The Many Faces of Manny Faces

Ok, I lied. I DO want to make this place to highlight certain things that I think are interesting so that people who come by to check on me, don’t get beat over the head with ME and have something else that will entertain them.

That being said, here’s an idea that I sorta wanted to do as a radio show, or podcast, but will do here. Every Sunday (hopefully, don’t quote me on that, I will put up my weekly list of things that I’ve stumbled across on the internet or that have been sent to me via email. (I was going to make it 10 things, but y’all know me, it’s difficult for me to stick to anything in the first place, much less ‘10′ of them)…

This week-end recap could be anything from music, to stupid YouTube videos, to news articles, or whatever. Stuff that caught my eye/ear, that I’m passing on to you all. (All 3 blog readers should feel very special).

So without further delay, let’s begin. Pencils down.

Hm. Should I do a reverse countdown maybe, in order of coolness? Like David Letterman? Hm. Thinking.. I’d say yes, that’d be freshest.. But more work. Ugh. Ok, let’s just see what happens…

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Occasionally, I see really interesting things, sometimes music-related things, and I am tempted to post them here. But than I say to myself, “no, this is not that kind of blog”. I mean let’s face it, among several blogs I read, there are several top items that are found on all of them, just in a different order. I figure that so many of the blogs that are written to be read by the masses, are really just re-dishing the same daily information to their audiences. So I figure, if you want to see that reeally cool item that I saw, you will… Just not here. This is not that kind of blog.

So then, what is this blog for? Well, here are three possibilities:
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Just some recent love:

IT’S YOUR S. AFRICAN BOY
Yo son…
Just got to tell you that I saw my message on your blog and I was shocked.
Just wana tell you that I am a big fan of what you do and you are extremely well known here
And I have to tell you that I played the Bartender remix again on Saturday at a house and party.
Daaaaaaaamn bro. it was a banger yet again.
All I can say is keep doing what you do and we will keep promoting your sh*t.
Big up from your brother in the mother land.

No, not as in MONKEY, as in MONK-Y.

This music thing that I do can fill me with immense pleasure or slam me with melancholy bouts of depression. When I’m getting some of the amazing feedback I get, or hear that people in ATL tell me they heard my Bartender remix on the radio, I feel like I’m getting there, closer to achieving a level of notoriety that will allow me to capitalize on my talents, as well as please more eardrums with what I do.

But when the momentum of a hot release dies down, the pressure grows. I write this as I am listening to the final mixdown of my brand new Alicia Keys - No One remix for about the 364327423th time. It’s a lot of pressure. I listen over and over and over and I find something I don’t like so I fix it and then I listen to it again, over and over and over. When I am about to release a remix, I fall asleep to it on repeat. Sometimes, this is where it doesn’t make the cut (TI - What You Know About That, Chris Brown - Yo - Excuse Me Miss), and more. For anyone who follows me, there are certainly a bunch of remixes that you’ve never heard. Some are as complete as you can get, but just didn’t pass my own litmus test for maximum hot-osity. I get very, very nervous as I’m about to put something out. And then the strategies behind what I do are so intricate, and I get so obsessed with them, I get quite Monk-ish.

Anyway, this perfectionist trait is good though, isn’t it? It helps make sure that I continue my ‘run’ of solid releases. I realize that every time I send an email, I risk that some important person will either open and listen for the first time, or delete and unsubscribe, never having even heard what I do, filing me under T for Trash like the countless other emails from no-name or semi-no-name artists and producers peddling their e-wares and cyber-shouting, “MP2s-for-five, MP3s-for-ten”. But perhaps because I am extremely cautious and calculating, my reputation sluggishly but steadily continues creeping to respectable levels. Maybe the incessant repeat-listening, one-by-one adding of names to the mailing list, carefully constructing my emails to contain just the right amount of info (not too much, not too little, have some personality, but don’t bore them) and all of the hundreds of tiny and not-so-tiny things I do (tweak the website, post to message boards, MySpace bulletins, pray) that all happen AFTER I actually made the damn remix, are as important as making quality stuff in the first place. Assuming I assembled the basic beat ahead of time, it’s still usually a 4-6 hour process to make the remix, add on another 3-4 hours for the ancillary marketing methods and I’ve easily killed an entire weekend workday. (Sheeit, it took me almost 45 minutes just to do the image up in the corner… Hot tho, ain’t it! Hehe.)

Luckily, this weekend my Hunni is visiting her brother and the kiddies are with their grandma and ‘nem. How I treasure this occasional cosmic alignment which allows me to have time to myself to actually accomplish something, as per my previously-blogged-about Rev Run instructions. (Of course, I’m sure Hunni would like me to obsess over household duties as much as I do exactly where my high hats should fall on the breakdown, but music is in the blood and soul babi, I can only make it do what it do.)

Anyway, the song has now played another 23 times or so. Time to stop stalling. Sunday is a good day to release (yes, I consider all the nuances of what day to send emails as well). I figure the club DJs are done and waking up about now. The label and radio and music business heads will have my email toward the top (most recent) in their Outlooks Monday morning, and I won’t get swept up in all the New Music Tuesday emails. The DJs have time to work the joints into their mixes for the week or upcoming weekend… (Ok wait, let me stop giving my strategies out, I do plan on marketing for others at some point, I’d better keep my secrets to myself.)

I will say this though. I did purposely write this blog before sending out the email since I mention the blog in the email, and want to show anyone who actually takes the time to click over here from that email that I’m thinking of them. Which in this case is probably you. So, hi, thanks for visiting! (See how that worked out?). Regardless, I hope you liked the remixes!

…

…

Great… Now I’m nervous about sending it out again.

She sent me an email today, as she often does.

She prefaced what she was forwarding with:
PLEASE FOLLOW THIS GREAT ADVICE!

Then the message, from good ol’ Reverend Run:

Good morning. One of the most important things I have ever learned is to give total attention to one thing at a time. Many people allow their creativity to scatter their attention. Their abilities become lost through misfocus. It is better to complete one worthwhile goal then to begin ten others. EVERYONE WILL CLAMOR FOR YOUR ATTENTION. As harsh as it may seem, you must learn to dismiss from your presence people who distract you from YOUR GOD INSPIRED GOAL… Stay focused! :) :)

God is Love
Rev Run

My hunni knows me so well. :-)

… so much.

N2U - I Miss U

R.I.P. Mommy
aka Ma
aka “WHERE ARE ALL THE F–KIN FORKS!!”

I hope you’re still proud of me.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New York – Music producer Manny Faces, widely known for popular remakes of commercially released songs by artists such as Mary J. Blige, Jay-Z and Akon, will become the first musician to undergo the risky VTTS medical procedure (Voluntary Tentacle Transplant Surgery).

“I’ll still be able to do all the things I can do now that don’t really require my thumb,” explains Manny. “With the suction tips, some things will be even better, like holding a glass!” Always seeking to push the limits of his musical pursuits, Manny recalls, “I remember having those old Ultimate Breaks and Beats albums, you know, with the octopus DJ, thinking, ‘That’d be hot!’”

While transplanting multiple tentacles is still largely beyond the reach of modern science, doctors feel confident the procedure will allow for dual squid-like attachments to be fully functional. “We are able to attach contiguous nerve viaducts throughout the patient’s body in such a way as to effectuate a natural ease by which the patient can perform various tasks as well as you might imagine a human with tentacles could,” explains New Jersey surgeon Dr. Scott Mankowitz. “It’s Nip/Tuck meets Doc/Ock.”

Friends are unsure whether this is a wise move. “Can it be undone?” asks Samson, Manny’s roommate. “I mean, I can see if he chose pincers, but tentacles?” Manny’s girlfriend was also skeptical, “Sure, scaling an office building will be easier, but what about MY needs?”

Regardless of the effect on the people closest to him, Manny Faces is confident that his new appendages will be the ticket to fame and fortune. “Look,” he bemoans, “Some producers get discovered by creating amazing music that everyone loves, making remixes that sound better than the original songs themselves, and by single-handedly amassing a worldwide fan base. Well, I’ve done all that, and gotten nothing. Now it’s time for something a little different.”

30 Days of Night looks scary, and I’m not into scary movies.

I am under the weather tonight. Well wishes, and monetary donations, are appreciated.

Check this out (audio). Expect this to appear at the beginning of a remix at some point in the future.

Oh, visit my friends at www.hiphopruckus.com. And stay tuned, we’re working on something, them and I.

Ok, going to go pop a couple of Tylenol PMs and then try and … (Obscure movie reference thanks to Jason.)

And speaking of oddities: This past weekend, I re-met a new cousin and my sort-of-ex-step-father who never knew I existed, does now! LOL!!

I love being me, it’s so not like being you.

Let’s face it, I’m really good at this producing thing. But selling myself, not so much. Delivering a pitch, closing the deal, I’m not a salesman. Well, I might be able to get by within the confines of a 9-5 day gig, but I really find it difficult to do while simultaneously being the product. I need to concentrate on being the product.

It’s crazy because I could be VP of your company (no, really, I’m nice with the biz skills), but out of the corporate gig, I can’t seem manage my own most important resource. Myself.

To date, I have done what I believe is an admirable job of marketing myself, branding myself, establishing myself, to a legion of fans, downloaders, and thanks to V-103 Atlanta, a major radio market who now know my name and/or purposely and strategically manipulated logo, with very little knowledge, connections or budget. I have personally spoken with Akon and been sought by Mary J. Blige in response to them hearing my versions of their songs, and digging what I did. I have countless emails from fans willing to spend money on my works, and radio PDs, MDs & DJs across the US and around the world playing my remixes (until the cease and desist letters start rolling in at least) to the audience’s great delight.

Too bad I don’t get out. Shame I won’t sacrifice my day job, or my children’s needs, or my girlfriend’s attention, to go galavanting around to the NY hot spots, with the hopes of meeting that ‘connection’ that I need to move forward and capitalize on this potentially lucrative skill I seem to have proven that I have. So I e-plug away, type away, email away, in hopes that some electronic seed I plant will one day sprout into a phone call or email from an interested power player who will say something like, “Hey Manny, listen, I’ve been watching you for a long time, and noticed you are very talented, consistent and can make our company many many many dollars. So, please, come to my office and let’s talk biz over paninis.” (which I don’t care much for.. paninis, not biz).

See, I like to be approach the whole thing from a spiritual outlook. If I am fated to succeed in this area of life, God himself will lay forth the path of fate for me to followeth. Um, nice and all, but I’m sure God has other, more important things, than plan a way for me to get to be able to produce track 11 on Nas’ next LP.

Neal says “Get the Puck.” Eh. I say, “Just you wait, the puck gonna come knock my teeth out soon, all I have to do is wait….” And so I wait. Then the ice melts and I remember I’ve been standing on Lake Pipedream and I start to drown in my own reality before I’m pulled out by the last strands of common sense I had tied to a nearby tree. But dammit, as soon as that lake freezes again, I’m back out there, waiting for the puck to hit me in the teeth.

This is quite a ramble. The point was supposed to be that maybe all I need is a manager of sorts. Someone fairly connected, who believes in my abilities, and can middle-man me to a profitable 85% cut of success.

Because I realized something today as I mulled over my magazine business plan (seeking funding, holla if you’re painfully rich), my movie treatment (as soon as I figure out how to write the entire screenplay, it is so on), and the outline to my first book (semi-autobiographical, odd, but inspirational, very much like me. Which stands to reason, since it’s semi-autobiographical). I really love doing music, and I do want to make money at it, but I have so many other things I believe I can accomplish, if only I could give the people the music they are saying they like, make some money, put aside for my children’s inevitable rainy days, and be all the man(ny) I can truly be.

Or maybe it’s all just part of having Adult ADD or something. Anyway, if you’re in the business, and think I’m worth knowing, please yell.

Things are better.

:-)

Oh, plus, very nice email from a fella my man Marvin in S. Africa, in regards to my Bartender remix:

“Yo son. Im from South Africa and loving this one. I was speechless when I heard it for the first time but now I have it set as my ringtone, alarm tone, message tone.. Its banging up in our clubs. Holla …”

I continue to be amazed at how people from all over the world find me, to give me props for what I’ve done. I can only imagine how it must be to actually be SOMEBODY, and be known all over the world. Even this little bit of appreciation from someone in S. Africa is mind-boggling if you really think of it. And I do appreciate it.