can you help out with a new t-shirt design?

hey everyone, we’re starting to get images together for the new album and want to make some new t-shirts (thank god).

it has taken me many years to recognize that I’m a crappy t-shirt designer, so I’m appealing to your good taste to help us make a cool t. please email us mockups of what you would like a black lab t-shirt to look like (or general preferences — for girls’ shirts, colors, etc. etc.).  contact @ blacklabworld.  com

dead line for submissions is August 16th, the shirts will be screen printed. use your imagination, but keep the number of colors down to three, if possible. also, email the address above if you need logos, materials, etc.

so please help us out and get creative!!

thanks.

do the do

“Thanks you for accepting this friend request. I just want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me, unconsciously. Some of your  songs completely changed my life.”   – Michael

I’ve gotten a lot of messages like this, via email, facebook, myspace, garageband, etc. all of them hit me hard. this one hit me like a sledgehammer.

a very talented friend of mine is thinking of quitting the music business and going to med school. he says he wants to do something to help people, not just make pop records sound better. I know just what he means, though maybe messages like Michael’s have started to get through to me after all these years. I know that I am doing something to help people.

but more than that, I know I am doing what I came here to do, that I am giving what I came here to give, and that by doing so I am getting what I came here to get. I couldn’t be a doctor (absolutely can’t stand the sight of blood). maybe I could run a business that made a lot of money or work in a non-profit to help people directly or whatever. but I don’t think I could do anything as well as I can sing. so that’s what I do.

I think each of us, over and over, has to answer some version of the question, “am I doing the thing I am best at?  am I doing the right thing with my life?  am I doing what I came here to do?”  maybe we ask it consciously and maybe we ask it unconsciously, maybe we make lists or maybe we shy away from even thinking about it. but whether it’s being a good parent, a provider, an artist, a caretaker, a student, a hard worker — whatever — I think we ask this question and search for the answer.

one of the reasons I appreciate the community that has formed around black lab is that it helps answer this question for me, again and again, each time it arises. working on the ‘pictures of people’ video has been a very powerful experience, seeing people’s faces over and over, feeling gratitude that so many of you would be generous in sending in your pictures, and just getting this visceral sense of who the community is.

so, thanks again everyone.

free mp3 of the month: ‘take this’ by Kristin Kelly

“take this” is from Kristin Kelly’s new album See Red.  you might remember Kristin as the co-singer of Cake or Death. she’s branched out on her own, penning twelve new tracks of highly addictive alt.pop. I helped work on the album, and “take this” is my fav. it’s pure Kristin, tough and delicate at the same time, with a perfect groove anchoring the production of Deej Hofer from Stray Palace.

check out her album here and her website here.

pictures of you

thanks to everyone who sent in photos. we got hundreds of shots and, after figuring out a format that would fit as many of them in as possible, I handed them all off to the editor to sort through and sequence. for us, looking at all these faces over and over again has been very powerful. it’s a snapshot of the black lab community and I’m really grateful to all of you. click here to download an 80mb zip of the quicktime movie.

looky here!

Ian (aka Archangel-INC) hit us with black lab fan tattoo #2.  who’s next??

thanks for sharing the pics, Ian!