Brad Sucks - I Don’t Know What I’m Doing (indie): I do my best to thank people who link to me, so while tracking down the person who posted my beard quest to In4mador, I found that the poster had a website featuring his band, “Brad Sucks”. Because there is an armada of unknown bands that use the internet as a deep water dumping ground for cheaply produced musical trash, I can tell you that I wasn’t very excited about the possibility of wading into the auditory garbage pile that day. The guy did link to me, so even though I sort of sighed like “here we go again” when I thought about pushing play, I found it impossible to pass over an artist with such a self-deprecating, smirk inducing name, without at least giving his album a courtesy listen.

After I got through once, I found that it had the same appeal the second and third time through. My hair is too short and my pants are too high for me to consider myself to be an indie fan, but the way I Don’t Know What I’m Doing floats around an indie pop core instead of cutting through the center makes this an indie album for people who aren’t into indie. Some of the album has an acoustic singer/songwriter or even pop-rock feel, while tracks like “Making me nervous” and “Overreacting” have a definitely electronic base. It’s so varied that you never feel like you’re being sucked into another indie trap that will end up at the bottom of that pile of CD’s that you’ve been meaning to sell.

No matter what style is presented, I have to warn you: Brad’s songs are catchy. I’ve found myself unconsciously humming a song or two on a number of occasions (as a matter of fact, “Dirtbag” happens to be winding its way through my head as I write this), which is impressive for a guy who isn’t really into indie. When you consider that the album was written, played, and produced by one guy, it becomes even more impressive.

After listening to the album a few times, I was a bit relieved that I wouldn’t have to awkwardly avoid the subject of music when I sent Brad an e-mail thanking him for linking to me. In fact, when I thanked him, I told Brad I’d write up a review and try to throw a little traffic his way because I liked his album so much. Little did I know that Brad Turcotte, the one man Canadian songwriter and producer behind Brad Sucks, has been one of the best selling artists on Magnatune for a while now.

If you want to check out I Don’t Know What I’m Doing, Brad not only encourages you download the whole CD for free from his website, but provides instrumental tracks for remixes, and the permission to use his music in podcasts or whatever projects you want. Pretty cool, huh? In an time where musicians seem to have more lawyers than groupies, I would say so. Another cool thing you may not know about Brad is that he created the default sounds for one of my favorite open source, mutli-protocol IM clients, Pidgin. Does that mean his album is any better? No, but it certainly says something about the man behind the music.

The guy directly supports open source, gives away his music for free, and wrote, performed, and produced a really good ride through indie pop/rock on his own. The only thing I’m willing to fault Brad for is false advertising because he seems to know exactly what he’s doing, and he certainly doesn’t suck.

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You can download I Don’t Know What I’m Doing and track the progress of his upcoming album, Out of It at Brad’s website, BradSucks.net.

Posted in Music