" title="Kevin Siwoff [dot] com"> Kevin Siwoff [dot] com

Question: What do John Mayer, Quincy Jones, Jay Z, and Kevin Siwoff all have in common? Answer: We are all members of ASCAP. (End cheesy commercial here).

I’ve been writing a lot of music for commercials and film/TV lately, and I realized that I should be more careful about collecting performance royalties from these jobs. After doing a little research online and asking some of my other composer friends, I decided to go with The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (otherwise known as ASCAP). Joining ASCAP was much easier than I had expected, and took me only ten minutes to fill out an electronic application on their website. $35 later, and I can now start collecting royalties on my music for life. Or wait, that means I actually have to write music and get it broadcast before I can start collecting money!

All kidding aside, I may be a big proponent for open source technology and new creative potentials in the media industry, but there is something to be said for benefiting from your own intellectual property.

I’ll have more updates on my new work very soon, with audio/video examples to follow.

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Dear Friends and Colleagues,

For the past few months I have been designing my official website, www.kevinsiwoff.com, and today the website is finally launched. Hopefully this website will give a little insight into my professional world. My main goal has been to present a cross section of my work in a unique way, combining elements of what I do into the framework of both a portfolio and a blog. The blog will serve not only as a “news” page, but also as a journal for my creative process.

I hope you enjoy my new website, and please bookmark or subscribe to my blog’s RSS feed if you are interested in seeing/hearing the newest developments in my professional life as they happen.

Sincerely,
Kevin

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Ever since I got an iPod Touch a couple of months ago, I’ve been looking at websites in a new way. That is to say, I’ve become increasingly frustrated by having to zoom in and out, scroll side to side, just to read a few paragraphs of text on the Touch. Well luckily I found a plugin for Wordpress (the platform used to power this blog) called WPtouch. WPtouch automatically formats my blog posts for iPhone/iPod Touch, Blackberry Storm, Palm Pre, and Android users. No more unnecessary zooming or scrolling just to read a paragraph.

Unfortunately, when it comes to graphical design customization, WPtouch is slightly limited (it would be cool if I could use some of the graphical elements from the web designed blog in the mobile design). But though it lacks in style, WPtouch makes up for this in its ease of use and cross compatibility with most mobile platforms.

Now if only I posted to this blog more often, you’d have more content to read on your mobile…

If you have a blog running on Wordpress and are interested in mobile compatibility, check out the WPtouch plugin here: http://www.bravenewcode.com/wptouch/

Events & Reviews, Uncategorized mobile, WPtouch

Today some friends and I drove to New Haven, Connecticut, to attend a record fair and eat some famous New Haven pizza. It had been quite some time since I was at a record fair, and I had a great time digging through the crates again. I happily walked away with a few good reggae and 60s R&B records.

As for the pizza, I was a bit incredulous about the hype surrounding New Haven’s Frank Pepe pizza, especially after finally making it to Brooklyn’s amazing Di Fara Pizza a few weeks back (those of you who follow me on Twitter, you know what I’m talking about). But nevertheless, Frank Pepe lived up to its reputation and made for a pretty serious competitor to the New York pizza titans. Note the line outside of Frank Pepe. Doesn’t this remind you of the pizza madness we are used to seeing in New York? I won’t say which pizza is better, but at least here’s some pictures for your enjoyment.
Read more…

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I’ve been looking to some of my favorite blogs for inspiration on posting format, and therefore, I’ve realized that short and sweet is a good rule of thumb. So I’m taking a page out of Alex Ross’s blog (figuratively speaking): The Rest Is Noise, and writing a short list of things that have been influencing my work and thoughts. Oh… And speaking of work, stay tuned for some new compositions and a design collaboration with my friend Paul from Fridgebuzzz Electronics (early October).

Reading:

Malcolm Gladwell “Outliers”

Listening:

Yo La Tengo “Popular Songs”
Lee Fields “My World”

Watching:
Mad Men Season 3

That’s all I got for now. Thanks for following me.

Uncategorized books, music, reading list, television

For all those who are following me on Twitter, you will now receive automatic tweet updates every time I post to the blog. @reply me if this works!

Uncategorized Twitter, update

Hello and welcome to my blog.  For those who don’t know me, I’m Kevin Siwoff (in case you forget, you can just look at the top of the page and find the big bold type).  I’m a musician, composer, engineer, designer of sorts.

For the past few months I’ve been working with a small team to put together a website containing my creative portfolio.  In the next week or so kevinsiwoff.com will be unveiled to the world and everyone will get to see the product of our hard work.  But for now, I present to you a piece of the puzzle: the blog.  I play, write, and record music, but I also have a background in electronics and web design.  kevinsiwoff.com will focus more on my musical and sound works, but here in the blog, I’ll  delve into my other work too.  In the blog I’ll highlight collaborations with my friends/colleagues, post pictures, comment on happenings in arts, media, and technology, and basically do whatever I feel like doing.

If you like my style, subscribe to the blog with RSS.  If you’re on twitter, subscribe to my feed @KJSWaffle.   If you like something I say or something I write, post a comment below.  Thanks for reading. Things are about to get exciting!

Uncategorized RSS, Twitter, welcome, www.kevinsiwoff.com

This Blog is about to launch.  Get ready for it because it’s almost here.

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