Not that anyone but me (Vyan) noticed, but today was my first year anniversay for being in this band. ~~~Happy anniversary to me... happy anniversary to me~~~.

Ok ok...enough self-aggrandizing shit...back to the news.

I was actually way too busy to celebrate. I got ahold of some MP3 Freeware today. This means that I can now convert some of the songs from the sample copies of the CD we have, into high quality MP3 sound files for downloading from the net.

And that's exactly what I did.

Part of the reason I did it was so that we could enter the Born on the World Wide Web contest which ArtistDirect is running. This contest is connected in conjuction with the Online Music Awards which focuses on Best Overall Artist and Best Fan & Band Website. The Born on the Web contest though is a musical battle of bands using MP3 files. A panel of celebrities (including people such as Ozzy Osborne's wife/manager Sharon) selects their favorites from among all the submissions, and then each week - ArtistDirect members (remember membership is "FREE":hint hint) choose the best from am dd, their selections (So far our submitted songs ("Pay Your Dues" & "Hero Inn" haven't been selected by a panel --- yet) The winner gets a $25,000 recording budget, lots of gear and a "Possible" record deal. They also get to perform live at the Online Music Award Presentation on Oct 7th at the House of Blues, in L.A.

So once I got hold of something to make MP3's with -- I went Nuts with it. After converting and uploading two songs for the Contest, I then turned my attention to the website MP3.Com. The site came to my attention through two sources -- one: Ty Tabor of King's X, who suggested it as a promotional method and Two: my ex-band-mate Rocco's (from Soul Machine) new group World's Apart is featured on MP3.com)

So now - Planet X is also on MP3.Com. I uploaded five tracks(Pay your Dues, The Hero Inn, Silent Rage, Shades of Grey & Endless Night) and then used MP3.Com's CD facility to make them all of them available as a Sampler CD called "Signals From...Planet X".

After a single day "Pay Your dues" topped the MP3.com charts (#1) for bands from Sacramento, and rated #34 among all Metal selections on the site. The "Signals From...Planet X" CD is available for $5.99 and can be ordered directly from MP3.Com. They handle manufacturing and shipping - and we get half the proceeds.

We even sold our first copy on the first day that the CD was available.

Now -- how's THAT for an anniversary present?!?!

We also now, finally, have some more copies of the re-mixed and remastered version of our full length CD in hand. Ron is going to verify that the cover is adequate and setup properly with a CD Manufacturing house in the bay area...with luck we should have Lots of copies available for sale within the next month. We have a connection a Valley Media, which supplies CDNow, Tower and other such outlets so you might be able to order the full length Planet X CD from your local record store real soon.

More news on this as it develops...

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