Josiah Tobin’s Projects

I just bought my dream guitar on Tuesday. Yes, another purchase this soon after that new bass– this is the last, though. I swear. No really, stop laughing.

Awhile ago I was hanging around Parksville with Seth (my main musical co-conspirator), and he mentioned that there was this white Telecaster knockoff (Peavey Reactor, U.S-made) sitting in a local pawn shop, in so-so cosmetic shape and modded out with a Hot Rails mini humbucker in the bridge– turned out to actually be a SD Little ‘59 mini humbucker, but that’s even better as far as I’m concerned. So we went in there, I took a look at it, and decided I simply could not risk playing it for fear of becoming completely captivated and making an extremely unwise impulse buy.

…Yeah, that didn’t hold for long, and some time later I had to go in there again and play it… LOVE. That was it. So began the age-old tale of a young guitarist fawning over a beat-up old Tele in a pawn shop– you know, that one hanging in the corner that no one ever buys. The clichés of my actions actually didn’t hit me until after the fact. I swear, I felt exactly like Koyuki from Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad. (Wait, I don’t watch much anime. How’d I let that one slip out? Slip Out– Get it? Steeerike TWO)

So after another week or two of staring, obsessing, and feverish debating with myself, I ended up taking it home. It was priced at $299, but I convinced him to let it go for $270– he wouldn’t take 250, even though these guitars apparently go for about $150 nowadays, stock. Oh well. I would’ve gladly paid full price for it if it came to that. Anyway, I tweaked the guitar’s intonation (was pretty off on a couple strings) and threw on a new set of 10s… Right then I knew it was *my* instrument. That was it. This guitar’s going to be with me for a long time…

It’s kind of funny, cause I generally don’t care much for Strats and other ‘classic’ guitars, so I thought Tele-style guitars would fall into the same category. I’m so glad I was wrong, though.

There’s some clips of the different sounds I’ve got out of it here:

http://www.distractionware.com/josiahtobin/reactor_clips.mp3

The neck pickup is kinda scratchy when distorted (as heard in the clip just after the clean segment), but sounds wonderful run clean (the first bit). The Little ‘59 in the bridge sounds huge despite being a tiny little thing, I love it (used on the ultra-metal part at the end)

I’m sorry, I just keep going on and on and on, but I just adore this guitar.
I’m such a hopeless sap.

(pics to come!)

~Josiah

…The Happily Destroyed EP is now available on CD. Head over here if you’d like to buy a copy:

http://kunaki.com/Sales.asp?PID=PX00LXJ5MA

They go for $6 apiece plus shipping.

You can download it for free here:
Happily Destroyed

Tracklist:
01. Organic Mass Over Seattle/Your Theory Is Quite Plausible
02. Aerial Rot
03. Withdrawal Part I (From Green Velvet…)
04. Withdrawal Part II (…Into Dirt And Through It)
05. Withdrawal Part III (Never One To Walk Away)

~Josiah

Swimfail’s second album, Self-Centered Tales From The Project That Failed, is now available for purchase. Swimfail is my solo musical project, conforming to whatever style I’m feeling at the time. This album leans more towards industrial rock, with some influences from progressive rock, thrash metal, and solo acoustic music woven into the dense tapestry of sound.

Front cover:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v294/Frog32/Swimfail/SCT_front.jpg

Back cover:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v294/Frog32/Swimfail/SCT_back.jpg

Open case:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v294/Frog32/Swimfail/SCT_inside.jpg

If you’d like to own a copy, head over to the sales page. It’ll automatically calculate the shipping charges, as well.

If you can’t pay via any of the methods on that page, you can:

-Paypal jjtobin (AT) shaw (DOT) ca for the correct amount– be sure to include ‘Swimfail’ and the album title in the message, as well as your mailing address. The prices, with shipping included, are:
Within Canada: $15
USA: $16
Outside the US/overseas: $18

-Snail mail a check for the correct amount– see prices above– made out to Josiah Tobin. PM me and I’ll give you my mailing address. (Also include your mailing address in the message so I know where to ship the CD)

-Snail mail the approximate amount of money (bills only) well-concealed in paper inside an envelope– not the recommended method, but it will work if nothing else is doable for you. PM me and I’ll give you my mailing address. (Also include your mailing address in the message so I know where to ship the CD)

Dunno if I’ll get many (any?) orders through here, but I figured it’s worth a shot. As always, the album is available for free download at 192 KBPS from this location:

http://www.distractionware.com/josiahtobin/Swimfail/Swimfail_SCTFTPTF.rar

This is for those who like having real CDs, like the music enough to buy it, or just want to support me.

~Josiah

Alright! Finally figured this thing out… Thanks for helping me out with my ‘problem,’ Terry.

Got some new stuff going on since I last posted… I got a new bass guitar! I’d been waiting for it to come in for about a month, and it finally arrived last Tuesday.

Buncha pictures:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v294/Frog32/v950b%20jpgs/body.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v294/Frog32/v950b%20jpgs/floor_angle.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v294/Frog32/v950b%20jpgs/grain_back.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v294/Frog32/v950b%20jpgs/wall.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v294/Frog32/v950b%20jpgs/floor.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v294/Frog32/v950b%20jpgs/headstock.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v294/Frog32/v950b%20jpgs/body2.jpg

I still need to get it properly set up (there’s lots of fret buzz right now, the action is reallllly low) and get one of the pickups looked at, but otherwise I’m really happy with this instrument. I love its feel, its look, its sound… It’s amazing. Speaking of its sound, I recorded a little test for it in the form of a cover of Megadeth’s song Dawn Patrol:

Link

Just a quick one, took about 2-3 hours tops. Tried to mimic Mustaine’s spoken word-esque vocals on the original, I think it came out alright… though the main focus was recording the bass– didn’t spend much time on anything else. I figured the song was ideal since it was pretty much just bass.

I’ve also been playing more shows lately, just small local ones of course… lots of fun, though. The last one was yesterday (Saturday), I played guitar and bass for Perfect Sound For Now (the main band I’m in with Seth) and Phoenix Voice (my brother’s hip-hop/rock project). We’ll have some footage up on Youtube soon. Actually, speaking of which, there’s a clip of the last show we played around there somewhere, too. Sound is crap in that one, and the video’s not much better, but it’s kinda cool, hehe. I’m the one in the red shirt… jumping around like a fool by the end of the video.

I’m sure there’s a bunch of other new stuff I could mention, but I’ll leave that to future posts. I’m really tempted to rant on about my new project, but I’ve gotta restrain myself, hehe… not that many people would really see it anyway, though. :p

~Josiah

Hmm, seems like there’s a few songs and whatnot that I never got around to posting recently.

November was Enix month over at Dwelling Of Duels, and I entered with a 7-minute Brain Lord medley. Here’s the Link.

I did everything but the bass, which was handled by XMark. Much thanks and respect to him for doing it, especially the tricky basslines in that last section. The arrangement is pretty simple, mostly just consisting of three slightly rearranged songs in order: Platinum Shrine, Site Of Civilization (AKA Abell Civilization Ruins), and Master Of The Tower (Boss theme)– Hence the obnoxiously long title, Master Of The Platinum Site Of The Tower Of The Abell Civilization Ruins. Ack. Anyway, I came in 8th, which isn’t too bad. Much better than 16th, which is what my last entry placed. (It was a cover of the Diver Down theme, so I suppose the obscurity doesn’t help the votes)

I’ve also created an entry for the Stepmix 3 competition, using an original song I wrote specifically for it– you can see the video of the steps here, (background graphics/arrangement by me as well) with crappy mono sound and all that, or download the high quality mp3 here. Of course, I had to add at least a little bit of metal bite to the dancyness…

I think that’s it. *Looks back at post* Hyperlink fever!

~Josiah

Felt like making something really electronic for a change. I actually made this a few days (a week? dunno) ago, just got around to posting it now, though.
Save It (Working title)

I know the guitar segments are verrry slightly out of tune.

…You know, I really should promote this blog more. I think only a few people know of it right now. I suck at this kinda thing. :p

~Josiah

The album is now available for download from last.FM (link) and Demonoid (link).

You can also grab it from Kerrazy Torrents by going here. Keep in mind this is all legal, since I’m not restricted by a label and of course give full permission for the album to be shared in any way possible.

~Josiah

This is it… It’s done. Swimfail’s second album, “Self-Centered Tales From The Project That Failed,” is complete as of today. Rich textures, thick soundscapes, and grinding industrial rock combine to form an intense and varied thirty-six minutes of entirely unique music. Check it out now, completely free, by following the link below.

www.distractionware.com/josiahtobin/Swimfail/Swimfail_SCTFTPTF.rar
(You’ll need Winrar to open the file)

There is only one catch: Spread it like the plague.

~Josiah/Swimfail

Anyone who does not recognize this song cannot rightfully call themselves a PC gamer.

http://www.distractionware.com/josiahtobin/Hell%20March%20Apocalypse%20mix4.mp3

~Josiah

Yep, that’s right…

http://www.myspace.com/swimfail

…I got a MySpace page. Hey, it’s useful for getting my music out there, don’t look at me like that.

~Josiah