Music, opinions, and portfolio of Mark Eagleton, musician and web developer in Northern CA.
This is where I tell you what I really think. This website doesn’t support comments by design, that is what your blog is for!
I “watched” (from Twitter) as Anti-Fascist (ANTIFA) and Traditionalist Youth Network (TYN) clashed on the capital steps of Sacramento yesterday in an childish display of sticks and stones and breaking bones and lots of name calling. Both sides are claiming victory.
Excellent from songwriting to production. Two seconds after hitting play, not only did I instantly fall in love with the first track, “Sometimes,” I felt like it had been a favorite for years. That’s pretty much how this whole album plays.
About half of a year ago, Kristyn and I went to see Daniel Romano in San Francisco in support of his latest record, If I’ve Only One Time Askin’, of which he played only slightly more than zero tracks. Nearly everything he did was new material. Only one of those songs appears on Mosey, essentially making this his third volume of music since 2015.
A trend I have noticed trickling down from the executive world over the past few years is to include the following sentence in your email signature:
Please excuse any typos, sent from my iPhone.
Hmm… Please excuse my bluntness, but with all due respect, computers are pocket-sized now. It’s probably time to adapt.
Released October 2, 2015, Psychic Warfare was available in iTunes, Amazon and other digital music stores, but conspicuously absent from the streaming music channels like Apple Music, Spotify and Pandora. Streamers, your wait is now over.
My buddy, Ivan snapped the picture on the right of me playing bass for the West Nile Ramblers at Harlow’s this weekend.
The Upright Bass Players Union is one of the few reasons I keep a Facebook account. It’s an awesome group of working class rockabilly and honky tonk players who share tips and talk a lot of shit. Amplifying the double bass isn’t easy, so it is incredibly helpful to see such a diverse range of rigs and setups. I think I have some pretty unique things going on in my rig, so I thought I should share it with the group. I like to own my mojo, though, so I’m posting it here as well.
Every week I try to find something new and interesting that is also a bit outside my wheel house. (Obviously, some weeks are more of a struggle than others.) I was tipped of to OLYS new single last week, and found myself spinning it quite a bit. As wheelhouses go, this fits fairly snuggly outside of mine.
I have to apologize, I’ve been sitting on this one for a few weeks. But you know what? This amazing Instructions record I found those few weeks ago has been in regular rotation in my iTunes. Actually, loop is probably a more appropriate word. It is so good that it has eclipsed all new releases for me for the past two weeks!
I get a lot of inquiries as to where I’m playing next (which I am extremely humbled by and appreciative of), but I’m not much of a future planner. I live in the “now.” You know, like a renegade. These things are hard for me to remember off hand, so I made a listing of my Upcoming gigs for this website.
The sun came out and dried up all the rain and the itsy bitsy bookers booked some gigs again.
This has been driving me nuts for months—ever since I upgraded to the iPhone 6s from the 5s. I mostly type with my right thumb on my iPhone, but my tiny hands are simply too small to reach the frequently needed number/letter toggle button located at the farthest reaches of the keyboard, just past the useless microphone and irrelevant language buttons.
I’m frequently told that I look young for my age. Yes, hearing that never, ever gets old. I also run in circles with many people that are a few decades my junior. The combination of these two things has lead to many interesting conversations.
What if Neko Case joined the Alabama Shakes? Well, you might end up with something a little like this.
Interesting stuff this week. Lots of blasts from the past resurfacing. Prog rock seems to be a theme.
The long-awaited “Twins Album” is finally here. And it’s really fucking good.
In a hasty effort to squeeze as many unique untappd check-ins into the evening as possible, the following mix was concocted at a dinner gathering last night.
Mandrill just announced that they are requiring all of their users to have a paid monthly MailChimp account by the end of April. As a heavy Campaign Monitor user, I completely understand why they are doing this, and don’t fault them in the slightest for it. However, this complicated things substantially for me, and one of my more vulnerable clients.
Today another one of my solo EPs is available in all the digital music stores. America, America was written, recorded and released on June 6, 2000.
A few years ago, I was inspired to publish some of my older music on the newer music channels. First I rereleased Moving, a 7 song EP I wrote, recorded, and released one day in May, 2000. Today my EP Stupid World is available on iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, and wherever fine digital music is sold.
To those of you who subscribe to the RSS feed of this website, I just rolled out an improved feed, so you may want to update your RSS reader. The new URL is https://thebigreason.com/feed/
I picked up the ukulele some years back because I wanted an instrument I could bring places with me more easily than I can my double bass. I’ve gotten pretty into it, and recently had a custom instrument built for me. When you have the opportunity to completly spec something out, you really explore the possibilities and form some opinions. Believe me, I have some opinions. But first, some background.
This record initially caught my eye for the awesome watercolor cover. It didn’t really do it for me at first, and I was going to skip this week, but I found myself actually listening to it quite a bit. I think you should listen to it, too.
In which I also played bass some ukulele, and sang some harmonies. This was my first time recording music in many years. Many. As in, before people really used computers to do it at home. This was released last September, so I thought it was about time I mentioned it here.
Another band previously off my radar, Agoraphobic Nosebleed (ANb), has a new EP and it’s a welcome kick-off to the new year; And likely a kickoff to a new obsession for me.