Note: this is some sort of pretentious press release I sent out? -Carl.
SUMMARY: Carl King, creator of the enigmatic Sir Millard Mulch and MutantMall.com, has announced that he will be releasing a new album under the name Dr. Zoltan Øbelisk, and will be offering a new download service and relationship with his fans.
BACKGROUND ON SIR MILLARD MULCH
Sir Millard Mulch is a stage-name and persona created by musician, graphic artist, and writer, Carl King in 1991. Under that brand, he has developed a surprising list of pro rock musicians that continue to enjoy and support his convoluted works. These include Steve Vai, Devin Townsend, and Trey Spruance of Mr. Bungle. Several world-class progressive rock musicians have made guest appearances and performed solos or spoken word pieces on various Mulch albums. These include Virgil Donati, Morgan Agren, Nick D’Virgilio, Lalle Larsson, Nils Frykdahl, Mark Critchley, Dave Meros, Devin Townsend, Paul Mazurkiewicz, and Larry Boothroyd. His 2005 release, a 4-Hour, triple-disc collection received outstanding reviews in Modern Drummer, DRUM!, Decibel, and Kerrang!
SO WHO IS DR. ZOLTAN ØBELISK?
(Switching to 1st person point of view…) Dr. Zoltan Øbelisk is a new “brand” or “container” for my multimedia creations. He is a mythological concept that I have been developing since late 2005. There have been many tests, drafts, and incarnations but it is finally coming together. The Sir Millard Mulch meme has gotten old and convoluted and it is time for me to move on to something more exciting.
On Wednesday, May 23, 2007, I will begin work on the first serious creation under the Dr. Zoltan name, which is going to be an extreme instrumental music recording. It will be in 5.1, feature Drumkit From Hell, explore geometrical rhythmic concepts that I have been flirting with for years, and will defy genre. There have been a lot of concepts I have wanted to implement and now is the time to stop fooling around. Imagine a whole album with the most complex parts of “How To Sell.” This is also going to feature virtual orchestra by Stephen Cox and will be absolutely ridiculous. It is being executive produced by John LaGrou of Millennia Media and will be recorded in his underground laboratory.
Special guests and superstar soloists will be selected as the album is recorded, in the same manner as, “How To Sell The Whole F#@!ing Universe To Everybody… Once And For All!” I’ll also be working this in with my new concept, ECHELON.
WHAT IS ECHELON?
To sum it up, I got bored with the old way that the music industry worked and I wanted to try something different. ECHELON is a way to cultivate a new direct relationship between me and my audience. Instead of buying a CD on my store or on iTunes, let’s do this differently. For $20, you can get into a private section of my MutantMall.com website and get unlimited downloads of my entire past catalog (everything from my really embarrassing high school band demos to the latest Sir Millard Mulch album) in mp3 format. Once it’s all uploaded, that’s a collection of over 200 songs, with complete artwork and liners notes. You’ll have a month to grab them all before the password expires. You can drag ’em into iTunes, burn them on CDRs, put them on your iPods, share them with your friends, I don’t care. It’s all under the Creative Commons License. If you want to pay for only one month and take everything and leave, that’s fine. It’s not just a boring monthly subscription that will leech out of your bank account, it’s more of a hybrid, open-ended service. I don’t expect people to just keep paying each month and forgetting that they subscribed. If you wanna subscribe for a month and wait 3 months and come back and get all the updates and new material, you can do that, too.
If the users want to stick around, I will give them very special and personalized attention. Per reasonable request, I will make custom edits, mixes, and isolated dissections from my master tracks. If someone wants just the drum tracks, lets say, of one of my guest drummers like Virgil Donati, I could do something crazy like make them available for use under the Creative Commons License. I will be setting up private screennames on AIM, MSN, and Yahoo messengers to conduct one-on-one chats, during which I will focus on explaining anything you want to know and swapping files. Want me to give you production or music advice for your own music or band? Anything is possible. This is really about creating a dynamic interface in return for direct patronage and support.
Some may remember the days of the BBS, back before the internet, where you would dial directly into some home computer and have a direct connection with the Sysop (System Operator), who was an uber-geek that provided you with access to what you needed. You’d log in and send him an alarm and he’d crawl out of bed in the middle of the night and give you some massive ascii file of The Anarchist’s Cookbook or something. I’d like to revive that spirit, but with updated technology, because it was much more personal.
Different people can join for different reasons, sort of an all-you-can-eat Smorgasbord for one single price. And there will be ongoing special features…
WHAT ARE THESE SPECIAL FEATURES?!
For instance, during the making of the new Dr. Zoltan Øbelisk album, on a daily basis, I will be uploading behind-the-scene video footage and select rough digital mixes of the new tracks, so that my audience can follow along. I haven’t write one note of it yet, and I won’t until I plug in the gear and start recording. I think my ideal audience would appreciate participating in that.
WHO IS YOUR IDEAL AUDIENCE?
Music geeks who share a passion for breaking traditional boundaries both creatively and technologically. I believe that personal interaction is a great instructional tool, and I love spending time explaining the theory behind what I do, both philosophically and musically. More and more young musicians are beginning to appreciate the challenging instrumental stuff that I grew up listening to, like Rush, Primus, Dream Theater, Dave Weckl, Steve Vai, Frank Zappa, and a lot of classical music like Stravinsky. Music that is asymmetrical and quirky, adventurous, yet beautiful and delicious. (I sound like a Hooters napkin.)
Basically, I don’t need a million drunken, idiotic fans who can only understand a simple drum beat. I just need a small, elite group of open-minded mutants that share a passion for dissecting strange musical concepts while supporting my work. I will supply them with a personal and endless stream of new stuff without concern for external marketing, advertising, packaging, or any of the other games of the cliché music industry. See below for a list of premises and ideas behind this new plan.
WILL YOU CONTINUE OFFERING PHYSICAL PRODUCTS THROUGH MUTANTMALL.COM?
Yes, as long as there is an actual demand for physical souvenirs, collectibles, and artifacts.
RELEVANT LINKS
Dr. Zoltan Øbelisk [http://www.drzoltan.com]
MutantMall ECHELON [http://www.mutantmall.com/echelon.php]
Millennia Media [http://www.mil-media.com]
CONTACT
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PREMISES AND IDEAS BEHIND ECHELON
Check it out…
FILE-SHARING
There is simply no way to stop people from copying files and sharing them. Things that can be copied WILL be copied. If you don’t want it copied, don’t make it available. Period.
COPYRIGHTS
The concept of Copyrights is antiquated. Creative Commons is a more flexible alternative. http://www.creativecommons.com
MEDIA
Compact Discs and DVDs will soon be extinct. They are only physical containers that are obsolete. Creations that can be completely digitized will all be downloaded. Good news for the environment: no more wasted paper and plastic. Good news for the creators: no more manufacturing & printing overhead. Good news for the fans: immediate download.
PRODUCTS
With the extinction of physical media containers, the concept of “full-length” and “single” are useless. Temporal restrictions on creations no longer exist — a multimedia creation can be any length. Creators can move over to a subscription, donation, patron, and secondary collectible merchandise model.
RECORDING PROCESS
It is no longer necessary for composers and musicians to book time at a recording studio and rush through ten songs. Composing, recording, editing, and mixing are now all one process. Creations can be made available to the audience immediately, directly from the creator.
BUSINESS
With the progress of technology, creators must provide something that cannot simply be copied. The one thing that cannot be copied is personal interaction. Creators can provide customers with a custom, interactive experience. Take requests. Sell custom remixes and edits. With all of the tools immediately available, make the creative process a daily part of your business. Creations are no longer stagnant and set in stone — they can be modified and updated to keep the process dynamic.
DISTRIBUTION
The limited distribution veins for physical product now flow outside any pipeline/boundary. Distribution boundaries have always kept potential artists from finding out if there’s an audience for their art. (Courtesy of Eman Laerton) The difficult process of searching for niche artists and audiences is over.
AUDIENCE / FANS
With the availability of recording tools, most fans of music are (at the very least) amateur creators themselves. This increase of knowledge raises the bar for the professional creator, but also stimulates a higher demand for technical explanations and instructional clinics. Most fans are beginning to understand the vocabulary of the creative process.
LIVE
Rather than simply performing their music live in front of a rowdy crowd, creators can appear in-person at music stores and offer live, real-time dissections of their creations. Demonstrations. Q&A. Creators can offer for the fans to inspect the creation, right then and there. Excellent instructional tool.
I selected the name ECHELON because it means, “a level of command, authority, or rank.” It is also the name of a top-secret domestic surveilance program that, according to legend, intercepts all digital information transmitted around the world (cellphones, e-mails) and searches it for fascinating keywords. Hmm!