Rawrb

Kinda.

If you head on over to rawrb.com, that’s where I’ll be doin’ my yappin’ from now on.

The past few months (as of March 29th, 2019) have been riddled with scary business stuff and change. It’s nothing bad, just some fear-of-the-unknown type weirdness. I won’t bore you with the details of the business ownership nonsense, but I’ve had to make some concessions to some of my projects in order to move forward with the important stuff.

Here’s what’s up with me that may or may not be relevant to you or your interest in Psychostick:

Psychostick on Twitch - For the past few years, Psychostick’s presence on Twitch has mostly been, “Rawrb horribly plays games or some crap.” I worked really hard on making that formula work, however the community around Psychostick seems to be less interested in mediocre gaming and more interested in Psychostick related stuff. This may seem way obvious to anyone other than me, for which I apologize for it taking so long for me to realize that I’m not exactly bringing anything unique or interesting to the (Twitch) table. It was a little of a “speedbagging” to the ego, but I’ll be alright. Don’t you worry. ;)

So, as of last week I decided to stop doing my scheduled gaming streams in order to work on building what will eventually become Psychostick: The Twitch Channel (tentative title). What we have planned for this is probably what we should’ve been doing all along, but we lacked the resources and time to develop our ideas.

This has all changed since we relocated to a new production studio. More info will be unveiled over the next couple of months as we iron out bugs, test stuff, etc. I can’t wait for you all to see what we have planned. It’s very unique and way more “Psychostickey” than anything we’ve previously done. Keep an eye on our Twitch channel and/or our website/Twitter/Faceboop for announcements.

Side note: I’ll still stream some gaming every now and then, so for the four of you who enjoyed that part of it, don’t fret. :)

Game Development and PluhQuest - Since Psychostick’s transition to the new studio a month or so ago, PluhQuest has still been worked on and will continue to be worked on. I’ve been putting my nose to the grindstone (when I can) to become more of a proficient programmer and artist.

Things might slow down a bit more (shocking, I know) for PluhQuest until the dust settles with Psychostick’s transitions and internal optimizations.

This Blog - I may or may not move this domain/blog to somewhere else. Tumblr might not be for me anymore. Not that it matters that much, I’m usually far too busy to blog or talk endlessly about myself. I suppose that’s a good thing?

Just got back from the UK a couple days ago. Still finding it tough to believe that three weeks just evaporated and here I am, finally able to start catching up. Jumping back into the habits is proving to be challenging but digestible.

In about five days we’re about to announce details regarding the new album. I can’t believe it’s been FOUR YEARS since the last album was released. So much has happened since then. One of the most amazing things that has happened is our fanbase, social media-wise, has double in size since 2014!

Imagine that. You release stuff and continue to cultivate it and it grows.

For those wondering, the biggest challenge is finding a way to remind all of the older Psychostick fans that we still exist. In particular the fans who heard “BEER!!!1″ and forgot we existed. The amount of people who know of that song are literally in the millions since that song had radio play.

Just woke up from a ridiculous traveling spree. Wanna hear about it? Of course you do!

First off, we left Chicago to drive to NYC in order to save thousands of dollars on flights. Seriously, the price of all four tickets from NYC (JFK) to Germany was cheaper that ONE ticket going from Chicago to Germany. Weird.

However, the actual travel experience was not buttery smooth. I guess you get what you pay for.

We had been scheduled to leave JFK via an airline called “WOW.” We had never heard of it before. When we arrived to the airport we couldn’t find the check-in counter, and ended up finding out (after about an hour of searching) that the flight was delayed about FIVE HOURS. This meant that we’d miss ALL of our connecting flights.

It was supposed to be:

NYC to Iceland, Iceland to London, London to Germany

So, after calling airlines and the booking service we used for this adventure, we ended up getting rerouted. Then it became:

NYC to Iceland, Iceland to London, London to Spain, Spain to Germany

On top of that we had to switch airlines a few times, which meant we had to go through customs over and over to recheck our bags. Since all airlines like to charge for that now, it ended up costing an obscene amount of money.

We wound up spending over two full days in airports with no real sleep. It’s a good thing we planned on showing up to Germany with a couple of extra days to spare before we actually played. We were able to recover for a full day and then play the festival! Was it worth it?

Luckily, YES. It was.

The flight back home was much nicer, however “WOW” airlines (based out of Iceland I think) continued to suck. Out of the four times we flew with them on this adventure, ALL FOUR flights were delayed. The last flight to JFK from Keflavik, Iceland was delayed because THEIR FLIGHT CREW WAS LATE. Not the pilots, the fucking STEWARDS.

Never again, “WOW.” We came up with some acrostics for them, including:

- Wait or Worry

- Why, oh Why? (GET IT?)

- Whatever or Whenever

- A few more I can’t think of right now.

After some research (during our wait to board) we found out that “WOW” airlines is literally the WORST AIRLINE IN THE WORLD. They were ranked something like 72 out of 72. Heh.

So there you go. Shitty flights, great show. Good to be home for a minute. Our schedule isn’t gonna be easy ‘til about November, so... I’ll do my best to keep this gravy train (blog) nice and chunky.

Stress is speedbaggin’ my physical being at the moment. We’re gearing up to get this album finished, but we’re also juggling an international touring, a domestic touring thing, and other various weirdness that I can’t really discuss at the moment.

Outside of that, I’m super excited. We listened to some updated mixes and finalized stuff yesterday, all of which turned out way better than we expected. Creative projects are tricky - the initial sketch/demo/concept is something you can’t judge as a final product. Sure that sounds obvious but it’s tough to keep in mind. There’s a particular song I wasn’t crazy about when I heard the demo, and now that I’m hearing the final product, it’s one of my favorites.

The important parts of the artwork for the new album are finally finished, and I’m actually starting to feel a little more relaxed. It’s always a struggle to put other things on hold that you want to work on in order to finish something important and urgent.

I’ve had to cancel streams, put off movies that I really want to see, and apologize to loved ones more than once for my absence. Luckily I’ve made a serious effort throughout the years to surround myself with drama-free, happy, supportive people. In my opinion, this is key to staying grounded and making sure you accomplish the tasks at hand so you aren’t distracted by unnecessary baggage.

Being able to say, “Sorry - I can’t do that tonight. I’ve got this really important thing that needs finishing,” and NOT get shit for it is amazing.

I’ve probably spent a good ten to twelve hours in a vocal booth over the past couple of days, yelling, screaming, whining, and singing. I can safely say (unless something breaks or I need to do some surprise pick-ups) that I’m 100% finished with vocals for the new album.

It is done.

Our schedule is very busy over the next couple of months, and right now we’re in a bit of a pickle with some of the artwork. It’s stressful because we really, REALLY wanted to finish the album a couple of months ago. Every silly little thing would come up preventing completion, including stuff like computer problems, software and/or plugin compatibility, faulty hardware, and other factors I can’t mention here without sounding like a douche canoe. ;P

Assuming you’re all exactly like me (spare tire and all), you probably don’t like being sold on anything. You especially don’t like dealing with salesmen/saleswomen/salespenguins. But, if you’re a creator and/or an entrepreneur, you don’t want to annoyingly sell people stuff, you want them to WANT to buy it on their own.

There is a huge difference here.

In the Psychostick world we like to use our humor and comedic “prowess” to sell our merch. For example, for us to sell a shirt we must take a different approach than, “Please buy our shirts!” Often times we come up with a funny idea that makes us laugh and put it into the marketing.

Examples:

I had some interesting feedback on my twitter yesterday regarding my blog yesterday. Folks were mentioning that feedback is sometimes necessary in order to grow and learn.

In many cases, I agree. For instance, the very old Psychostick logo from 2000 to 2007 or so was very squished:

I never thought anything was wrong with it until another designer said, “I can’t read your logo.” The shockwave from my facepalm flattened nearby buildings. She was right!

So, the next iteration was this:

And eventually this:

It’s important to be able to read logos. I knew that but I needed to hear the feedback to evolve things into something that will make it easier for people to go, “Oh... Psychostick! That’s what it says. Gotcha. Easy to read!” Our band name is tough for people to spell as it is... gotta make everything else as easy as possible.

Quality feedback is important, I agree with that. Even some unsolicited criticism can be helpful as long as it’s constructive, but if something is working and less than one percent of people are complaining/trolling, it’s best to ignore those comments and keep doing the thing that works.

I just read an interesting exerpt from The $100 Startup, which is a large collection of success stories from people with great ideas and how to implement your own ideas to become a success.

So the author, Chris Guillebeau, told a quick story about an experience from a launch day of one of his products. Thousands of people were purchasing it on day one and he was fielding e-mails, most of which were “Thank yous!” and other positively charged feedback.

One e-mail came in from a guy who said, “I’d like a refund.” Chris responded saying, “Why? What’s wrong?“ The guy replied, “Give me a call. I’ll tell you exactly why you lost my business.”

Chris politely declined the phone call and went back to fielding the other e-mails, some which were support related, but most were all happy and positive. He said:

“... I’m pretty sure it was the better decision to get back to work on my core market instead of spending time with one disgruntled customer who had already received a refund.”

This reminds of the ol’ YouTube comments world. Normally 90% or more of the comments are positive and encouraging, whereas 10% or less are negative. We tend to focus on those negatives because of our human nature to want to “fix” the flaws in something, but you can’t fix people, nor can you completely satisfy everyone.

One of the toughest challenges I constantly face is learning to actually tell people, “No.”

Recently a marketing firm I worked with reached out to me to help with some smaller web projects. It was so tempting - I’d make a few extra bucks! Visions of mediocre purchases danced in my head. Ooh! More socks! A couple o’ shirts! Some useless plastic crap from Amazon that I’ll probably never actually use!

I eventually had to decline. “Hit me up in a few months if you still need help. I have zero time right now. Much appreciated though!” I’m so damn polite. :D

I also decided not to go see a Deadpool 2 and Solo until this album is completely finished. Normally I’d duck out and see them, but so much is riding on this thing that I had to tell myself, “NO, idiot! You can see them anytime!”

Here’s a nice, juicy serving of reality: you can do all the projects you want, but you just can’t realistically do them all at once if you want them done in a timely fashion. This has been a tough lesson for me to learn, and I feel as if I’m still learning it. Over and over again.

Previously I’ve been mentioning how buildin’ those good habits will give you a fantastic edge, and as I fumble through this awkward phase of, “Oh crap, I forgot to do the thing because I didn’t write it down,” I learn to actually forgive myself for making the mistake as long as I learn something from it, no matter how minuscule it is.

One of my projects is to write a full fledged book. I started working on it over a year ago and wrote some stuff for it, but never actually kept chipping away at it. Now my goal is 20 to 30 minutes of writing a day. I learned this from Habit Stacking by SJ Scott:

“If you commit to just twenty minutes (of writing) a day, you can produce 9,000 words a month, or a total of 108,000 words per year. That’s enough time to write and fully edit a standard-size novel.”

A fully written and edited book in a year for a measly twenty minutes a day? I think I can swing that.

Fell off that little journaling train yesterday. Hoppin’ back on!

Feeling a ton of pressure trying to get this album finished. The strangest part is that we don’t technically have any rigid deadlines - just the self-imposed pressure to get it done before these upcoming tours.

Deadlines are a double-edged sword for me. On the one hand they’re good because they force you to focus in ways you might’ve never focused before. On the other hand they’re BAD because stress, pressure, etc.

We fell behind with this album because I don’t think we imposed or enforced real deadlines. “We’re not on a label anymore! We can take our time!” Yeah. That double-edged sword sure did leave some deep cuts.

For introverted creative types (which is pretty much most of us here), we struggle with having the discipline to actually meet deadlines or get our art finished within a timely manner. Part of the problem is that “finishing” art is very subjective, and we could work on something like an album until the end of time.

It takes more willpower and energy than you might think to call something, “Done.” I think all artists struggle with that.

Getting those habits in place that force you to work in those constraints are also a great thing to do, but forming “good” habits is very unsexy and we never want to really do it.

We all know about that crucial moment when you’re at the bottom of your barrel and you see a version of yourself you aren’t fond of. Then you have to make a choice: Stay like this or make some changes.

Making changes is such a gradual thing, even though we think (deep down) that it should be instantaneous. We’ve all seen montages in movies when Rocky Balboa or Daniel-san start learning kick-box-karate-hadoukens in like five minutes. It’s tough to acknowledge this stuff as a fairy tale when we want to believe it SO badly.

“Consistency trumps intensity.” - Bruce Lee

If anything, start small and focus on consistency. Stay away from trying to fix everything at once. You’ll get there, but not right away, and THAT’S OKAY.

One bite at a time.

Or so they tell me.

How often do we start projects with the biggest, most throbbing good intentions only to find that the hardest part is actually completing said project? I’ve been sitting on so many defunct domain names over the years with the hopes and dreams to launch the “next Facebook” or something.

I’ve been going through my own version of “depression,” which is the closest way I can describe my state of mind. The solution was simpler than I thought.

Lately I’ve been doing some reading, which Mr. The J has inspired me to do, and it’s rather amazing how much of a difference that makes to simply read something helpful. I just finished a book called “Deep Work” by Cal Newport, and now I’m onto “Habit Stacking” by SJ Scott.

“One bite at a time.” Build the right habits and accept that it won’t happen overnight, and you can conquer pretty much anything that stands in your way.

One of my little 5 minute goals from that book is to spend 5 minutes and “journal.” Well, this is the first entry. Here’s to hoping I can stick to it. Not bad for 5 minutes eh? *alarm goes off*