this one alone, and since I haven’t written a tuneback in a while, did so rather experimentally. Brace yourselves.

Download it here.

Take a Stand

Gonna take a stand against so-called society today
Gonna raise a family in my own way
And all of you in suits, white, black and grey
Sit in the past and there you can stay

Gonna take a stand against you racists today
You’ve got your pure families and your hateful ways
All you skinheads and far-right conservatives (what’s the difference?)
Make the world a better place and stay in yesterday

If I could leave you there in yesterday,
If I could just wipe you all away,
If I could give society a chance to heal itself
If they’d ignore your lies for just a day

For just a day, for a lifetime,
Take a stand against injustice’s hand
For just a moment, for all time,
Take a stand, just take a stand

Gonna take a stand against you redneck oil barons
Gonna take a stand against your suicidal ways
Don’t you know you’re killing your grandchildren?
Don’t you know you’re taking yourself with ‘ em?

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. Send it your friends or leave a copy on the moon, remix it, rewrite it, add video to it - it’s yours.

Endlessly Resurrected’s lyrics, written by my songwriting partner NDK Creative Artist, were inspired by the story of Kurt Cobain and the music industry’s vulture-like desire to drip every cent dry from him and his family after his death (not even touching on before!). I wrote the music to this tuneback, and here you have the result, done in under the hour allowed for both lyrics and music, Endlessly Resurrected.

A bit of trivia, the eery intro at the start of the song was created using a stripped battery rubbed against guitar strings.

Download Endlessly Resurrected.

Well now I’m dead, but still alive
(Alive in your minds)
(Live on your radio)
(Live on your video)
Endlessly reincarnated
Until you turn me off
A legend in your minds
A legend of our times
It’s not what I wanted
I wanted to live
I wanted to give you more
Now I’m dead, and everybody’s cashin’ in
On my life
On my life I never knew
Just what you’d do to me

Everyone wants to see us die
Give us our daily immortality
Steal our daily bread
Everyone wants to see us die
Apparently, we’re better off dead

Cashin’ in, on the Cobain money train
Cashin’ in, on my life
The Cobain money train
Cashin’ in
On my life
The Cobain money train

Everyone wants to see us die
Give us our daily immortality
Steal our daily bread
Everyone wants to see us die
Apparently, we’re better off dead

Endlessly resurrected
The train wreck of my life
Living on, now I’m in a song
Is anyone focusing on what went wrong?

Everyone wants to see us die
Give us our daily immortality
Steal our daily bread
Everyone wants to see us die
Apparently, we’re better off dead

Download Endlessly Resurrected.

9 Zeroes is a song about integrity. The lyrics to this song were written by NDK Creative Artist, and I handled the music. NDK took 20 minutes to slap the words together and it took me another 45 minutes to throw in some music, but I think spending 5 minutes over the Tuneback time limit is fair enough since this was a transoceanic endeavor (with NDK in New Zealand and myself in Australia)!

This song was inspired as NDK and I read an article online together about the plight of Jammie Thomas at Ars Technica by Eric Bangeman. The RIAA had demanded $220,000 in damages from a mother who inadvertently shared 24 songs on KaZaA–despite the fact that the industry lost less than $100 because of her actions and the fact that Jammie Thomas could not repay that amount of money in any reasonable stretch of time. Such an amount of course is only intended to attract international attention and part of the intimidation that characterises everything the RIAA are becoming famous for.

And before pen hit paper (or fingers hitting keys, really), the sale of Skype to eBay came up in our discussion about corporate integrity. eBay bought Skype from Zennstrom for $4,000,000,000, even though both sides knew it was overpriced. It struck NDK that 9 Zeroes is a powerful temptation to give up your principles for.

And hence the title, 9 Zeroes, a song about integrity, about saying no to the immoral excesses of American capitalism today.

Click to download 9 Zeroes (MP3).

9 Zeroes
Lyrics by NDK Creative Artist and music by Joel Falconer

Look 9 Zeroes in the face and say “No, no-no, no!”
But that’s not the American Way
That’s not capitalism today
Take the money and run, run, run from the shadows
that will take up residence in your heart
And try to buy your happiness
When you just gave it away, for 9 zeroes
Look 9 Zeroes in the face and say “No, no-no, no!”
Look 9 Zeroes in the face and say “No, no-no, no!”

Pump out the model as fast as fuck
All we gotta do is make a fast buck
Shit man, how come we’re outta luck?

The artists lost the business they created
But they can create it again
Just look to Prince, look to Janis and Radiohead
Look to Korn, well you only gotta listen to know they’re not dead-in-the-head!

Look 9 Zeroes in the face and say “No, no-no, no!”
But that’s not the American Way
That’s not capitalism today
Take the money and run, run, run from the shadows
that will take up residence in your heart
And try to buy your happiness
When you just gave it away, for 9 zeroes
Look 9 Zeroes in the face and say “No, no-no, no!”
Look 9 Zeroes in the face and say “No, no-no, no!”

They’re not going to Creative Gitmo
They just getting on with the business
Doing business on their own terms
So what do we learn?

Look 9 Zeroes in the face and say “No, no-no, no!”
But that’s not the American Way
That’s not capitalism today
Take the money and run, run, run from the shadows
that will take up residence in your heart
And try to buy your happiness
When you just gave it away, for 9 zeroes
Look 9 Zeroes in the face and say “No, no-no, no!”
Look 9 Zeroes in the face and say “No, no-no, no! No, no-no, no! No, no-no, no! No, no-no, no! No, no-no, no!

….Okay, make it ten and we’ll talk.

Click to download 9 Zeroes (MP3).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

A few hours ago, Al Gore, the real American president and an inspiration path-forger, won the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway. NDK Creative Artist, Greg Cameron and I recently wrote a tuneback celebrating his work, Fallen out of love with politics. It is my belief that the single most horrific scam of the new millennia thus far was the stolen election that Al Gore should have won. The charlatan and cheat George Bush has screwed America, and the rest of our countries with it.

And in stark contrast, if our favorite Nobel Peace Prize winner was running the show, we would be stepping away from the brink of worldwide environmental catastrophe and focusing our energies on repairing the destruction of our own making, rather than fighting a war about something as petty as oil.

Mr Gore, you are American by blood, yet not American at all. I applaud you for that.

Eastern Standard Tribe is a tuneback based on a book I just finished reading for the second time: Cory Doctorow’s Eastern Standard Tribe (yes, it’s the same name). I haven’t written a tuneback in a couple of weeks and love basing them on Cory’s work, so I decided that it was a good way to get back into it. It can be a hard job finding inspiration for songs in the ‘blogosphere’, as the tuneback guidelines recommend, but Cory’s fiction has always spoken to me lyrically and prodded musical ideas.

This is the third time I’ve written a tuneback based on Cory’s work and from the outside it probably looks like sheer fanboyism. While I’m a huge fan, I think it’s more the fact that the ideas and concepts in Cory’s work mesh with the musical concepts I want to create - even if, in this setting, I have to portray them in an hour or less. This song was a close cut, but I made it.

Eastern Standard Tribe is a song that broaches what I took as two of the main concepts from the book: the question Cory poses at the start, as the theme of the book, would you rather be smart or happy? and the betrayal of the intellectual that occurs when Art’s closest, most trusted friends turn on him for his ideas. This happens to artists of all kinds, all the time. Artists are preyed upon and thrown to the side when they have been used up, without a penny to send them on their way. It’s a topic I feel rather strongly about and which we regularly write about at the Free Articulator.

I started with the guitar on the song, crafting the almost-reggae sound and rhythm with the atmospheric delay, before putting together the lyrics and arrangement. It took me 58 minutes to put together, and though I was tempted to keep polishing and do a few more takes, I obeyed the rules, which is not always easy.

DOWNLOAD “EASTERN STANDARD TRIBE” HERE

What is the theme of this story?
What is the theme of life?
Do you want to be smart? Do you want to be remembered?
Do you want to be happy? Do you want to be content?
If you want to be smart gotta be unhappy
If you want to be happy gotta live in ignorant bliss
If you want to be remembered gotta go down in flames
If you want to be content you ain’t gonna be missed

Doesn’t matter where or when you are, doesn’t matter who or why
These lines are blurring between you and I
Hometime replaced hometown and nobody means to pry
In Eastern Standard Time, for the Eastern Standard Tribe

You can measure intelligence by the quality of your ideas
And when you got ideas you’ll get dogs waiting for scraps by your side
As soon as you ain’t looking, they’re gonna take all that’s yours
Your dogs are gonna leave you hung out to dry
Maybe in a looney bin, or maybe just dead, but someday you’ll discover
That all the pain and suffering could have been stopped in your head

Doesn’t matter where or when you are, doesn’t matter who or why
These lines are blurring between you and I
Hometime replaced hometown and nobody means to pry
In Eastern Standard Time, for the Eastern Standard Tribe

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

Mimi & Teft were the first artists outside of Midnight.Haulkerton to start writing tunebacks. They’ve just released their second, Electric Core, after the success of their first stunning tuneback, Delicious. Go have a listen. I look forward to hearing more from you guys!

On a more visual note, a guy called Jayson has used the remix tracks for Overclocked to create a soundtrack for his cycling video - take a look. Creative Commons licensing means folks can do stuff like this with our tunebacks without fear of legal retribution.

Greg and I recorded the latest tuneback tonight. Couldn’t tell you if it’s about a Buddhist koan, a Hollywood prostitute or something in between, but at some point we discussed both. So here it is. Our sense of humor is probably not from this planet.

I don’t know what’s going on in your mind
All I need to know is what’s in mine
Lust and love
Live and let live

I saw you standing there
Waiting for me, I don’t care
What’s yours is yours
What’s mine is mine

Own your words, cos I’ll only own mine
You can keep it baby, oh this time
Cos in Hollywood your skin’s worth more than your time
And I’m payin’ double-time

I saw you standing there
Waiting for me, I don’t care
What’s yours is yours
What’s mine is mine

Download Waiting For Me.

I don’t know that there’s much I can say for this song that this song doesn’t say for itself. Listen to it here.

As the dying mistress walks upon
Shells shattered by sands of time
She remembers the day when she
Misplaced her memories with mine

As the dying mistress lay upon
A bed of silk from India surrounded by
Candles with flames that mourn the day she
Remembers the lover that gifted her with the guilt
That still leaves tears in that unchanged stretch,
The sands of time on the beach of life

Al Gore, the man who should have been the President of the United States, said the words that embody the way the world feels: “I’ve fallen out of love with politics.” This song was inspired by those words that ring so true and is dedicated to the man who, even out of office, has set an example of what a politician should be. He has proven himself to be a skilled diplomat, passionate about the things that really matter, little things like the survival of the human species and all life on this planet, the home we share with so many other life forms.

We love the line he spoke in the interview about the Live Earth concerts. And this tuneback pays tribute to that immortal line that captures how we all feel about these lunatics that pretend to be running this planet on our behalf.

This tuneback was not written by me, though I wish these words were mine and find myself agreeing with them on every level. The lyrics were written by my talented friend NDK Creative Artist, and the music by Midnight.Haulkerton’s new guitarist, Greg Cameron. This was his first tuneback and he did an excellent job.

Listen to the song here.

I’ve fallen out of love with politics
Fallen out of love with the system that’s failed us all
Brought us to the brink of destruction
Brought us to the brink of extinction
Arrogance, oh arrogance
Focus on the task
Work without a mask
And deliver the goods
Get the job done anyway
Cos I’ve fallen out of love

Fallen
Fallen
Fallen
Out of love with politics!

Now politics is famous for getting nothing done
So I’ve found a new way
Dawn the new day
Cos one man can make a difference
One man can be all the politics you need
So here’s a new example
A man who wouldn’t have gone to war
He’s done a lot more
Though the job’s not done
Thank you, Al Gore

Fallen
Fallen
Fallen out of love
With politics!

The Free Articulator has been a long time coming.

In fact, since I took up my position as the Editor-in-Chief of this publication, I’ve had a child, graduated high school and gotten married (all in that order, by the way).

So I guess you can see why it took us so long–that is, apart from the universe practically working against us to prevent this publication from coming into place.

Many times, I have wondered why every time we made progress, we fell back so far. Over the course of the years I’ve come to realize that those things that are good and worthy of attention and effort, projects intended to improve upon the state of this culture, face more resistance than any other endeavor. I’ve also come to realize what I now accept as a vital fact of life, purpose and fulfillment: that which is worth doing is always difficult.

We have had so much difficulty putting this together that many times, we almost gave up. But we never did. We know that the system sends good people down the wrong path. We know that this must be changed. Hence, the Free Articulator is here to serve.

It is to serve all who would use their creative skills to advance the cause of all that is good, just and positive. Those that would take a stand against the status quo and give the world the one-fingered salute in the fight for a culture that is good to its people and an art & entertainment industry that Creative Artists of all types can trust.

We’ve evolved. In 2002, NDK Creative Artist and Allforart Ltd conceived of the Free Articulator as an e-zine that would be published once every two months. Up until a few weeks ago, this was still the plan, until I had a simple realization: the periodical is a construct based on the limitations of time, technology, and economics. We now have the means to deliver content using a much more powerful format without incurring huge cost.

The ‘blog’ as it’s widely known is an incredibly powerful communication tool–depending on whose hands it is in, of course–and though rarely used to its full potential, we realized how it could serve readers so much better than the traditional periodical magazine format. So here you have it; updates every few days, rather than one big info-dump every few months.

We’re starting off with the Creative Artists Declaration of Creative Independence, a powerful piece of writing by NDK Creative Artist that I hope you’ll enjoy and give much thought to. Please see the FAQ on our reprint policy because we’d love to see this piece of work enjoyed by many around the web; not for the gain of exposure, but for the cause of artistic independence.

In the coming weeks and months you’ll see the fruits of years of hard work put into our State of Culture study and review, a hard, objective look at the culture and civilization we live in and what needs to be done to rectify its pitiful state. Including some insightful analysis into the history of art that helped the powerful to bring about the sorry state of affairs that now faces mankind and human civilization.

You’ll also find many tips and in-depth how-to articles for Creative Artists on their craft, forging a career as an independent, income-earning artist and a series on Intellectual Property for Artists, among other insights into computing and humor. Be sure to check out your creative astrological indicators for “insight” and guidance, or just a good rip-roaring laugh.

In fact, you’ll find so much great information hear you’d be crazy to miss it, so why not subscribe by email and be the first to receive new information? The Free Articulator provides information and expertise you will not be able to find anywhere else, no matter how hard you look or how much you pay.

I promise you that the Free Articulator will not back down nor stop until we have met our goals, and neither will I.

Visit the Free Articulator.

Thanks to Colin Wright, we have a great new remix of our song Overclocked, which we wrote based on Cory Doctorow’s story collection of the same name.

Download the new mix here.
Listen to the original here.

Want to make your own remix? Grab the files here.

Midnight.Haulkerton dedicated our last Tuneback, Copyfight, to the work of Professor Lawrence Lessig. However, upon reflection and consideration, we felt the lyrics did not do the depth, extent, and great importance of Professor Lessig’s work justice.

This song was written by myself and my friend, and (in my opinion) one of the world’s greatest songwriters, NDK Creative Artist. The backing vocals on this song are the work of my wife, Isabelle Falconer.

“Creative Commons for the Common Man” is a song that celebrates the alternative choices Professor Lessig has given creators, the freedom he has given consumers and the work he has done to show the world that there is a better way.

This is a song that is, of course, licensed under Creative Commons, completely and utterly DRM-free, and you are welcome to recycle, reuse, remix, and share this song as much as you want without fear of legal retribution.

Download Creative Commons for the Common Man here.
Read the lyrics here.

If you’re unfamiliar with Professor Lessig and his work, check out his site and Creative Commons.

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.