Randyland

For those that know me, and wonder what I’ve been up to, here’s where the time went. Highlights only, and I go back to College, because I literally haven’t seen some of you since then:

• Dec 1993 – Graduated from U of Iowa with a BBA in Information Systems, minor in Computer science. Major focus was on database design/normalization, and, oddly, statistical controls of manufacturing systems, since the MIS department of the U of Iowa grew out of the management sciences department.
• Jan 1994 – Started at Arthur Andersen in their IT department.
• Oct 1997 – Started a Master’s in computer science at DePaul university.
• Dec 1997 – Joined the band that I’m still in today, Beatnik Turtle (http://beatnikturtle.com)
• Circa 1998 – Founded Gamesnight (http://gamesnight.org). Boardgames once a week with friends. That group still continues today.
• Feb 2001 – RandyCon 01 held in Evanston. A tradition that also continues through today. (Randycon.org)
• May 2001 – Completed Masters of Science in Computer Science: Data Communications with a minor in Artificial Intelligence. Graduated with distinction, 4.0/4.0 GPA.
• Fall 2001 – Beatnik Turtle releases debut album, What We’ve Got
• March 2002 – Arthur Andersen sinks due to Enron Scandal, and I was on the deck of the Titanic when it struck the iceburg and sunk. Before it did, one day, we were all let out of work to march through the streets of Chicago wearing a pin that said: “I am Andersen” in order to try put a human face on our company. It didn’t work.
• June 2002 – Started as a contractor at Abbott Laboratories.
• December 2002 – Released second Beatnik Turtle album, Santa Doesn’t Like You
• August 2003 – Became an employee at Abbott Laboratories.
• August 2004 – Released Beatnik Turtle’s Third album, The Cheapass Album with an album cover by Phil Foglio
• Late 2004/early 2005 – The song, Get Out from The Cheapass Album is licensed by ABC Family/Disney for a commercial campaign for a reality show called “Kicked Out”. A show about 20-somethings that were finally kicked out of their parent’s basement–and ironically the theme of the song “Get Out”.
• January 2006 – Released the free, online-only Indie Band Survival Guide, a 101 page PDF. In the next few months, it’s downloaded hundreds of times, and mentioned in the blogosphere by Lawrence Lessig.
• August 2006 – The Indie Band Survival Guide is covered in an article in Billboard magazine. a few months later, it’s covered in another interview article in the Associated Press. Reuters picks up that article too.
• November 2006 – Contacted by a literary agent about making a book version of the Indie Band Survival Guide. Signed with St. Martin’s Press/Macmillan to work on the book through 2007, unfortunately, we had also planned the next item…
• January 1, 2007 to December 31, 2007 – The Song Of The Day project, where my band, Beatnik Turtle, wrote, recorded, and released a song for every single day of 2007. 365 total songs. All of them were produced, not written the same day that they were released. Some took months. Each day was a new song. I wrote and played on many songs. I also designed the website.
• February 2007 – Released Beatnik Turtle’s fourth album, Thanks For Coming Out: Beatnik Turtle Live.
• February 2007 – Beatnik Turtle takes part in the RPM challenge, where the goal is to write, record, and produce an album in the month of February. Considering that we were already doing a song every day of 2007, we just produced some of those songs more heavily, and sent it in on March 1st. We stuck to the theme of “Songs about Work.”
• May 2007 – Released Beatnik Turtle’s fifth album, All In A Day’s Work, based on the RPM challenge.
• June 2007 – I become an uncle when my sister has my adorable little niece Chloe.
• June 2007 to December 2007 – Wrote the Indie Band Survival Guide while the rest of the band was having fun recording music.
• February 2008 – Beatnik Turtle’s second foray into the RPM Challenge. Album are all updated and reworked versions of Irish drinking songs. The song “Tell Me Ma” is featured on NPR.
• May 2008 – Released Beatnik Turtle’s sixth album, Sham Rock, based on the RPM Challenge music.
• June 2008 – Released Beatnik Turtle’s seventh through eighteeth album, one for every month of Song of the day. 12 albums. 365 songs.  You can find them on iTunes or any major online music store.
• August 2008 – The Indie Band Survival Guide, my first book, co-written with Jason Feehan, released from St. Martin’s Press/Macmillan.
• August 2008 – The website for the book, The Indie Guide, is released to the world. The site contains tens of thousands of links, resources, and services for Indie Musicians. This is what I spend most of my time working on until this day.
• 2008 to current – A Beatnik Turtle song by myself, Jason, and Tom Roper is used as a theme song to the TV show DVD Geeks, being shown in 26 million homes.
• February 2009 – RPM Challenge, take three. This time, we do a kids album. Or at least, an album about when WE were kids. The twist here is that we recorded the entire album live on webcam so people could watch the process. Album is not yet officially released, however, you can listen to it here or on The Song Of The Day.
• February 2009 – The Indie Band Survival Guide is reworked as an international version, and released from Ebury/Random House as the DIY Music Manual.

Other than that, I really haven’t done that much.