Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Grass Nap Hits 100 Downloads

Today we reached an exiting milestone. My latest album, Grass Nap, has been downloaded 100 times. A big thank you to everyone who streamed or downloaded the album in the bit-more-than-a-month since it was released. I hope that you continue to vibe to it, and continue to share it with anyone you think will appreciate it. It is, after all, free.

In celebration, I offer you a bonus track. Inspired by Kanye West's 808s and Hearbreak, it is a new mix of the Grass Nap track Building Walls.

Download Building Walls (Heartbreak Mix) now!

I have also uploaded a new video to Youtube for the Grass Nap track Ballad for Jayme Langford. It's below.



Finally, don't forget that Grass Nap is still available as a free download. If you haven't already, download it now.

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Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Screwdriver Poem @ Art Amok Finals 2009



The performance of my untitled screwdriver poem at Mocha Match Café in Decatur, GA for the Art Amok 2009 team selection slam.

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Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Grass Nap Released! Download it Now for Free!

After much ado, Grass Nap is finally here.




I had a budget of literally $0 for this album. It was conceived, produced, recorded, mixed, mastered, marketed, and distributed almost entirely from my dorm room (admittedly, I did do some recording in the library). That being said, nothing is made in isolation. I had a lot of support from other excellent artists. Take a moment to look at the liner notes for more information about the people who helped make this happen. I personally put a lot of time and effort into bringing this out for you. I'd greatly appreciate it if you did one or more of the following to help me out:
  • Share this music with your friends on your social networks. I've included this handy little button to make it easy to share this page via Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Digg, AIM, good old-fashioned e-mail, or a number of other popular web services. Free music for all!
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  • Declare yourself a fan of Gripp on your favorite social networking site. I currently have pages at Facebook, Myspace, YouTube, Last.FM, and Amie Street.
  • Donate to glassEyeballs.com! The album is free, and while it's true that the creation of the album did not cost me anything out of pocket, hosting the album for download definitely does! I am charged based on data transfer, which means that every time someone downloads the album, I must pay. Even a small donation could help tremendously!

Enough chatter. Download Grass Nap now!


Creative Commons License
Grass Nap by Marshall "Gripp" Gillson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

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Thursday, April 16, 2009

Grass Nap Release Set for April 24—for Free!

I plan on releasing my newest album here on glassEyeballs.com next Friday, April 24, as a completely free download. This album was brought from conception to completion in less than three full months; needless to say, I worked hard on it. I hope you come back to download it when it's available. It should be good. I've uploaded another track from the album to Youtube—no MP3 for this one until the disc comes out. If you've been following glassEyeballs updates, you'll recognize it as the verse from "Video Form, Part I." But now it's got a snazzy new beat from The Mad Scientist. He's dope. Check him out.

Here it is. Enjoy.

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Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Java Monkey and the Grass Nap Cover

On Sunday night, I competed in the team selection finals for a spot on the Atlanta slam poetry team. The night was crazy. The power on the entire street went out. Twice. The first time delayed the slam half an hour. Crazy. I ended up placed fifth, which makes me the team alternate. If all goes according to plan, then, I will get to attend the National Poetry Slam this year as part of the Atlanta entourage. Sweet! Ahead of me in the slam—that is, Atlanta team members for 2009—were (are):

I can't remember if that's the order they placed. I think so.

On an entirely different note, I am finishing up my next album. Over the weekend, I finished all necessary recording. All that is left is mixing, and perhaps some other minor tweaks. It should be done relatively soon. My newest tidbit is the album cover.



It was designed by a friend of mine, Lawrence. You should look at some of his other art.

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Friday, April 3, 2009

New Music and the Album Title Revealed

Okay!

As you may (should) already know, I've been working on a thus-far-untitled new album crafted around my FAWM songs. Today you get to hear the first song from that album, and also find out its title. Read on!

Incidentally, this song was not written in February, but is another that I added to the album. I've also made an irreverent Youtube video to accompany it.

Without further ado, here is the song—Geek for Hire—from my upcoming LP, Grass Nap.



Download Geek for Hire now!
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Monday, March 23, 2009

Do you remember how it was to be whole?

Do you remember how it was to be whole?

I remember it like the thin, unaffected air
of spring, personal,
that traces over ribs like a dripping frost.

I remember it like the blushing anticipation
in the moment before that first,
most immature kiss.

Or like waking up alone
before you realize that you fell asleep.

Age is this tragic exchange:
potential for opportunity,
security for identity,
belonging for autonomy.

I imagine myself a ball on a roulette wheel
and wonder why I should care about my number
after I stop.
Today, the twirl is dizzying and
I inhale the disorientation,
but some days,
gratitude that I can catch the warmth
in the long desert of my skin
is not enough; nothing matters.

Those days, I dream of jumping ship
to backstroke, trading this earthquake mind
for a heart like cotton pajamas.

The closest I can come to
regression into my childhood
is indulgence in my fantasy,
neglecting reality’s shower curtain
and letting the suds of
bathwater spill onto the floor
until I melt into them.
I can’t tell where the universe ends and I start.

Maybe the world is an organism
and we are scampering its circulation.
Maybe we touch so that when we’re alone
we don’t forget what it feels like to
be part of something more complex than we are.

Maybe we’re all broken,
malfunctioning, missing pieces,
unprotected, unsafe, discontent,
sabotaged, emotional, hurt, burdened,
haunted, misinformed, or just plain weird;
but we are all one being. There is
no distinction between the atoms around us
and the atoms of us.
When we change, everything changes,
that configuration of the universe is lost.
So handcuff it to the bedpost of your recollection.
Tattoo it across the forehead of your character.
If you don’t, no one will.

Do you remember how it was
to have something you could look forward to?
The only things I remember are
the sound of expectation crumbling
like a handful of bone fragments
and the smell of contamination
from the water in the tub
before the humidity forced
the fiberglass to crack.

Which parts of our Potato Head personalities
did we exchange to be ourselves?
Didn’t you want to be an astronaut?
What happened?
Why did you stop going to your ballet lessons?
You were the best in the class.
When did we trade our potential for opportunity?
Why did we give up our aspirations for addictions?
What uninspired vessels are these adult bodies
that we have been commissioned to pilot?

Every day I have a staring contest with a different person
through the window above the sink:
more creases in the furrow of his brow,
shoulders held higher, muscles a little tighter.
He recognizes me only as the manifest of
the rolling tidal wave of his fate,
preparing to him return home.

We are all standing between two bookends of nonexistence,
and every day they pull closer together.
And the claustrophobic reality is
there is nothing
we can do to stop it.
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