Morgan Stone Grether

My new album is out this week, hooray.

Check it out on:
• iTunes
• Amazon
• Google Play
• Spotify

I am judging “Portland verus Seattle,” the first ever city-versus-city Instagram contest. More information at the initial post: http://instagr.am/p/JU6aRiumWp/

I am now hosting a weekly radio show of New Wave music. It’s called New Wave-os Rancheros. 

At that page I will be posting playlists (and recordings when I have them).

Feel free to suggest songs for me to play in future shows!

I have added quite a few music videos to YouTube lately. Take a look…

“When the Music Ends”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcpBBZatcio
“In the Right Light”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkVo2ubyhpg
“Love Story”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH14zX_rkzc
“Sunday Morning Girl”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqSJn6OyEx0
“Withnail and I”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8J_EVPfIUg
“Cross-Country Drive”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5dqmHaiwak

Remember that with Valentines Day just around the corner, you may have need of Love Letter Generator (and companion Breakup Letter Generator):
http://www.morgangrether.info/everything/always/love_letter_generator

I have just opened an Etsy shop offering select prints of my photography. Most will be 5x5 inches. You can visit the shop here: etsy.com/shop/stonegrether

Check out me singing “Piece of Trash” on the YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTZmJk7YL4Q

Much obliged.

Work on the new album, You Put the Sun in My Heart, is pretty much finished, hooray! I am waiting on the artwork, and then it’s all off to Spotify, iTunes, etc. etc. (Note: I had originally wanted to record and mix the whole thing on my iPad, but I found it too restricting. So while some parts were done on an iPad, as well as an iPhone, most of the album was recorded and mixed on a laptop.)

Track listing:

01 Hunchback
02 Someday (We’ll Meet)
03 W.A.N.T.
04 Corona
05 Give Me Everything
06 “I Do, I Do, I Do”
07 Volcano!
08 Take Me Home
09 Start the Song Over Again
10 Run-Down
11 Hello Again
12 Looking (Bonus Track)
13 Queen of the Radio (Bonus Track)

I have been testing various HTML5-compatible music players all this summer and have settled on Soundmanager 2 as the core of what I am implementing here on my site. (Firefox and Opera browsers still don’t like that I use the MP3 file format for audio, but they fail gracefully into playing in the browser window or in your PC media player.) I’ll be tweaking the functionality over the course of the fall and winter, but the fundamentals of the project are now in place. Click on the friendly little BLUE button next to any audio link and the MP3 will play, whether you are on a desktop, laptop, tablet, or smartphone. I call this PROGRESS, people!

Well, the fun continues for me at Instagram, as my mobile photography now attracts over 50,000 followers. Find me there under the username: @grether.

Hey, I am on Google Plus now and really enjoying it so far. It’s great to have a true alternative to the junk internet experience of Facebook. You can find me there at gplus.to/grether. And if you need an invitation still to join, just send me a message and I’ll get you one pronto.

http://www.morgangrether.info/everything/always/changes/12_cool_songs_21_june_2011

01. Foster the People, “Pumped Up Kicks”
02. Broken Bells, “Meyrin Fields”
03. Queens of the Stone Age, “If Only”
04. Dignan, “They’re Outnumbered”
05. We Are Augustines, “Headlong into the Abyss”
06. Portugal. The Man “Got It All”
07. White Stripes, “We’re Going To Be Friends”
08. Black Keys, “Set You Free”
09. Arctic Monkeys, “Don’t Sit Down ‘Cause I Moved The Chair”
10. Cheap Trick, “If It Takes a Lifetime”
11. Nico, “These Days”
12. Bobby Short, “East Side of Heaven”

I have just published the latest entry in my ongoing birthday poems project: “To Olivia, On Your Seventh Birthday.” Each year around this time, I write a poem for my daughters’ birthdays. It’s a fun little tradition. Hope you enjoy it too.

OK, I had a page for a while and took it down. But guess what? It’s baaaack: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stone-Grether/139846309419385—Why? Because YOU demanded it!! Or something.

I’ll have some exclusive video content up there later this summer, and there will be some other tidbits too. So look out!

12 Cool Songs: 3 May 2011

1. Killers: “All These Things I’ve Done”
2. Foo Fighters: “Rope”
3. SSM: “Deja Vu”
4. Weezer: “Troublemaker”
5. TV On the Radio: “Second Song”
6. Black Keys: “I Got Mine”
7. Bon Iver: “Flume”
8. Explosions in the Sky: “Last Known Surroundings”
9. Des Ark: “My Saddle is Waitin’ (C’mon Jump on It)”
10. Abigail Washburn: “City of Refuge”
11. Vampire Weekend: “A-Punk”
12. Who, “A Quick One, While He’s Away”

I’ve rolled out a new homepage layout tonight for morgangrether.info and there will be more changes here in the weeks ahead. Hope you like them. As always, your feedback is appreciated.

The point with the various new boxes is to get you more direct and immediate access to some previously-too-buried content.

My website is extra-messy ‘n’ dusty these days as I am rebuilding a bunch of stuff in the background before I launch a new redesign. In the meantime, do me a favor: close your eyes and imagine my site is just one of those little construction worker gifs that used to be all over Geocities, please!

I have published a new playlist of some music I’ve been enjoying lately. I try to publish one of these every few weeks or so, just for fun. Take a look.

My new album has been released worldwide today on iTunes, Amazon, etc. etc. Buy it today!

Check out my page on the album or… Find it now on iTunes!

My new album, Forever Since Last Night, is almost done; just the finishing touches remain, including cover art from fabulous Canadian artist, Caitlin McDonagh. So exciting. The projected release is mid-April 2011.

The album was recorded in late January and early February at Grether Mobile Labs, which is my name for my laptop and iPhone. I had hoped to record it entirely on my iPhone, but I just was not able to get the sound I wanted in many instances. (I will continue to experiment with iPhone recording though, and a future album will be fully recorded on it.) In the end I would say 20-25% was recorded on the phone, and the rest on the laptop.

The song list:
1. Been Around
2. Delectable, Delicious
3. It Burns (on Burnside)
4. Don’t Know What You See in Him
5. When There’s No One Here
6. Kinda Like a Novel
7. Write Me a Letter
8. Ferris Wheel
9. I’m Right? You’re Wrong*
10. I See You Smile

All songs ©2011 lyrics and music by Morgan Stone Grether, except * music by Morgan Stone Grether, lyrics by Morgan Stone Grether and Judson Wright.

Every few weeks I write down some of the “heavy rotation” songs playing in my home and office.  Take a look and feel free to give me some feedback, my friends.

I have a new random generator for your edu-tainment. This one is for pitching Hollywood movie ideas. Take a look and tell me what you think, my friends:
New “Hollywood Movie Pitch” Generator

So I’m now hard at work on my next album, “Forever Since Last Night.” I have 15 songs and some additional song pieces that might form into something. The final goal is 10-12 solid songs. Now what’s a little different about this album, and they are each a little different, haha, is I will try to record it entirely on my iPhone. (Ideally, I will also mix it entirely on the iPhone too, but I’m not promising anything at this point.) That’s right, the whole thing. Why? Partially it’s a dare, and partially it’s because it turns out the iPhone is a heck of a little computer. (Maybe not so good of a phone, but that’s a different story.)

Check back soon for more details!

I’m sorry to anyone who this annoys, but I am still messing around with what to do with the audio on this site. I have been testing a number of Javascript and HTML5 players, but nothing has really risen to the top yet. So please bare with me!

http://tinyurl.com/33xL6rj

Here’s an mp3 of me playing guitar and singing a song I just wrote, inspired by all my Instagram friends, haha (also: my buddy Theo is on bass):

I want to eat you all
With a knife and fork!
You’re so delectable!
You’re so delicious!

Every few weeks I write down some of the “heavy rotation” songs playing in my home and office.

Today’s list starts with the late great Captain Beefheart, who will get his own special “12 Cool Songs” list in the very near future. So check back soon for that.

Most of this site is now in HTML5 and uses a good deal of CSS 3 as well. Contact me to talk about what was easy and what wasn’t to do, and to commiserate about the annoyance of the browser wars. The final big piece that remains is the music player. Right now I am using a javascript player only slightly tweaked from Yahoo developers. Not terrible, but not great. So, it is time to dive into the murky waters of HTML5 audio. This holiday season I will be building a couple of music players and the best will be implemented throughout my music section. Check back soon to see it in action. Or better yet, hear it in action!

Every few weeks I write down some of the “heavy rotation” songs playing in my home and office.

Today’s list runs from Juanes to Slayer, Daft Punk to Flight of the Conchords. Check ‘em out.

A whole lot of changes going on under the hood. I am rebuilding the site in HTML5 and CSS 3 standards. Overall, I am ecstatic about the improvements in these standards, but you may need to give me a little break if things are extra-“brokeny” as I get it all implemented.

As always, your feedback is appreciated.

OK, so you are an artist type, and you are stumped about what to work on next? Well, look no further. I have all the answers for you here at my new General Creativity Generator.

I for instance am going to soon be working on a novel about feeling aroused in Frankfurt. What will you be working on?