Sam Billen makes music

Hey everybody! Yeah, it's been a while since I've posted anything. MY BAD! I've been busy working on lots of projects and I wanted to share a little bit about them with you here.

First and foremost, my old band The Billions has decided to get together to play a show at Middle of the Map Festival in Kansas City on Saturday, April 7. We're playing from 3:45 to 5pm at the Record Bar - we'll be headlining the anniversary party for the label I'm proud to be a part of, the Record Machine. Come on out!!

As you may or may not know, I do a lot of music for film/commercials/etc. with a company called FourBigWatts that I run with my friend Christopher Tolle. Below are a couple of projects I've been working on in that realm - fun stuff!

There's a really cool project called Far West that I was asked to do the soundtrack for. Far West is "a fantasy world that’s explored through a constantly-updated website, a tabletop role-playing game, a web series, artwork, fiction, comics and much, much, more. A fantasy world that is shaped by its own fan community" and I'm happy to be a part of it. Here's the music I put together for it - stream it here and buy it there!

Last but not least, I was also recently asked to put together some music for a video about my favorite basketball team, the KU Jayhawks! It's a funny take on the history of KU basketball - James Naismith vs. William Quantrill (loosely based on real history!). Check it out below!

With a couple of days left before Christmas, I was thinking about trying to make A Light Goes On go viral with this video (generously created by Elena Stephenson and JP Giago):

...then I realized that 'trying to make something go viral' is kind of an oxymoron - you can't make something go viral - it just happens! What I can do, however, is ask everyone that has an inkling to do so to share this video and a link to the project (www.alightgoeson.org) with their friends and family online. Please help spread the word so people can enjoy the music and art this Christmas season!

In related news, I was on KCUR 89.3 in KC yesterday morning for a lengthy interview about the Christmas project. It was a great time and I was honored to be invited onto the show, Central Standard. You can listen to the whole thing here if you have the time and interest.

Also, since my last post, a few more articles have come out about A Light Goes On:

INK magazine

The Blue Indian

Washburn University Review

First of all, I have to admit that I feel pretty bad about not mentioning the people who helped me on my song for ALGO until now. I had some wonderful ladies record some amazing parts that really built the song A Light Went On into what it is. Kotoko Nakata and Sophie Davidson sang beautifully and my old friend Heidi Nelson layered some violin parts on so it sounded like a full orchestra was backing the song up. Thanks to those ladies for helping me with the song! On top of adding some great parts to the piece, they were all really easy to work with - I couldn't have asked for better collaborators!

Second, I'm throwing a really low-key 'party' to celebrate the release of A Light Goes On and, more importantly, Christmas! It's taking place in the basement of the Burger Stand at the Casbah in Lawrence on Tuesday, December 20 starting at 6:30 and going until 9:30 or so. Should be a fun time! It'll be family-friendly, open to the public, and come-and-go-as-you-please. And don't forget that the Burger Stand serves some of the best dinner in town, so make sure to bring your appetite with you. Get more info about the party by clicking here.

Lastly, there have been some great articles and mentions of A Light Goes On popping up recently. Here's a quick look at who's talking about it with links to the articles:

Pitch Weekly

Lawrence.com

Barrr Heaven's ADD Podcast

Stubby's House of Christmas

Christandpopculture.com

There are a few more articles that I know of on the horizon. It's been a fun project and I'm so happy that people seem to be really taking to it. If you haven't checked it out yet, please do! www.alightgoeson.org And if you have a blog, tweeter acct, facebook acct, etc. please share it with your friends!

I've been doing Christmas albums for a few years now and there's a few songs from those projects that stick out to me as especially memorable/emotional/fun. I thought I'd share them with you! Feel free to download them for free with the little down-arrow on each player below!

Also, if you've got any questions or comments about A Light Goes On, feel free to e-mail me at sam(at)sambillen(dot)com!

Auld Lang Syne by SamBillen

Oh come, Oh come Emmanuel by SamBillen

Joy to the World by SamBillen

Hark Hark by SamBillen

A LIGHT GOES ON is finally up online! check it out at www.alightgoeson.org

Listen to all the songs on the player below, then go to the website to check out the artwork and download the whole thing for free!

A Light Goes On by A Light Goes On

What is A Light Goes On? 

A Light Goes On is a collection of Christmas-themed music and art produced by musicians, artists, developers, and fellow creatives who have joined together to wish you a Merry Christmas through a free giving of their talents. You could say that I conceived and curated the project, but the real magic is in the work that all of the musicians, artists, web developers, and contributors put into it - pure Christmas magic.

After putting out a string of free musical Christmas projects over the past few years (a couple of solo albums and an album with my good friend, Josh Atkinson), I decided to stretch the concept a bit and invite some of my favorite and most-respected artists to join me on this year’s effort. Musicians were asked to create songs and visual artists were asked to translate those songs into an art piece. The instructions for the music and art were quite open-ended, but when pairing artists with songs, I specifically tried to match up people who didn’t know each other. The aim was to create a spontaneous, unique collaboration of talents, and the end result was a burst of diverse creativity displaying a wide span of what we all experience in Christmas.

The overall goal of this project is simple. It’s not to ‘promote’ any of the people or groups involved. It’s obviously not for profit (it’s all free – on purpose!). It’s simply a project that has allowed me and my friends to focus our creativity and time into a gift to you and your friends and family to wish you a warm and love-filled Christmas. If this project does anything for you, we hope it inspires you to give of yourself this Christmas season. After all, what good are the gifts we’ve been given if not shared?

Questions about the project? Shoot them my way! sam(at)sambillen(dot)com

As you may or may not know, every year for the past 4 years or so, I've been working up something new for Christmas - some way to give something beautiful and artistic (usually in the form of my music) away for free to say Merry Christmas. Last year I did a Christmas album with my good friend Josh Atkinson - we had such a blast and got a ton of support and encouragement from friends and family. We talked and thought about how to make this year's project even bigger and farther-reaching than last year's and I decided that opening the project up to some of my favorite musicians could be a cool idea. I did a compilation for Christmas a few years ago, and some friends gave me some GREAT songs for it, but looking back, I think I didn't quite plan it all out far enough in advance, so there wasn't much time once it was all said and done to get the word out about it.

This year I decided to expand on that idea - by getting musicians AND artists involved - and to do it the right way by planning a couple of months in advance. So now I'm a couple of weeks into it, and I have a solid group of musicians lined up and artists are responding to my invitation as I type. I also decided to not only have it available for free online, but to let people also get it on flash drives - that's why I launched a kickstarter campaign for it. Check out the video for the campaign below and visit the campaign here.

Here's a list of the musicians I have lined up for A Light Goes On:

Andrew Connor (http://ghosty.bandcamp.com/)

Andrew Smith (http://www.facebook.com/brotherleather)

Beau Jennings (http://beaujennings.com/)

Bryyn (http://www.bryyn.com/)

Christopher Tolle (http://christophertolle.com/)

Dan Billen (http://danbillen.blogspot.com/)

David Ahlen (http://davidahlen.com/store/)

John Ringhofer (http://halfhandedcloud.com/)

Jordan Geiger with Taylor Hollenbeck (http://www.myspace.com/hospitalships & http://www.myspace.com/colonycollapsed)

Josh Atkinson (http://soundcloud.com/joshumusic)

Katlyn Conroy (http://www.myspace.com/katlynconroy)

Sam Billen (you're already on my site)

Timbre (http://timbre.bandcamp.com/)

Once the songs are done, I'm asking some amazing visual artists to translate each song into a collage, video, painting, etc. The songs and art will be available to download in early December - they'll also be included in the flash drives you get for supporting the project on kickstarter. I just sent the invite out for artists a couple of hours ago, and there are already 5 or 6 solid names on the list. Once that list is completed, I'll post it on here as well.

Thanks for reading!

I've decided to post some new music I've been working on - these are demos that will hopefully undergo some more mixing/production and then show up on my next album.

The first song is 'It is Not a Lie'. I wrote this about 10 years ago right after my mom died from breast cancer. It's really literal - and it's never been given a proper recording, so I decided it was time to lay it down.

It Is Not A Lie by SamBillen

Next is a song I wrote about a year ago called 'This is the Time'. Funny thing is, I think I wrote and recorded this in one day - I actually forgot about it, found it again a few months back, and decided to put some more time into it. The chord progression was mainly stolen from a song called 'Photographs' off of my old album Headphones and Cellphones. The beats at the end were pencils hitting my friend, Jason Wiens' dining room table, recorded through my laptop microphone. I was visiting him in DC for his wedding and had an itch to record with no proper equipment at my disposal. I'm happy with how this one is shaping up.

This is the Time by SamBillen

I've recently been getting into some really great electronic/experimental music from Japan. I know that genre descriptor might lead you to jump to the conclusion that I'm getting into artsy and noisy non-music - on the contrary, most of it is beautiful, subtle, and intimate. One artist I've been into for a while now is Cokiyu. Her label, Flau, opened an invitation for people to remix a song called 'Your Thorn' off of her new album of the same name. Of course I took them up on it. Here's my remix:

Cokiyu Your Thorn Remix by SamBillen

I'll be posting more music and news soon so be sure to check back!

You may remember 'The Billen Brothers' from projects such as: the soundtrack for the documentary Porubsky's: Transcendent Deli and the band 'The Billions'. Well, we're back at it - this time with our dad!

Honestly, the Billen Brothers isn't much more than my brother Dan, my dad, and I wanting to put some of the songs we've been playing at weddings, restaurants, and country clubs for the past 15 years down on film. We had a blast filming about 7 songs a couple of weeks ago and I am just now getting them all up on our new youtube channel. Here's one for you to check out. And be sure to stop by http://www.youtube.com/thebillenbrothers

It's been far too long since the last time I posted anything on here. Sorry for not keeping you more informed of my whereabouts and musical endeavors! If any of you have been checking www.fourbigwatts.com to see what my music production company has been up to, you'll know that Christopher Tolle and I have remained extremely busy doing music (recently finished doing some music for a commercial for Intel's 'IdeaJam', some sound design for a couple of Georgia Pacific web spots, some tunes for AMC Theaters - and those are just a few of the projects we've done in the past couple of weeks!). Needless to say, I'm extremely happy being busy doing what I love best - making music. I just hope to find some more time to work on my solo music in the near future.. Speaking of..

I've added 3 brand new covers/remixes to complete the REMOVERS album! Download it for free - enjoy!

I'm also working on my next full-length solo album. It's actually coming along very nicely - I plan to release it sometime in the fall. Here's an acoustic version of a song from the upcoming album - this was for an interview I recently did with www.iheartlocalmusic.com

Thanks for reading!

My label, The Record Machine, has teamed up with Ink Magazine to put on the biggest, most awesomest music festival ever! The festival is happening April 8th and 9th at a number of venues in Kansas City (the Riot Room, the Record Bar, the Beaumont Club, the Union). I don't want to start any rumors, but I'm looking into trying to get the old gang back together to actually perform at the fest as the Billions. That would be a lot of fun. I'll keep you posted!

Go to www.middleofthemapfest.com to get your tickets! Check out the image below for more info on the fest:

I've decided that (at least for now) I'll start posting new musical projects I'm working on to my soundcloud page. I figured "Hey, I'm recording like a song a day - I might as well post them somewhere". They aren't songs that I'll be releasing on any albums, but they're usually pretty fun and I try to keep them as inventive as possible. Here's the link: http://soundcloud.com/sambillen-1

And here's the player with all the songs:

Latest tracks by SamBillen

Happy New Year! It's looking like this will be a fun, busy, musical year for me this year.

I just finished up a song with my new friend Bryn, aka PINKLE (www.pinklemusic.com) - we met online - he lives in Switzerland and his music is awesome. We're talking about putting out an EP together - possibly a full-length album? Check out the song below:

Cellar Roots by SamBillen

I've also been talking with Josh Atkinson (remember the Christmas album we did?) about putting out another album together. That would be awesome! I'm thinking about actually doing an album with Josh and my brother Dan. That's still in the works, but my guess is that we'll have that out by the end of the year for sure.

BillenSounds, LLC has me working on a few projects as well - I'm doing music for a couple of video games (Super Comboman, Chokolatte), a couple of documentaries (Street Fighting Man, All in on the Exam), and some other projects.

I'm sure I'll be posting more new music very soon. Thanks, as always, for reading!

Here's a list of my top 5 musical finds of 2010 (not in a specific order):

Twins Twins: a band from Denmark that I found while checking out Oh No Ono on myspace - these two bands were labelmates on Morningside Records (DK). Sadly, just weeks after I found Twins Twins' amazing music, I found out that they were breaking up. Fortunately, the members have continued to do music though - and one of them is in a new group called Alcoholic Faith Mission which is also very awesome. [http://www.myspace.com/twinstwinsmusic] [http://alcoholicfaithmission.com/]

Choir at Your Door, album Worktapes: I've been a fan of Nathan Phillips music for years now (since his Winston Jazz Routine days). His most recent solo album Postcard literally has over 200 listens on my iTunes. While the album Worktapes, by Nathan Phillips and Aaron Roche (aka Choir at Your Door), hasn't hit that many rotations for me yet, it's equally moving to my heart. To many friends I have said "If you have ever trusted my musical taste before, trust me now - this music has changed my life" - I say the same to all of you: check out Nathan Phillips and Aaron Roche and their collaboration, Choir at Your Door - you will thank me later. Seriously. [www.nathanphillipssongs.com] [www.aaronroche.com]

Pinkle: My friend Jon Smith turned me on to Pinkle's music just a few months ago. I listened to it. And listened to it some more. Man, this guy has some amazing songs! After a little research, I found out he was from Chicago, but he now lives - as some super highly-technical scientist - in Lusanne, Switzerland. I e-mailed him to tell him how much I love his music and now we're actually working on some musical collaborations together. Seriously - check this dude out! And by the way - he releases his music for free, so download and share away! [www.pinklemusic.com]

Shugo Tokumaru: If you've followed my music at all recently, you've probably heard my covers and remixes and mentions and his influence on my new music: the man is SHUGO TOKUMARU. My friend and fellow musician Josh Atkinson (among others) told me 'You've got to check this dude out!' so I did. He's like a Japanese Sufjan Stevens, sometimes a little more hyper, sometimes a little more artsy. Some parts of his newest album Port Entropy go a little too artsy for me, but they're always answered by something amazing that he pulls out of nowhere. I also just found out that his music is going to soon be released in the US by Polyvinyl Records in CA - what a perfect fit. [http://www.shugotokumaru.com/]

[If you're looking for the Christmas album, we still have it up to listen to and download here]

Thanks so much to all of you that checked out the Christmas album that my friend Josh Atkinson and I released this year for Christmas. We had over 2000 people come to the site to listen to and download the album. We also had 1200 CDs pressed that we were able to hand out for free to people around Lawrence and Kansas City - we also sent a number of copies abroad to be given away by our friends there (Japan, Argentina, Denmark, Hong Kong, UK). Many blogs and local newspapers (including the Kansas City Star) wrote good things about the album. Thank you all for supporting the project - we hope it was as much a blessing to you as it was to us.

The original goal of our project was to bring a no-strings-attached musical gift to friends, family, and strangers here and around the world - a simple message saying 'Merry Christmas'. From the responses we've received, it appears that the project was a success and our goal was achieved. Believe it or not, Josh and I are already talking about how we can make next year's Christmas project even bigger and better than this year's. We're also discussing the possibility of releasing a non-Christmas album together (because it'll probably be a little awkward for you to be listening to Christmas music months after Christmas has passed).

Thanks again for your support and if you're interested in getting more music, sign up for the mailing list (to the right) and I'll send you new music and other info about once a month or so.

Welcome to my new website! Here are a few of the changes I've made since leaving the world of wordpress (my last site):

An audio player! I've uploaded all of my official albums as well as some un-released music to this site - enjoy it all on the media player to the right.

If you were signed up for my mailing list on the old website, you know that it would send you an e-mail every time I posted something or even added a concert. My new mailing list won't automatically send you an update every time I write a new post! I'll be in control of when updates go out and, trust me, it won't be too often. I'll only send big news - like if I have some new music to give away, etc. So, don't be afraid to join!

Like I said above, I've also added all of my official albums to this site and you can download almost all of them for free!

As this is a new site with a totally new design, I'd appreciate any feedback you might have: sam @ sambillen.com.