New Music + Yoga Mats + Digital Art Time-Lapse + Future Fossils Episodes

Hello friends!  I've got a lot to share this time so I will keep the introduction brief.  

Before I shower you with new creations, let me recommend this episode (304) of the Mixed Mental Arts Podcast – in which we chat about the silver lining of epochal change and how we're going to organize our knowledge into wisdom in the years to come.

I had their host Hunter Maats on Future Fossils Podcast last year and we hit it off.  My episode on his show is some of the best two hours of conversation I've had in a while.

At any rate – I hope all's well with you, and shine my love like sunlight to you through that void across the screen.  Say hi if we haven't spoken in a while!  I'd love to hear from you and how it's going.  

love

Michael

New Music

Hi-Fi Downloads at Bandcamp & Patreon

Streaming at Spotify & Apple Music

I just put out one of my favorite sets of all time and invite you into its gritty, luminous realms...

Recorded live at 3 AM at the Tenth Annual Utopiafest's Guan Yin Tea House tipi, this renegade set was made possible by my friend's questionable Chinese mobile PA system.  (I found out later everyone could hear me play outside the tipi as they walked by, which provided a surreal soundtrack to the nearby silent disco.)

This downtempo quadrupedal trip from the cockpit of my acoustic-electronic starship is a celebration of the sacred hours and an invocation of the magic of a place and time, drawn down into the cozy weirdness of a psychedelic Sunday decompression on a gorgeous autumn evening...

(Cover art by my friend, the amazing Todd Norman Guess.)

New Digital Painting & Time-Lapse

Watch in HD at YouTube or Vimeo

Like with almost everything in life, fate dragged my lazy and protesting ass into the digital painting world eventually.  And lo!  It's wonderful.  I'm still just learning basic skills in Procreate for iPad, but here's an early piece adapting my technique to tablet stylings.  

Because the app will automatically time-lapse whatever you do in it, I can guarantee you you'll see more of these here, soon...

And because it's 2018, you can buy this piece on damn near anything:

 Art Yoga Mats Are Here!

I can't tell you how long I've been waiting for this.  Hop on over to Live Sankalpa and grab one!  

(I mulled this over for a while before deciding on this company.  They're serious about their quality; these are some awesome yoga mats.)

All Prints Permanently Cheaper

Exactly what it sounds like.  I used to sell my prints for $15 each and then it felt like time to give myself a raise...but nobody else in my generation got a raise, because of the recession.  If I had a dollar for every time someone told me they wished they could afford my art, I'd be a rich man. 

I want my art to be there for you no matter what you make, so I've returned the prices on my paper prints to what they were back in 2008, when I was truly awful but it didn't matter.

Also I've dropped prices on ALL canvas prints and ALL original paintings.  

Merry belated/early Christmas.

New Future Fossils Episodes

  

 

If you haven't listened to my podcast yet, now is a great time to dig in.  I have the next 12 weeks' of episodes recorded and post-dated and from here it seems the show just keeps improving on its mission to inspire great conversations on our place in the Big Story...

(Also, I am looking for new sponsors for the show.  Can you recommend someone who believes in the importance of the podcast as a medium for doing Good Work in the world, and wants to put their money where my mouth is?)

Upcoming Fun Stuff

Returning for my fifth year since 2009 to paint, speak about futures, and play cyberguitar.

Moderating a Sunday panel discussion on psychedelic therapy and consciousness hacking.

Playing cyberguitar, painting, and giving a talk at my friends' award-winning mini-festival.

New Coloring Book Project • The Future Is Disgusting • The End of "Reality" • Guitar Looping Video • New Apparel • Future Fossils Podcast with Ayana Young & Daniel Schmachtenberger

“If we are gaining the power of gods, then without the love and wisdom of gods, we self-destruct.”

- Daniel Schmachtenberger

Future Fossils 0051

Buckle up for yet another overstuffed update!  Given the pace at which change comes at us these days, I'm pretty much apologetic for being this productive.  But for anyone who's used to "grinding" to level up their roleplaying game characters, you understand the value of continuing to put one foot in front of the other, day after day, for years.  And I understand that it's not helpful to apologize for what we are.  Shine brightly, friends!  You free the rest of us by doing so.

So that's what I'm going for, here.  I hope this helps.  Much love and many blessings...

New Coloring Book Project & Time-Lapse Video

One month ago today I celebrated ten years of live painting.  Feels like the right time to get into digital, at long last, after holding out for basically forever...with that, here is the first quickie time-lapse video I made with my new iPad.  

I am putting together a coloring book for Patreon supporters...every single page will be released as time-lapse on my YouTube channel, if you'd like to see the whole thing come together.

New Essay:
"The Future Is Disgusting"

Read it on Medium.

Part Six of my public book-in-progress, How To Live in the Future, is now live on Medium.  For anyone who might enjoy a purée of body horror, psychedelic futurism, and dick jokes...this goes out to you.  Because the future is going to be totally awesome...and gross:

'...it all sounds overwhelming, but in practice these invasions, miracles, transgressions come to culture as seduction, as convenience, as entertainment. All of this is motivated by a pure-enough desire: the urge to merge; the drive for intimacy; longing; romance. Fiber optic cables stretch across the ocean floor like reaching tentacles, desiring a connection. Satellites spray into orbit just like coral launching sperm beneath the Full Moon, all of Earth a reef in Sagan’s “Cosmic Ocean.” Every new-model phone is faster, higher-bandwidth, because language doesn’t cut it; we would like to really “Reach Out And Touch Someone.”'

Read the whole thing here.

New Sci Fi Audiobook:
"An Oral History of the End of 'Reality'"

Free Download on Patreon

My first adult foray into the world of science fiction, this piece was inspired – nay, made necessary – by the recent news about new vocal synthesis AI that lets consumers edit audio and video and manufacture wholly new, convincing forgeries that sound and look exactly like "the real thing."

We all grew up in an age when our recordings are the evidence of something. It was certainly a step up from the hearsay that we once relied on, but it's not enough these days – and as technology gets more and more sophisticated it may be impossible for us to tell the difference between "what's really there" and what is just a digital illusion. 

Trip with me down this vertigo-inducing psychedelic tunnel to a world in which invisible and discarnate agents speak to you in lovers' voices; in which algorithmic AI pop stars outcompete real artists and our thoroughly-mapped world returns to demon-haunted wilderness; in which we all become half-monks and half-forensics-experts as the new obsession is attempting to determine if we can believe our senses...

Download the audio and PDF on Patreon.

(Cover Art by Giacomo Carmagnola, reprinted with permission.)

New Guitar Looping Video:
"Life in the Glass Age"

Watch on YouTube in HD

Here I am rocking out the live improvisation that became the title track of Life in the Glass Age, my original soundtrack to the theatrical production of P3M5 at The Vortex Repository Theater in Austin.

If you're curious about how I turn a guitar and pedals into a full-fledged electro-psychedelic orchestra, just put this video on while you're doing dishes or whatever and let this adventure in layering cyberacoustic grooves teach you the mysteries of the universe.

(A full half of my profits from the sales of Life in the Glass Age go to the Electronic Frontier Foundation to support their campaign for net neutrality and privacy rights online.)

New Sweatshirt:
"End of the World Party"

Learn More & Grab One

Rapture is imminent and the meteor is approaching. Do you run and hide or do you turn up the volume and get down? Celebrate the End of the World Party with some prehistoric pizazz I painted live at Sonic Bloom Festival 2016.

This crew neck sweatshirt is a loose, comfortable, and smooth 100% polyester fabric with slight stretch. All of our exceptionally vibrant prints are achieved through the dye sublimation process. Each sweatshirt is printed and hand-crafted in the United States by local businesses. In addition, 30% of the profits from each order goes to the artist who created your design, and 5% to a charity supporting the arts in America.

(This piece is also available on paper or canvas prints of various sizes, and many, many other items.)

New Future Fossils Podcast Episodes!

Free Download & Show Notes Here

This week's episode is with one of the fiercest, most inspiring women I have met in years, Ayana Young. It's a candid, personal discussion about how awakening to our participation in nature – and living in joyous self-sacrifice to something bigger than ourselves – is the key to both our survival and our spiritual salvation…

Free Download & Show Notes Here

This week’s guest is Daniel Schmachtenberger of the Neurohacker Collective – we have an awesome conversation about how to thrive through this Age of Transition and emerge into a world that works for all, not just a few of us.

...And Other Podcast Appearances

Oh, AND...I was just on the fabulous Synchronicity Podcast with Noah Lampert, and also interviewed radical life extension biotech wizard Liz Parrish of BioViva Life Sciences for the Body Hacking Conference.  Check those out if you have any free time left in your life for listening...

Upcoming Events

Here are the gigs I can talk about so far.  Where would you like to see me play/paint/speak in 2018?

20 December - Austin, TX - Sahara Lounge
Solstice Electroacoustic Showcase (headlining!) with Umanistan & MUNN

13 January – Austin, TX – Square Rüt Kava Bar
FREE Birthday Singer-Songwriter Show

25 - 28 January – Tucson, AZ – Gem & Jam Festival
Music, Art, & Speaking

2 - 4 February – Austin, TX – Body Hacking Conference
Future Fossils Podcast Live & Panel Moderation