The Passions of Blood, Smoke, and Fire: It's been seven years since Burial's debut album changed the world of electronic music... permanently changing the course of the future garage genre. I've been a DJ for more than a decade, but it wasn't until 2012 that I started mixing future garage. My first digital set--The Passions of Blood, Smoke, and Fire--is now available for free download [Here on SoundCloud]. The response has been incredible. DJ Umb at Generation Bass wrote: "This is Burialesque in all its glory harking back to the great golden days when Dubstep was such an exciting proposition." I'm honored. Enjoy the music!

A Year in Revision: Outside of my work with groups here on deviantART, I've severely neglected this site, including what few submissions I've made over time. That's going to change. I've promoted my music and writings all over the Net, but I've never before done the same for my visual arts. Over the course of 2013, I'll be updating my older submissions... sometimes with actual updates to the art, other times with simple updates to the titles and descriptions. I now have a camera again, and I'll be preparing new content for release later this year... or, at the latest, early in 2014. Stay tuned!

How to Promote Your Art in a Post-Apocalyptic World: I just wrote part one of a very detailed article with tips on promoting art online. You can read it [Here on #The-Art-of-Smoking]. Warning, Will Robinson!!! It's long, it's self-indulgent, and it works. Here is a very short excerpt from the article's introduction:

Why promotions are important: Here's a quick one-minute story about a little computer that could... but it didn't. 1985. Movies like "Back to the Future", "Goonies", and "The Breakfast Club". The very first "Calvin & Hobbes" comic appeared in newspapers. The first Nintendo arrived in America. Good times! The death of the great Orson Welles and the loss of Route 66. Bad times! The Macintosh computer had arrived on the scene the year before. It's monochrome display? Not the best... but it had a few fun sounds and the interface was easy to use. The IBM computer had 16 colors and it could beep. Again, not impressive.

1985 brought the Amiga 1000. 4096 colors. Count 'em! So many colors, that Andy Warhol would later refuse to use any other computer for making digital art. It had four stereo sound channels and it had a separate graphics processor for gaming even before the idea of a "video card". The games made for Amiga were only comparable to those found in arcades. To pound the last nail into the coffin, the Amiga was cheap, at about half the cost of a Mac or a PC. Half. It would require ten years for the Mac and the PC to rise to the level that the Amiga started at in 1985.

Where is the Amiga today? In all probability, you do not even know about the computer. The Mac had the famous "1984" commercial, but where was the marketing and promotions for the Amiga? Nowhere. The IBM PC had licenses with schools and other government entities, securing its future with collaboration, but who was the Amiga collaborating with? No one. Commodore assumed that the incredible qualities of the computer itself would do all the work for guaranteeing its success. They were wrong. When they realized they were wrong, they could have changed and began marketing and collaborating. Instead of changing, the company began a slow suicide, eating itself from within. That's how the best and most innovative computer of the '80s died before it could ever get started.

Don't be an Amiga: Some of you already do promotions. Consider this a "fill in the blanks" for any places where you need pointers. Others are comfortable with what they already do, and they're happy with where their art is right now. Then there are also a few of you who know you have something special to offer, and you are thirsty for ways to "break out" in the world. To you few, I say: Welcome! You've come to the right place!

...continue reading here on #The-Art-of-Smoking...