“Free is the new black” as one of my favorite authors Martin Atkins says, and the best way to prove to your everyday casual music fan that your band’s music is something they could get into is to give it away for free! Assault.it has tirelessly scoured the web the past three months to find what we consider to be some of the best signed, and unsigned bands offering up their music for free to their fans, and soon-to-be-fans. Download as you see fit, and if you like what you hear, go to a show, buy a t-shirt, buy an album, or at the very least tell a friend!

1. Direct Hit!

FUCK YOU! GET PUMPED! To call these guys the Andrew WK of punk rock would be somewhat of an insult, but in the interest of appealing to everyman 1.0 that’s what these guys are. Hardcore power punk at its finest, and the best live show I’ve ever witnessed. You can check out our full review of their latest EP #4 here if you want to see why we think this band is your favorite new band.

Get Pumped! Direct Hit! MySpace | BandCamp (The free shit is here)

2. Makeshift Prodigy -- Mathematica

Makeshift Prodigy is giving away a single off their freshly-released album Mathematica! According to Third World Timmy this band is one of the best new bands in the city of Chicago, and is his pick to click to break out in the next year or two. Check out our review of Mathematica, as well as our live CD release show review, and interview with the guys.

Official Website | Download “Mathematica”

3. Empires

Select singles and entire albums from their MySpace for one of the most well known bands in Chicago with former members of The Academy Is… except these guys are way more awesomer.

Official Website | MySpace

4. The Delivery Boys

One of Chicago’s hidden secrets on the pop punk scene. You can check out our thoughts on the Chicago power-punkers here, or better yet, you can download their songs on their PureVolume page.

MySpace | PureVolume

5. Trippy Wicked

“[An] epic musical journey of songs about living the good life, fire, growing beards, girls, aliens, loneliness, love, and pirates.” That basically sums up the awesomeness of this UK import. You can download their album for free on their band camp.

Official Website | bandcamp

6. Carousel Kings

The Carousel Kings EP, Here Comes Trouble makes me feel like I’m driving 90 MPH on I-90 in towards Rockford, IL listening to Saves the Day at full blast in my ’93 Pontiac Bonneville. Fast-paced punk rock that you’re mildly embarrassed to sing along to.

MySpace | PureVolume (Free download here)

7. La Dispute

The first I’d heard of La Dispute was when I found out from R. Kelly (Ryan Kelly that is) that they’re on the same label as The Wonder Years, No Sleep Records. I was amazed to find a range of sound that starts at spoken word over what reminds me of Explosions in the Sky, and goes all the way to a highly polished screamo sound--which I’m a huge fan of.

MySpace | Thank You for Your Patience Free Downloads

8. Light In May

Metalcore from Conneticut that sound something like Poison The Well, one of Third World Timmy’s old school favorites.

MySpace | Merch Store |  PureVoume Free Downloads

9. The Decay

Canadian punk rock--not the Sum41 style punk rock though. If Dillinger Four had a Canadian love child, it’d be The Decay.

MySpace | This Month’s Rent Full Album Download

10. Mansions

The Get Up Kids meets Ryan Adams meets Dinosaur Jr. Words from their own MySpace.

MySpace | Merch Store | | Doghouse Records | Get OMG for just one tweet!

11. Anchor Eighty Four Compilation

Sign up for the mailing list and you get the full album. The album includes a song from a band we interviewed a few weeks ago, Newamerica. (Formerly The Discover Radio)

Sign up to get a full compilation album

12. Thrice -- Day Trotter Live Session

At one point Thrice was Third World Timmy’s band, but they’ve transitioned into more of an experience, than a rock and roll band. Still, they’re giving away a free album that you should get.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY1SwqLOC3c

Official Website | Download Full Live Session

13. Wipe Out Marshall

I can’t tell you much about this band because their “About Us” on their MySpace may as well have been written in alien, but the album is full of punk rock block, and totally worth checking out. EP: You Light This Match, We’ll Burn This City

MySpace | Download Free EP

14. Man the Change live in Brooklyn EP

New York based DIY punk rock band heavily influenced by one of “Third World” Timmy’s favorite punk rock groups, Hot Water Music.

MySpace | Download EP

15. Deadly Animals EP

Heavy metal is “Third World” Timmy’s favorite genre of music, and he’ll be the first to tell you that most of the unsigned groups offering up free music in said genre kinda suck--Deadly Animals on the other hand, do not suck. Gritty hard rock for fans of Static-X, Pantera, and Fear Factory.

MySpace | Download Demo EP

16. The Friday Night Boys

One of the newest signings to Fueled By Ramen, and we can understand why. One tweet gets you a free download of one of their new songs.

MySpace | Tweet to download

17. Apocalipstick

All girl  thrasher punk rock group from Irvine, CA. They’ll steal your heart then break it.

MySpace | Sign up for mail list to download

18. SHARKS -- Shallow Waters EP

British garage rock that sounds a bit like early The Strokes albums. PunkNews gave it 4.5/5

MySpace | EP Download

19. Campaign -- It Likes To Party EP

It’s no secret that we at Assault.it’s staff and crew like to party. This album therefore caught our attention and we believe it couldn’t be more appropriately titled. You can also get their previous EP for free in the same placed--the appropriately titled H1N1. For those of you fans of old Hot Water Music, you’re going to want to get both these albums.

MySpace | It Likes To Party EP Download | H1N1 Free Album Download

20. Dan Wythoff -- The Sunscreen EP

Great solo act that has the same amount of talent as a John Mayer and you won’t feel like a douche enabler by listening to it.

MySpace | Sign up for the newsletter for the Sunscreen EP

21. Cypress Hill -- It Ain’t Nothin’

With a new album on the way Cypress Hill has released one of their songs for free! Check it out and keep an eye out for their new album which we’ll be reviewing here on Assault.it.

Official Website | Download It Ain’t Nothin’ MP3

22-28. ReverbNation Playlist 7 (Click on Audio Library)

Every week ReverbNation posts 7 songs from different artists that are all available as a free download. The program has ended, but they still have a huge Audio Library you can get plenty of quality free music from.

More from ReverbNation | Download Playlist7 (Click on Audio Library)

29. Ship Wrecks

Acoustic rock that sounds like a more catchy version of The Swell Season (From Academy Award winning movie Once) and a little bit of Bright Eyes.

Official Website | Ship Wrecks bandcamp

30. Kismet -- Hiatus

Utrecht based indie-rock at it’s finest. Sort of sounds like a lighter version of Thursday.

Official Website | Kismet bandcamp

31. A Common Year -- Between Cities full length album

If you’ve seen Jimmy Eat World live and wish there were more bands like it it--look no more. A Common Year is a for fans of Brand New, Jimmy Eat World, Thrice, Northstar. Anberlin.

MySpace | A Common Year bandcamp

32. The Day Woke to Me Driving To You’s -- Rain, Rain, Rain EP

Sounds like Explosions in the Sky, Postal Service. Despite their complicated name, the music is quite soothing and nice.

MySpace | PureVolume | Download EP

33. He Is We -- Light A Way

Acoustic band that sounds like Paramore, VersaEmerge, Sarah Berielles. Included on the Top 20 Unsigned Bands of 2009 by PureVolume.

MySpace | PureVolume | Merch Store

34. Conditions -- Illuminati

I’ve been a fan of Conditions for awhile now. (Since I heard about them from ShredNews) For fans of anyone who likes The Ready Set, All Time Low, Set Your Goals, The Swellers. They’re offering the song “Illuminati” on their PureVolume for free.

MySpace | PureVolume Song Download

35. I Rival -- Make Me Scream

Sounds like Keeping Secrets, Our Last Night, The Word Alive, Set Your Goals, Conditions, The Used.

MySpace | Merch Store | PureVolume Song Download

36. The Bay State -- Liars

Talented female lead rock band that sounds a bit like Paramore/VersaEmerge, Be Your Own Pet.

MySpace | PureVolume Song Download

37. Picture Me Broken -- Dearest (I’m So Sorry)

Girl fronted rock band that resembles Lacuna Coil, Evanescence, Flyleaf, Arch Enemy. They made it on PureVolume’s top 20 unsigned of 2009, and deserve all the attention they get.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiEVPpCAD7Y

MySpace | PureVolume Song Download

38. Every You -- A Change of Scene

If you like The Swellers (Like we do) then you’ll love these guys--same goes for Strike Anywhere, Broadway, and any other seasoned punk rock group.

MySpace | Merch Store | PureVolume Song Download

39. My Arcadia -Lulea (City by the Sea)

Hard to classify who My Arcadia sounds like, but I would say it’s a mixture of Flyleaf, Hey Monday, Amy Lee, and the punk rock influence of one of our favorites Hayley Williams.

MySpace | Merch Store | PureVolume Song Download

40. Tonight Alive -- Wasting Away

I’ve said it 3-4 times now, but Tonight Alive sounds very much like Picture Me Broken, My Arcadia, Paramore, Flyleaf, and VersaEmerge. I can’t get enough girl-fronted rock band. Very high energy band that most bros would feel comfortable with playing loudly in their cars.

MySpace | PureVolume Song Download

41. Silversun Pickups -- Lazy Eye (Acoustic version)

Grammy nominated indie rockers the Silversun Pickups put up an acoustic version of their song, “Lazy Eye.” All you have to do is sign up for their mailing list!

Official Website | Sign up for newsletter for free song

42. Girl On Fire -- Summer Sampler EP

For fans of Alexisonfire, Taking Back Sunday, The Used, except more fast-paced, with more face-melting guitar riffs. It will make you feel like a man.

MySpace | Summer Sampler EP Download

43. Midwest Hype

I’ve never heard a jazz funk band before, but Midwest Hype is working their way into a genre that they’re dominating all their own. This entire album is on “Third World” Timmy’s island vacation mix that goes with him on all his tropical island getaways.

MySpace | ReverbNation | 3 songs: Sunrise Will End My Night Tonight, Big Poppa (cover), Runaway

44. A Hero Named Hope

One of the rising stars of the Chicago rock scene and one of the few bands that still resist the pop-punk trend and continue to play a heavier, more hardcore style of punk rock. Another live show worth seeing as they get better and better every show they do.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=n52Ew_XU5Po

MySpace | 2 Songs off their debut EP

45-46. Abel & Lorien -- Tour EP

If you like Brand New, you will literally shit your pants for Abel. Lorien is a bit more like Anberlin, Deas Vail, Academy Is…, Copeland according to LFM

Abel MySpace | Lorien MySpace | Tour EP Download

47. Alkaline Trio

It’s no secret that Alkaline Trio is one of Assault’s favorites. They recently gave away two songs off their new album, This Addiction which you should get cause it is awesome.

Official Website | Free Song Download

48. Bullet For My Valentine -- Begging For Mercy

One of the best metal acts around is giving away one of their songs off their new album for free. “Third World’ Timmy will be one of the first in line to pick up this new album in which he’ll no doubt declare it the best thing ever since Avenged Sevenfold.

Merch Store | Download “Begging For Mercy”

49. I Fight Dragons

Sign up for their mailing list, and get a link to an EP mixture of live music and awesome songs made from old school Nintendo sound effects. If that doesn’t tickle your pickle then you should just quit here at #1. They just signed to Atlantic Records and are now touring with the Too Fast For Love Tour w/3OH!3, Cobra Starship, Travis McCoy

MySpace | Official Website (Sign up for the newsletter to get the free EP!)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd3GP57YUjw

50. Pet Lions

Indie pop rock from Chicago--sign up for their newsletter for their Soft Right EP!

MySpace | Download Soft Right EP

Sources:

Follow Legal Free Music on Tumblr
Top 20 Unsigned Bands of 2009 by PureVolume
ReverbNation

Puddle Of Mudd has a a brand new music video, and more importantly a free MP3 for you to download!

The band took the time to film a short update while on set to let fans know that they are working hard and are excited to head out on tour. Puddle Of Mudd kicks off their spring tour April 1st in Anaheim, CA and will make their way across the country with both Burn Halo and The Veer Union.

The Kansas City Rockers are also giving away a free mp3 download for “Blood On The Table” off the band’s latest release Vol: 4 Songs In The Key Of Love & Hate, available now on iTunes. To receive the track for free, simply point your browser to PUDDLEOFMUDD.COM/FREE or text POMFREE to 66937.

More Puddle of Mudd

• Assault’s Interview with Puddle of Mudd
• Official Website

Cypress Hill have jumped on the bandwagon, and started offering up songs for free! Not sure how long this will be up so make sure to get it while you can.

Here is your chance to get a brand new Cypress Hill joint off their upcoming record Rise Up, due out on April 6. The song is called “It Ain’t Nothin’” and you can download it for free for a limited time at cypresshill.com. Click here to enter your information and download now! The album features special guest appearances from Rage Against The Machine/Street Sweeper Social Club’s Tom Morello, who co-wrote and co-produced the title track and lead single “Rise Up.” The famed guitarist also appears on a second track titled “Shut ‘Em Down.”

One thing we give with every shirt purchase from our online store is a free guitar pick! If you’ve been lucky enough to meet us in person, you probably got one attached to your business card as well. If you’d like to get a custom guitar pick shape to design your own guitar pick, free free to use our template:

Download the Guitar Pick Custom Photoshop Shape

If you’re an RSS subscriber to Assault.it you may have caught our HIM music video and behind the scenes interview last week. Now, HIM’s newest song Heartkiller is available for download for free here on Assault.it! You can also view the music video for the song and the making of below.

A lot of people hate Vampire Weekend for not-very-good reasons. For instance, the band’s affluence (and complete lack of shame about it) rubs cred-lovers the wrong way – although I’m guessing that the haters in question aren’t too badly off themselves, given the amount of time they have to worry about what kind of shoes these dudes wear. The list of grievances along these lines is long and well-known by this point, so we don’t need to rehash them all here. But it should be noted that there’s nothing particularly offensive about the brand of genial indie rock Vampire Weekend play. They’re not exactly innovative, but they are playful and humorous.  It feels like forever since I first downloaded a rough copy of their first record and fell deeply in love with it two years ago, so it’s a very big deal in my corner of the Assault offices that  Contra is now available for mass consumption.

But before we get to the actual record, two questions: do the masses want it, and how will they consume it? It’s my suspicion that Vampire Weekend will forever remain a niche band. Granted, that niche is pretty big due to the current indie-friendly cultural climate, and they’re set to play the Riv here in Chicago instead of Metro for their upcoming North American tour. But is music this smart and odd fit to break out on radio waves ruled by Will.I.Am? (Note: It’s not even the oddness that’s the problem, as I see it – most urban radio jams feel beamed in from a distant galaxy these days. It’s more the obvious, unfiltered intelligence and the way intelligence seems to alienate most “normal” Americans.) As for consumption, let’s get to that next.

Do you still buy CDs? I mostly do not. From the age of eleven to twenty-four, though, I purchased more compact discs than probably 80% of average citizens. I racked up huge credit card debt doing this that still needs to be paid off (or filed into bankruptcy, more likely), and I thought quitting would be virtually impossible. Those shiny little platters were a very serious addiction to me. I didn’t romanticize them to the extent that contrarian oddballs do vinyl, but they did mean a lot to me. Then times got tough and I sold most of them. And then I started doing something I didn’t ever think I would do: downloading, For legal purposes I should probably state that we can’t officially endorse stealing music digitally, but let’s not shit ourselves, either: we all do it. We do it because it’s easy and it’s fun and you can have all the music you want for no money at all. The only CDs I purchase now are ones like this: Contra is a keeper, music that you’ll want to have a high-quality permanent physical copy of. It’s also a grower, which is why I started thinking about these other issues, and why we haven’t started discussing the music yet.

But let’s do that now: Contra is almost deliberately obnoxious for its first few spins. Lead single “Cousins” established well before the record’s release that Vampire Weekend weren’t going to tone down their attack to appease critics. It’s a hyper-caffeinated sprint built on weird time signatures and featuring instrumentation that’s best described simply as “weird noises.” My girlfriend thinks it sounds like Tapes N Tapes; I don’t think it sounds like anything other than an extremely gangsta statement of “just don’t give a fuck” purpose. The rest of the album pretty much follows suit; tracks like “California English,” with its unnaturally sped-up vocals and (I think?) flutters of Auto-Tune dare you to reject them for being too “experimental.”

But there’s no experimentation at all happening here, which is not a complaint. This is as straight-forward a heavily hyped sophomore record as the Strokes’ Room On Fire. If you’re like me and you fucking loved Room On Fire and everything it represented about that band, you’ll probably have a similar reaction to Contra. Vampire Weekend do the Vampire Weekend thing, but more so, and with slight tweaks that provide the necessary illusion of real progress. The band’s self-titled debut is among my top ten favorite album of all time, and that’s because it’s an unforced, organic expression of something unique and fun. Contra (given the time to gain traction) might not follow too closely behind when all is said and done.

Now, back to the question of consumption: I downloaded this record over the weekend for the express purpose of writing about it within the immediate release window. I hated it the first time I listened to it – actually turned it off halfway through “California English” on my first two attempts to get through it. But listen to me now; I’m clearing room for it in my personal pantheon of great shit. And I have no problem paying ten bucks for a nice copy of it at Best Buy in a few days. But if I hadn’t needed to hear it to write about it, I probably would’ve said “Screw it” and let the majority of it remain unheard. This seems lazy, even to me, but I have a lot of music to listen to on any given week. And this is the problem with having access to all the music one can listen to: you probably don’t listen to any given piece of music enough. CDs, with that upfront investment of actual capital, have a greater chance of rewarding you.

And as to the question before that: I don’t think the world is quite ready for Vampire Weekend. Hopefully this record will be more commercially successful than the last one, and, since the band has already been slapped with some serious backlash before they even got back into the recording studio, hopefully their audience will love this even more than their debut. (Certainly there’s more to love: tracks like “Taxi Cab” and “Diplomat’s Son” display the kind of growth that matters – a maturity of message and execution, non-reliant on speed or volume to make a major impact.) But how big can Vampire Weekend get? How big should they get? Is there something wrong with me for liking this so damn much, or would everyone feel this way if they heard it on heavy rotation and became accustomed to it? Will people ever get tired of music that’s ham-fisted and structurally retarded? I do not know.

But I do think about it, moreso in regards to this band than most others I listen to, and I think that’s because I’m really rooting for them to keep being so warm and sincere and flat-out amazing. I complain all the time that music critics don’t engage with bands after hyping them heavily early on; later works are too easily labeled “disappointments” in favor of the next new thing around the pike. So I’m engaging. I don’t want to describe how this band sounds to you; you already know. All I really want to say is this: Contra is music so particular, idiosyncratic, and goofy that it seems gimmicky. But it’s not. These are smart, solid, well-crafted songs that will get into your heart and set up shop for good if you let them.

So: let them.

I’m sure most people have in one way or another heard of Puddle of Mudd. If there was one thing I surely wasn’t going to pass up, being a wannabe rock star myself, it’s interviewing a band that has done it all: partied, toured virtually nonstop, and most importantly, been successful doing so. (8 million records sold to all you haters out there.) I got a chance to talk to them on the phone about their strange stories as well as ask them a few questions about their new album, Songs in the Key of Love & Hate.

Link opens in iTunes

Since the guys had already done 35-40 interviews, I decided to pepper them with questions like, “Is it true you had the Puddle of Mudd logo on condoms at one point?“, but I also decided to grind out a few details about how the band chooses an opening band, as well as ask them why bands don’t party like they use to. Check out the full interview download below, or just check out a few of the highlights.

Have you explored any alternate release strategies, and how has the internet changed the playing field?

(Label Dude responded) For this album we are doing a direct to consumer strategy as part of the option, so there will be special packages that the fans can buy where the band will be signing the booklets, and they’ll get an exclusive shirt. So we are employing a different, more direct to the fan relationship with this album, but we will be going through all the various retail outlets including iTunes.

Wes Scantlin: We did do a thing off of our previous record where we put a golden ticket in  one of our records and this chick from… I don’t even know where she lived but her and a bunch of her friends got to come out in their own tour bus with us for a week. Although, I was the only one who would hang out with them the whole time. The rest of the guys in the band didn’t even like, talk to ‘em. [laughs]

Ryan Yerdon: We were debating doing that on this album, but not actually putting the golden ticket in

Wes Scantlin: Yea, and then no one will ever find it.

Ryan Yerdon: And then we were just going to give it to our guitar player Paul’s girlfriend so she can come out and be with us for a week.

Wes Scantlin: I was just going to say that I got it so I can get another tour bus for a week. [laughter]

What do you look for in an opening band?

Wes Scantlin: Alot of the time you want to have a couple of bands that are rolling with you that have got some heat, VH1, MTV, alot of radio airplay–stuff like that, and then ya know give some not so fortunate people. Ya know, cut one band some slack, the ones rolling in a van, slugging it out out there and give somebody else a chance to play in front of your crowd–the ones that don’t really have a deal or anything like that.

Ryan Yerdon: It’s the combination of a band that doesn’t have a deal, but your shit’s kinda cool so we’ll take you with us, and the other stuff is a band that will bring a few more people to the show.

Best place to play?

Wes Scantlin: Man, every city has their own little personality. I kinda like playing a smaller, b-market city, where you’re kinda rolling through a little town and you’re the party, showing up with an awesome show, and there’s nothing else going on in town. Everybody in the whole town is coming cause it’s the weekend–kids, families, picnic baskets, blankets, it’s like a day out for the family–everybody comes.

Ryan Yerdon: As long as the crowd is good and the energy is there then I don’t care if it’s in a club or an outdoors show or an indoor show. If people are excited to see us, that makes it a good show, and a favorite place to be.

Wes Scantlin: I like it when little kids show up and they’re like 8, 9, or ten years old, and it’s their first show and they’re having a blast, like the first blast of their life. Then you get to meet them later and give ‘em high fives and they’re totally in show and just loving it.

Ryan Yerdon: We bring kids on stage, Wes always invites the kids up on stage. We did a show a few weeks ago in Seattle, and this kid came up on stage and he stayed there for like 3 or 4 songs

Wes Scantlin: He was just kind of jamming dude. Most of the time they get up there and they’re like shocked, like “WOAAAAH!” This kid was just like let’s rock!

Ryan Yerdon: Yea this kid was up there for like 3 or 4 songs, dancing, making faces, so that made that a great show.

West Scantlin: It’s a good thing cause I was hammered that night, and I caught some shit for it.

Ryan Yerdon: No you weren’t.

West Scantlin: No… I wasn’t.

Do you party? What’s the wildest thing you’ve had happen

Ryan Yerdon: Well the craziest things we’ve had happen can’t really be shared. It’s like a band of brothers but…

Wes Scantlin: There was something that had to do with a banana getting inserted in a weird thing and actually exploding.

Ryan Yerdon: It wasn’t pretty.

Wes Scantlin: It was really weird man…. We’re pretty mellow right now, but you should have caught us back in the day when we were a bit crazier. Now it’s just mellow man. We just sit in the back of the bus and see who can drink the most beer till like 3 or 4 in the morning.

It doesn’t seem like you get too much of that partying anymore nowadays. Vegan/Straight-edge rock seems to be picking up momentum…

Wes Scantlin: There’s this thing in the record business now called the, “No Tolerance Clause” where they’ll just pull the plug on you if you get too fucked up. Which has happened to me. [laughs]

What was the best part about playing for the troops in Iraq?

Ryan Yerdon: I have to say the best thing is just seeing the faces of the soldiers after we got done playing. We do a meet and greet with everybody, and it seems like it was a really high percentage of the people that watched the show actually stay and came up to us and we signed things for them and they were so thankful. It all made sense in that moment looking at those guys saying, thank you guys for coming here, and we really need your support. Just hanging out with all those guys and playing for them–they made it worth it worth it when we got there. We kinda thought we were crazy to do it.

West Scantlin: I think the hardest thing about playing was seeing the young 18 year old soldiers who’ve had their arms or legs blown off, especially when they’re there with their family, or girlfriends or whatever, that’s definitely the hardest part about playing for the troops. They still have a good attitude about it, but it’s the saddest thing to have to see someone who’s just a kid that’s just blown to bits that’s still alive–who’s going to have to go and get prosthetics and shit. That’s the hardest thing about it. It just sucks to see that kind of shit.

What’s the most outrageous thing Puddle of Mudd has had their logo on?

Wes Scantlin: Yea we had condoms for awhile, and it was kinda strange cause my bass player Doug was embarrassed that I had made the condoms, and I’d just be throwing them out into the crowd, jokingly, and he took like 750 of them, and took them to his house and threw them away because he thought it was embarrassing to the band to have condoms. So he took them and threw them away. Yea, and I paid for them–so he’s basically throwing my shit down the drain.

…I like to go bare-back style.

Advice for guys getting started that are still playing local shows in one region?

Wes Scantlin: The only advice I can really throw out is practice your craft, and your writing ability. Don’t expect someone to come walking up to your front door with a record contract–ever. You gotta get out there and fight for it and get your music to the right people. Fortunately, we have the internet now, and we got the MySpace, the Youtubes, Facebook, so you can use that to your benefit, and uhhh… pray.

Get Puddle of Mudd music:

Download the full interview:

Puddle of Mudd Interview (mp3)

Puddle of Mudd have a new album out today (December 8th, 2009) called Volume 4: Songs in the Key of Love & Hate which you can purchase on iTunes.

More Puddle of  Mudd

Behind the scenes to Puddle of Mudd’s music video to their first single, Spaceship. (Link opens in iTunes)

I was lucky enough recently to partake in the Chicago Music Commission’s Social Media panel for musicians at the Cultural Center in Chicago. They just posted the MP3 for the panel which they’ve called, “Stand Out In A Digital World”. I highly recommend listening to the podcast if you’re somewhat new to marketing yourself as a musician online. There’s tons of links and resources we discuss throughout the panel, and I only say “fuck” once.

Social Media for Musicians – Musicians at Work Forum

Recorded Monday,  November 16,  2009

We discussed using Social Media to build fan relationships. Developing a strategy that helps you choose how to use the available services and networks. Getting the most for your effort in growing and maintaining your fan base. Setting expectations and converting those relationships into real-time results.

Moderator:
Jim Goodrich Chicago Music Commission

Panelists:
Jeffrey David Goldford The Everyday People
Miriam Brosseau Stereo Sinai
Alan Jay Sufrin Stereo Sinai
Matt Ryd Singer/Songwriter
Tim Toomey Assault, Inc. (Me you turds)

Links from the panel you may like:

• Reverb Nation – Better than MySpace and you get embeddable music widgets
• Tunecore – Digital Music Distribution
• CD Baby – Discover New Music
• Last.fm – Another place to get your music on, like Pandora

The one tool you need in your toolbox as a band (which basically makes you a small business owner) is to install and configure Analytics on your website. Do yourself a favor and get off of MySpace. At the very least MySpace should just be used as another avenue to reach fans, not your only or primary point of contact. For this particular tutorial, we use WordPress as our content management system of choice. I recommend WordPress to anyone who asks me simply because of how easy it is, and how easy it is to integrate Google Analytics.

If you’ve already setup Google Analytics you can skip down a ways on the page as I go into the aspects of Google that will mean the most to you. It’s a good idea to look over the initial setup to make sure you’ve done everything properly. The way I setup Google does enable tracking on a few more important items that you don’t get by just copying and pasting the code Google supplies to you.

Get WordPress or a something similar CMS

With WordPress you have two choices to setup your site:

1. Download the software and install it to your web host (Recommended)
2. Host your website remotely on yourname.wordpress.com (less freedom)

Some hosting providers like Media Temple have a one click install for WordPress. This helps things along considerably. If you can’t afford your own domain name and/or hosting. Signup for an account on WordPress.com. Your name will be YOURNAME.wordpress.com to start, but you won’t be able to have complete freedom over the look and feel of your site.

If you have no other choice, start with option 2. You can always export your data and import it to your own web hosted .com later.

Signup for a Google Analytics account using your Google account name

I’ve had a Gmail account for awhile now so all I had to do was go to Google.com/analytics and sign up for an analytics account.

Setup your profile

Setting up your profile is as simple as putting in your website address for each website you have. If you want to setup e-commerce tracking for your online store you have to enable this option later. For now, just enter in the basic information for your site.

Our site already has a profile so the additional site we just setup appears below that domain name. (assault.it.com) You’ll also notice that the status icon is a little alert. That’s because we need to actually setup the embed code on the site.

Click on the edit link on the right, and then click on the Check Status link over to the right

Now you’ll see what we need to get our hands on which is the Google Tracking code. (On the right) You can just copy and paste this into your site if you’re not using WordPress, but it’s better to integrate it with the Google Analytics for WordPress plugin so you can enable additional features not offered with just copying and pasting the code.

If you just copy/paste the code into your site you won’t get any of the additional benefits setup like goal funnels so don’t do that.

Leave this window open for now, and I’ll explain how to implement this code with the Google Analytics for WordPress plugin in the next step.

Download/Install/Activate The Google Analytics Plugin for WordPress to your blog

You’re better off using the Google Analytics for WordPress plugin for a 3 reasons:

1. The plugin will track outbound clicks to see where people are leaving your site and what links they are clicking on when they do leave your site.
2. The plugin will automatically put the proper code on all aspects of your site, and when an upgrade is available it’s as easy as clicking upgrade.
3. Your downloads will automatically be tagged as /downloads/wp-content/uploads/your-file-name.zip so you can get an idea of how many downloads you are getting.

To download the Google Analytics for WordPress plugin you can either add it through the administration interface by going into your WordPress Admin area: http://www.whateveryourdomainis.com/wp-admin and then click on the arrow next to the Plugins link and click “Add New”.

Then, do a search for “Google Analytics for WordPress” and it should be the first result. Install and move on to the next step or install it manually via the directions for installation on the plugins’ WordPress page which I have pasted below:

Input your Google tracking code

Remember the code we left open in another window from before? This is where we need that code again.  You just need the id off of your tracking code which I’ve highlighted below, not the entire copy/paste code that Google gives you.

Copy that part of the code and paste it into the configuration text box like I have below.

Set up your settings similar to how I have to ensure you’re tracking downloads as well as outbound clicks from your site.

Collect the data!

Gather several weeks worth of data before you really go in and analyze where people are coming from and what parts of your site are most popular.

What’s important?

Depending on how you are using your site there are a variety of things that could be of importance to you. (Besides just actual traffic of course)

If you’re using your website as a place where you can push your music to the fans with downloads then that’s going to be one of your most important areas to pay attention to. To view your download statistics go to the content report, and then “Top Content” section.

Then filter your content by downloads by typing “/downloads” into the text box as I have below:

Another thing to pay attention to is your  traffic sources. How are users finding you? Google searches? Reverbnation? MySpace? Twitter? Blog posts?

Want to increase/decrease the date range?

Been a few months since you installed the plugin code? How about increasing the date range from the past month to the past few months? Or past few days? Do that on the dashboard where you see the calendar:

Setup Goals (AKA Super Fucking important)

After you’ve ensured your data is being collected you’re going to want to setup goals.

Goals allow you to setup a flow on the site for how they find you up until they actually do something. (For istance,  download a file off of a specific page)

There are 3 types of goals you can setup, the most important to us being the URL destination which allows us to set a user path for a visitor coming to our site. Name the goal and select URL destination and you’ll see the rest of the Goal Details options that I have in the screen capture below:

“Goal URL” is the second have the the name of the page the user should end up on, and goal value is something to set up if you’re setting a monetary value for something like a digital download. For instance, if you have a file uploaded to your site as I have above, your goal URL would be downloads/wp-content/uploads/name-of-the-file-you-uploaded.zip

Note: You can take this link from the information in your Top Content section like I showed you how to do above.

If you want to track users from say, your homepage to your downloads page you can enter in the separate steps a user would take to get from your homepage to your actual file download.

If I had 4 pages I could enter them all in each field and name each step to determine how many users are able to make it through the entire goal funnel.

At Assault’s online clothing store, we use goals to track our user’s sticking points in our shopping cart check out process. If we find there are a lot of users abandoning their carts after they get to a specific step in the checkout process, we know there must be some sort of usability issue.

One of the coolest aspects of the goals and e-commerce tracking is that you can determine where your actual converted sales/downloads are coming from most. (Meaning the websites that send you the most downloads and money!)

Google analytics goals are critical when determining what social networks to push your music to the hardest, which blogs to keep pimping your free gear to cause their audience buys digital music, which twitter users are giving you shoutouts, etc. etc.

I say again, setting up Goals and Goal Funnels will give you visual proof of where you are having success with getting your music downloaded. I can’t stress this point enough!

If you find most of your users aren’t getting to your music downloads, then you need to give them a clearer call to action on all your pages.

If you’re users are bouncing after :20 seconds and only visiting one page, then they’re not finding what they came to your site for.

There are HUNDREDS of things you can learn from all the data Google gives you. Are your fans primarily hitting the page on the site with your pictures? Are they coming to the free download of a song you offered them that got plugged by a blog? Are they looking at your bio because you have a hot chick lead singer and they want to see if she’s single? (Assault‘s top viewed page on our store is for our zombie t-shirt. Go figure.)

Analytics is the key to your online strategy. It tells you what you’re doing right, and what you’re doing wrong. It’ll also tell you what your fans want more of, and if you’re getting them to the right place in the fewest amount of clicks.

Want more info? Did you get stuck at a certain point? Want some one on one advice? Send me a message on Twitter or post in the comments. I reply to just about everything that comes my way.

Assault's SS Amnesia put on one of these mockups

While browsing through Emptees a few days ago I came across a talk post about some new mockups. To my surprise, they were quite good–and free!

They were done with American Apparel shirts, in size XS by Tom Neal of Ctrl Alt Defeat Clothing. They’re a great set of mock ups and come with prepared backgrounds. If you need some mock ups to make your store look a bit more professional, these are the ones you want.

Download Tom Neal’s T-Shirt Mock Up Kit V2

In the past year I’ve learned quite a few things that I didn’t know about t-shirts, and t-shirt printing that I thought I would share with anyone who’s either already designing their own shirts, or just getting started.

If you’re printing your shirts using a direct to garment type of solution you need not worry about many of these tips such as reducing the colors, but for those of you using screen printing, like we are at Assault Shirts, I think you’ll find most of these tips and resources very helpful.

Reducing image colors in preparation for a screen printing in Photoshop

Throughout many of our t-shirt designs we’ve had to reduce the amount of colors in an image in order to make it fit into the color scheme of our design.

Reducing the amount of colors also makes it cheaper to print, and it gives you a better idea of what your design is going to look like once it’s been screen printed. We used this technique in our 1984 T-Shirt design as well as our One Year As A Lion T-Shirt.  The key to reducing an image’s amount of colors for screen printing is the Posterize image adjustment. To demonstrate, I’ll use this image of Johnny Depp as the iconic Chicago gangster, John Dillinger.

Image > Adjustments > Posterize…

Posterize reduces the amount of colors in your image to the number of levels you specify. Depending on what kind of a look you are going for you can reduce the amount of colors once, or sometimes twice to get the desired look for your image. I’m sure you can even reduce it further, but I generally use 3 or 4 levels.

To posterize your image, first make sure you are on the selected layer you want to posterize. Then, go to Image> Adjustments> Posterize…

After posterizing your image, you can either desaturate it or try varying the amount of levels within the Posterize settings to get the desired effect. Here’s a few other options I managed to come up with:

You can also bring your image into Illustrator, and start to trace the image so it doesn’t look so crispy which you’ll find  may have a better effect than what I’ve outlined above. I personally am all-Photoshop guy so I prefer to keep everything in Photoshop, but Live Trace in Illustrator is another popular method for vectorizing an image.

New Document Presets for Screen Printing T-Shirts

The two document presets for the two sizes of screens that we use are:

18x23 canvas with 300 dpi resolution in CMYK color mode

With the large image sizes it may make sense to start at a resolution of 150dpi if the computer you are working on is a bit older. You can also use a Fill Layer for a background rather than a raster background layer to reduce your document file size. I do this with all my designs so my working file isn’t a 2gb fail whale waiting to happen.

Getting Pantone color codes for exact color matches with your printer

In order to guarantee your designs colors are matching and actually printable you need to send your pantone colors for every color in your design to your printer. Rather than let them do the color work for you, you should send the colors pantone codes.

To do this,  use the eye-dropper tool by selecting it in the tool palette or by hitting the “i” key and then clicking on the color in the design.

After you have the color selected, in your tool palette double click the color, and your color picker will open with the color you just eye dropped. Generally, this color will still be an RGB or CMYK color and isn’t the pantone color code we want. To get the approximate pantone color code, click on the “color libraries” button.

This will open up your color libraries window and the eye dropped color should be selected. The P542 C is what you want to send to the printer along with every other color code associated with your design.

2 minute color separation in Photoshop

Our printers have always done the color separation for us after we send them the high resolution images, but in case you need to do color separation on your own here’s the easiest and quickest way to accomplish that:

• Select the Magic Wand Tool in the tool palette (or hit the “w” key”)
• Uncheck “Contiguous” in the tool options area

• Click a color on your design
  

• Create a new layer and fill it by hitting cntrl + backspace or alt + backspace (depending on what color you want to fill it with the foreground or background)
• Repeat this for each color in your design and you should have each color separated on it’s own layer! (Here’s my design with new colors all separated on their own layers below)

I also found several detailed step by step Youtube videos which outline the above process using similar techniques:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmspWZqbc2Q

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uydc2VmfvQ

T-Shirt placement templates and mock ups

To ensure your printer gets your shirt printed with the correct shirt placement you should place your design on an actual shirt. This should be included with your high resolution shirt files that you send to your printer.

In the past we’ve used a combination of the below sources for t-shirt templates and mockups:

• Photoshop T-Shirt Custom Shape -- Download Use this custom shape as a background and place your shirt design atop it and mask out the outside area.
• Go Media’s Arsenal T-Shirt Templates are a the best way to get a photo realistic idea of what your designs will look like. They’re worth every penny.
• Color Overload’s Men’s T-Shirt Templates Another PSD with an assortment of color t-shirt templates to use for creating mockups from Color Overload
• Assault Shirts Product Page Photoshop Mockups This is our T-Shirt mock-up that we use on our product pages at Assault Shirts. It’s my personal favorite and can be used for shirts of all colors in the American Apparel style.

Related Links & Resources

• T-Shirt Forums Graphics & Design Help
• Designer’s Guide to Apparel Printing from Go Media
• Emptees T-Shirt Resources -- Great assortment of downloads and resources

Free Photoshop brushes available for download including several famous Guantanamo pictures that I meticulously traced, stars, grunge borders, anarchy logos, and the declaration of independence in several different sizes. Feel free to redistribute these as I have created them and would rather have them downloaded in as many places as possible from as many people as possible.

Download Photoshop Brush Set Assault 2.0

I don’t ask anything in return except that you link back to my site, or you can support Assault BLOG by buying one of our exclusive designer graphic t-shirts in our online store.

Also don’t forget about our first photoshop grunge brush set which is still available for download. If you’d like to know how to make your own Photoshop brushes, I’ve written several tutorials including, “How to make your own photoshop brushes,” and “Adobe Photoshop brush dynamics“. Check em out, they’re in depth with screen captures of just about everything you need to get started making your own brushes in Photoshop.

MySpace Background Template

One of the items I struggled to get right with my brand more than the blog, more than the shirt designs, more than the online store, more than the SEO and link exchanging was the god damn Myspace. I don’t know why, but for some reason a staple of your brand besides a decent Twitter and blog presence is to have a Myspace page. Add us as a friend on Myspace, or at the very least checkout what your Myspace will look like if you start using this theme.

In all my years of web design and development I’ve never had anything be quite as big of a pain in the ass as a Myspace layout and getting it to look the way I wanted. After three different Myspace “resets” I think I’ve finally found one that helps get you back to a mildly respectable looking page.

Download Assault’s Myspace Reset

A few things you should note when editing this file for your Myspace:

• Colors need to be changed in several places
• No # signs are used in the color hex codes
• No Javascript allowed
• No CSS shorthand, you have to type it all out

Before Copying/Pasting the Myspace Reset CSS into your profile about me area, make sure to copy the URLs to your Add to Friends, Send Message, and any of the other links contained within your Contact box because it will be hidden by the CSS. I suggest making an image and using some sort of online image map tool, to apply your add to friends and contact links as appropriate as I have done.

Elements we will be hiding

1. Contact Information
2. MySpace URL
3. Blog Listing
4. Extended Network Box

Change Images

You can download the image I have used here for my layout to get an idea of where to position your background image. You will also need to upload your background to some remote third party website such as your own web host or your Flickr account. Make sure to change the background-image: url() to the url of your background image or else it will show my background and I’m sure you don’t want that. The first code block in the reset CSS contains the background-image URL you see below:

   body {
  font-size: 1px; line-height: 1px; font-family: georgia, times, 'times new roman', sans-serif;
  background-color:000000;
   background-image:url(http://www.assaultshirts.com/images/myspace_bg.jpg);
  background-attachment: none;
  background-position:center center;
  background-repeat:no-repeat;     }

Change Colors

I recommend going through and changing the colors in one batch find/replace because the colors show up in several places and it can be hard to keep track of the sheer number of CSS colors because of the strange organisation of the Myspace Layout.

About this theme

That’s it! Change the images, colors, add your own background, and contact information image map and you’re good to go! Best part about this freebie I’m giving away is that it still abides by the Myspace terms of use and shows the advertisements, and it doesn’t have any of the stupid  spam links you find on most themes. (Though it would be nice for you to at least add us as a friend)

A co-worker of mine recently found a great article in Wired that had some really beautiful looking “lasers”, as he called them with some light bursts and motion trails around them. He wanted some insight as to how one could emlways wanted to write a cool trendy tutorial so I’ve decided to unwrap the trendy light trails with a handy Photoshop tutorial.

Download Source PSD
Download Custom Brushes used in this tutorial

Begin – Choose a source focal point

To start out you need some sort of focal point so I figured a picture of one of our t-shirt models, Kendra, would do just fine. After extracting her from the background using various techniques (pen tool, magnetic lasso, and masks) we’re left with a blank canvas and a girl. If you can, preserve your layer masks.

Drawing Lasers and Motion Trails (option 1)

There are plenty of ways to make the little lasers, and I’ll be the first one to tell you that there really isn’t any right or wrong way–so for demonstration purposes I will show you the two ways I made my lasers in the above image. The first way of which is by using the pen tool and making a wavy line like I have done below:

After you’ve drawn your path you need to select the brush tool by hitting the “b” key or by selecting it from the toolbar on the left. Right click on your canvas to bring up your brushes window and select a brush with a very soft edge that (depending on the size of your image) is about 7 pixels wide.

After you’ve done this, select the pen tool again by hitting the “p” key or by clicking on the pen tool button to the left. Create a new layer (Layer>New>Layer) and then right click on that path and goto the “stroke path” option.

A window will popup. Check the “simulate pressure” option and make sure your brush tool is selected. Then click ok.

You will notice that you have a brush stroke going across where your path is and it should go from thick to thin at certain points in your curve with simulated pressure.

Now to get the glow effect on the brush you need to apply a layer glow. (Layer>Style>Outer Glow) Here are approximately the settings that I used with the color #006cff:

You may notice your glow may not have the intensity that you want. The best way to remedy this is to duplicate your layer by selecting it in the layer box and hitting apple+j or cntrl j and then merge those two layers together by hitting apple+e or cntrl+e. Here’s what mine looks like currently

After making one of the lasers this way you may want to repeat the process with another path, or you may want to just move your other path down and transform it. Save the paths you create as we’ll be using them later in the tutorial by going to your paths layer, and dragging your “work path” to the new path icon which should give you something similar to this in your path window:

Creating Motion Trails and Lasers (option 2)

Now one way to make very smooth consistent “lasers” is to use the above method. The other way, which may be a bit more quick and dirty but looks just as good is to brush the lasers on by hand. To do this, create a new layer and select a brush similar to the one you just had, except size this one down a few pixels by either opening the brush window (F5) or by hitting the “[” key which will scale down the brush size one pixel at a time. Then, by hand, draw several “lasers” from right to left across the canvas as I have here:

Somewhere between creating the live demo of this tutorial and writing the actual tutorial I did manage to forget a few screen captures so forgive me if there is some slight inconsistencies in my lasers. (I re-drew mine for this demo, but the actual lasers in the image were slightly different–but they were created in the same fashion) Now that you have several white lines you need to apply the blue glow effect to them. To do this, copy your layer style from your previous outer glow layer style and paste it onto your new layer. (Right click on layer with style and goto copy layer style, then right click on the layer you want to apply the style to and click paste layer style)

You can also recreate the layer style from scratch by going to layer>style>outer glow. and enter in the same settings that we did above. After you’ve done that your image should look something like this:

A few things to note about my image:

• My previous lasers have their layer modes set to things like color burn, and overlay to give some variation in the colors as you can see here.
• I’ve moved Kendra into the foreground in front of the lasers because… well because she’s the focal point!
• After getting my second laser technique down I decided to duplicate that layer and motion blur the layer to give it a bit different of a look from the first layer of lasers.

Add Light Bursts and thick Motion Blurs

It’s at this point that it might be a good idea to reference our original source inspiration to get an idea of what else they were doing with their design. I notice with some of these images that they use a bit of a blur with some of their lasers, as well as lasers of a different thickness.

The first thing I do is repeat my first technique for creating lasers, only this time I use a thicker brush and I’m going to blur the thick laser as well as distort it to give it a smokey feel. I repeat my first technique above by creating a path and a thicker brush and stroking my path.

Don’t forget to re-apply the previous glow layer style to get the right color blue neon on the outside. The next thing we want to get on this specific laser is some distortion. To get the right kind of distortion on this laser I want to use the glass filter, and in order to do that I need to put my white laser on a black background. To do that I create a new layer (Layer>New Layer) and fill it with black and place it below my white laser layer. I then merge the two layers by hitting apple+E or cntrl+e. After you have the laser on black you need to apply the glass filter with these settings (or something close to it):

This should give you a fatty laser beam that looks something like this:

Now those of you who are beginners are thinking, “OH NOES!? Where are my beautiful laser beams and motion trails that I made before?!?” Don’t worry they’re still there. What we need to do now is one of two things. You can either set this layer mode to “screen” which will act just like a real screen and make all the black invisible…

…or you can use the magic eraser tool. (Shift+E or hold the mouse down on the eraser tool till you see the magic eraser.) I don’t quite recall why I used the magic eraser, but for some reason it seemed to be the quick and dirty way to get this done so we’ll stick with it.

After selecting the magic eraser tool and clicking on the black areas of the image, I duplicated my fatty laser beam and set the layer mode of my copy to overlay to give it a more intense glow effect with a slightly reduced the opacity. Here’s what my layers currently look like.

Bring out the focal point with large light bursts with brush modes

After looking back at the reference image, I think our design still needs more of a focal point for our lasers, so we need to add some distorted light bursts. There are plenty of ways to do this whether it be using the lens flare or light effects, but I prefer to use good old custom brushes with layer modes. To start out, pick a dull tone of the color you want your light burst to be. I’ve chosen a dull blue (#1b294e if you want the hex code) Create a new layer. Then you need to set your brush settings to something similar to what I have here:

In order to get that intense bright look it’s important that you set the brush’s mode to “Color Dodge.” Then you need to pick a place on your canvas and click in roughly the same place three times as I have done here. You’ll notice that the more you click the more intense your color dodge becomes. I’ve clicked three times and ended up with a shape that looks something like you see below:

To polish off our light burst I want to add some white in the middle of the burst so that it doesn’t look like such a tacky gradient. To do this I simply set my brush mode back to normal for the layer mode and set my foreground color to plain white. After clicking in the middle of the current light burst you should see a nice gradation to white. Now we don’t want this perfect looking sphere shaped light burst showing up–we want it to be distorted, and for that you can use almost any of the distortion filters that Photoshop has to offer, but I recommend using a combination of the shear filter and the liquify filter.

After getting your gradient sheared to your liking, I recommend setting it’s layer mode to “lighten” and also duplicating the layer once and set that layer mode to “color burn” to give it a more intense look. (refer to PSD to see my final settings for this) I ended up duplicating my layer three times, and to make each layer unique I ran another filter, the liquify filter with these settings and adjusted my layer modes to give it the desired look.

At this point in the tutorial I’m not going to go into exact detail of each and every step because I’d be typing all day–the more you experiment with layer modes, masks, and layer modes the better the image usually turns out. I use a combination of all of those things to get to my final image as you’ll see in my final PSD which you can download here.

Add masks to light bursts for texture

After I get the desired intensity with my large light burst I merge those 3 layers and add a layer mask to hide certain areas of the burst that I don’t want. (Plus the source image appears to have a textured look to it) I select a dirty brush and paint a mask around desired areas of the image to hide/show more of the light burst. There are plenty of tutorials out there that teach you how to use masks and if you’re not using them along with custom brushes then I highly recommend you start doing that.

Rinse, Repeat, add color, use different distortion filters

In order to bring in some more color I’m going to repeat some of my earlier steps to make more lasers, except this time I’m going to use a purple color instead of blue, and instead of using the liquid filter, or the shear filter, I’m going to use the ocean ripple filter. First things first, you need to put your newly created lasers onto a black background so the distortion will work properly as I have outlined above. Then select the ocean ripple filter from the distort menu and apply something similar to the settings you see here:

The edges should be a bit rough looking and to smooth these out we’re going to slightly blur the ripples using the motion blur filter. Make sure to set the direction of the blur to mostly horizontal so it doesn’t lose it’s overall shape.

Experiment with your design!

To add some more volume to my composition I duplicate those new laser levels several times and experiment with different methods of transformation and layer modes/opacity.

Ultimately, the design is going to really come together in these phases and you’re not limited with what you can do. If at this time you wanted to completely change your design’s colors you could do so and continue on–or you can re-arrange the layers to get different effects on every layer.

Experiment! Save versions of your file so you can revert back in case you don’t like what you see. There’s been plenty of designs of mine that I worked on for several more hours and then ended up actually using a design that was done much earlier on in the process. (Look at our Radioactive II t-shirt design. It ended up being done alot sooner than I thought it was and I ended up throwing away what I had once thought was the “final” version.)

It’s hard to take your hands off the keyboard/mouse sometimes and actually decide when a design is done. This method of saving versions of your design is a great way to be able to look at your design later on with fresh eyes to see that maybe it was done a long time ago!

Clean it up! Accent the Focal Point!

Cleaning up your final composition and adding bits and pieces to the design is what’s going to give it it’s focal point, and if you haven’t been doing so already it can be really good to experiment with some of the same techniques using type. Before I get into adding type to my design, I’d like to touch upon adding a bit more variation to my color palette.

One thing I tend to notice about my design as it gets in the later stage is that I may want to add some variation in color to certain layers. The best way I find to do this is to utilize the clouds filter which I think is one of the most dynamic filters in Photoshop which is often under utilized by Photoshop n00bs.

To a beginner the clouds filter looks like just that, it makes pretty clouds, but once you learn how to use layer modes, masks, and custom brushes, the clouds filter can become your best friend for making your designs interesting and more dynamic. In this particular instance I’m going to use the clouds filter to add some more variation in color to my lasers by choosing a purple and a blue using the color picker tool for my foreground and background colors. After running the filter>render>clouds filter with purple and blue set as my foreground and background colors I decide to set my layer mode to overlay, and I also duplicate the layer and add a layer mask to it so that it’s hidden in various places. After getting the desired look that I’m happy with, I merge those two layers together.

Now that I have the desired color variation I want, it’s time to further emphasize the focal point, which in this case is Kendra the t-shirt girl. To bring more attention to her we’re going to duplicate her layer as you can see above and apply the layer mask to her. Your lower layer should no longer have the mask thumbnail next to it on your layers palette. This basically means nothing is being masked on your lower layer anymore.

You’re going to smudge using the smudge tool and a custom brush to give it the textured glow look that you see in the final image. If you’re not seeing the smudge’s show up outside of Kendra then you probably haven’t applied your layer mask and your smudges are getting hidden. make sure you’re smudging the bottom layer, so that the original Kendra image is on top.

You should see something similar to this:

Duplicate that smudged layer one more time and set that layer’s mode to color dodge:

Copy your layer style you created previously from one of our laser layers and paste that glow layer style onto your top original layer in this instance it’s called “Kendra Original”.

Add the finishing touches and details

I’ve been in the habit of adding little orbs to designs in this style so I create several new layers above and below my Kendra original image and use various custom brush settings to get some of those little orbs and light bursts surrounding my image and focal point.

Color correct and adjust your color palette!

The only other thing I can really think of to do on the image besides clean it up in various areas is to adjust the color of Kendra to match my color palette. To do that I’ll use some adjustment layers on my original Kendra layer (that still has a layer mask on it) The first type of adjustment layer I use is a curves layer:

You’ll also notice there are a few new items showing up here including some of my dynamic brush creations as well as some repetition of the purple lasers that I created before. One final thing to do is to add another adjustment layer which will add some blue hues to the original photo (Gradient Map):

Here’s the gradient settings I used:

Your layers window and image should look something like this now:

That’s about it for now. I’ve gone through and added some square looking brushes with brush dynamics.

I also added the name of my brand, Assault, to my image just because I like shamelessly plugging my product after writing these long tutorials. I’ve applied the following layer style to that layer to give it a similar neon look to it as well. (I’ve also applied a slight gaussian blur to soften the lettering)

Here’s the final image after cleaning up some of the layers and deleting some unwanted artifacts. I’ve also re-cropped the image because it felt nicer with a bit more head room for our center piece.

Conclusion

I’ve decided to post as much as I can from this tutorial so that if you knew 80% of what I covered you can at least benefit from my custom Photoshop brushes, or the original source psd of the graphic so you can see the actual layer breakdown I used to get to the final image. If you want to see some of the other tutorials I’ve written that I may have blazed past in this more advanced tutorial you can find links to them below.

While this may not be the EXACT process that was followed in our original inspirational material this is one of the many ways you could accomplish the same effect very quickly. Here are all of the files and links to my other helpful tutorials.

• Download the source PSD for this tutorial
• Download Custom Trendy Photoshop Brushes from this Tutorial
• Adobe Photoshop Brush Dynamics Tutorial
• Custom Photoshop Brushes Tutorial
• Additional Photoshop Tutorials
• Assault – Buy some t-shirts so I can start doing this thing full time!

Want to design this t-shirt on your own? Download all the custom Photoshop shapes that I used to make this design. Double click on the .csh file and they’ll install themselves to your Photoshop custom shapes tool. (You can access this tool by right click on your canvas when using your custom shapes tool.)

All we ask is that you don’t design the exact same shirt and then try to sell them. if you do this Mr. 51% will have to hunt you down and do scary things to you.

To download the high resolution image of this shirt click here, or click here on my t-shirt SEO optimized link here which we will call the t-shirt design download green grunge free. (or you can click the image to the left.

The Assault Shirts Blog is looking better than ever. Bloody spatters, zombies, and those fancy swirly things–my favorite combination of photoshop brushes. I will eventually be supplying a huge amount of custom brushes that I have gathered over the years, but for now you’ll just have to settle for a testing version of this blog’s WordPress theme in a .zip file. I offer no support for this file, and it is a testing version of a modified theme called Dark Water by AntBag.com.

I repeat, DO NOT ASK ME FOR SUPPORT ON THIS FILE AS I BARELY HAVE TIME TO FIX MY OWN SITE’S PROBLEMS. I recommend checking out the Official WordPress site for any blog related issues not pertaining to our fabulously designed shirts.

Assault Blog Theme download 1.0