It is the "My America Industries Promise™" that all this music will be copyright-free and available to stream and download at no charge, for as long as an internet exists, amen (See Bandcamp). If you'd like to support this effort, pay what you can for albums via Bandcamp, but the absolute best way to support The Pizza Puppies is to sign up for ¢lub 333: What's that? For just $3.33/month you can become an official Pizza Puppy yourself (!) and get unlimited downloads/full streaming access to the entire catalogue + an original rock opera written just for you! Whoa.
Another way to support the cause is to buy a custom song, written just for you for only $5. That's pretty cool.
On this page, I will chronicle and explore the mostly experimental EP collection, which has been assembled and organized by Series (100 EPs each).
I know this isn't the best music in the world, but I am proud to say that it is something and it definitely exists. Who knows what the future holds in terms of new music, but I am relishing this new hobby as self-preservationist/archivist in addition to my roles as CEO of My America Industries and the very proud manager/creative director of super-duper art collective / mysterious entity, The Pizza Puppies (currently comprising a roster of over 125 artists and bands).
JUMP: SERIES 1 | SERIES 2 | SERIES 3 | SERIES 4
SERIES 1 EPs 1-100
THE PROCESS: The process for Series 1 is admittedly a bit convoluted. Here's what I wrote by way of missive to the various bands and artists who together make The Pizza Puppies what they are (a set of instructions, a call to arms, if you will).
The first thing you do is go here and select a two-word random phrase, for example––as it pertains to EP-1––"vice sour." Use the first word of that phrase ("vice") to capture the backing tracks by entering it in the search bar at the website, freesound.org. So long as that search gives you at least four results (in this case, it achieved six [at said moment in time]), you're in business. (If it does not return at least four results, start over; if it returns more than ten results, pick a random number between 4-10 to figure out the number of tracks.) These sound files (and they come in all types: wav, mp3, flac, etc.) then become the base tracks for each song.
To create lyrics, use this random quote generator, which gives you ten 'famous' quotes at a time. Then enter whole quotes into this text-to-voice wav generator to get the vocals, and proceed to edit them together in GarageBand. For tracking order and matching, use the sound files in order of results returned paired with the order the text-to-voice fall into based on their random letter-and-number file name. (In this case, four quotes went unused.) However, when it comes to picking out an EP title, all phrases and words within the ten randomly chosen quotes are fair game.
Finish by creating album art; the base for which you shall acquire by doing a google image search of the original two-word phrase. Then further edit and add lettering to the EP cover in Photoshop (use your best discretion).
And that is how you create these EPs.
ADDENDUM 1: Starting with EP-16, we streamlined the process a bit. Now use random.org to come up with the number of tracks (between 4-10), then set the number of random quotes to be generated on this page (with all databases checked off) to that number as well. Still compile the sound files and capture the base artwork for the album covers in the same way.
ADDENDUM 2: Starting with EP-61 (coming soon) we made the process even simpler by removing the first step. Each subsequent EP in Series 1 shall have exactly 6 tracks.
ADDENDUM 3: In ~late 2014, when The Pizza Puppies began making sense of these experimental song sets, we decided to add 2-4 tracks of (mostly) instrumental songs to each release. We did this to A) utilize some otherwise wayward songs, and B) break up the monotony of these otherwise tedious EPs. Or something to that effect.
ADDENDUM 4: All bets are off. As we began readying these collections for official release, we realized they lacked a certain 'oomph'. So all original bands and artists were encouraged to remix tracks, add brand new ones, merch!, killer music videos bro, change up the tracklists, etc. etc. (I apologize for all these addendums, but I thought it was important to note how far from the original process the finished products turned out to be. Such is the way of life for a Pizza Pup!)
THE MUSIC of EPs, SERIES 1:
Scroll over these 100 covers to reveal EP title; click a cover to listen:JUMP: SERIES 1 | SERIES 2 | SERIES 3 | SERIES 4
SERIES 2 EPs 101-200
THE PROCESS: The process for Series 2 is a direct response to the mechanical nature of Series 1:
Starting with EP-101, the process changed COMPLETELY. All Pizza Puppies EPs shall have exactly 6 tracks but the music will be created entirely by voice and by a shitty, cheap, barely-functioning keyboard and all 100 will be (ahem––have been) created by your MyAmeri.ca webmaster and international Q.T.π, SkyKid (Jeff). The album covers will also all feature selfies of said human, SkyKid (aka me, it's me, the guy typing these words *wink wink*), for he (I) is (am) the official mastermind and creator of The Pizza Puppies EPs Series Numero 2!
And that is how I created these EPs.
THE MUSIC of EPs, SERIES 2:
Scroll over these 100 covers to reveal EP title; click a cover to listen:JUMP: SERIES 1 | SERIES 2 | SERIES 3 | SERIES 4
SERIES 3 EPs 201-300
THE PROCESS: The process for Series 3 involves a Russian programmer and the NY Times:
For the next 100 EPs, we've thoroughly changed the style and feel yet again. Beginning with EP-201, each recording shall have exactly 4 short tracks, featuring much better, midi-enhanced production and more thoughtful arrangements.
For lyrics, we shall be using this magical website concocted by a Russian computer nerd, which creates four-line poems randomly from words found on the NY Times website. (I will screencap these lyrics and post them as animated gifs along with each EP post.)
ADDENDUM 1: Instead of making music videos for each track, artists were asked to make a 'living album art' music video featuring all four songs back-to-back and a belly-to-belly. This video would simply be a screen-captured movie of the artist using Photoshop to 'reinterpret' the original album cover using up to eight randomly generated images (each song title could be entered into a google image search, and the artist could select two results per track). The final results will be posted on the bottom of each EP's main page with the video in the middle, like a beautiful sandwich.
THE MUSIC of EPs, SERIES 3:
Scroll over these 100 covers to reveal EP title; click a cover to listen:JUMP: SERIES 1 | SERIES 2 | SERIES 3 | SERIES 4
SERIES 4 EPs 301-???
THE PROCESS: The process for Series 4 is simple: Concept EPs:
For these records, I threw out every rule in the book and let The Pizza Puppies just run wild. The only stipulation was that each release be between ~15-25 minutes in length and have some kind of thematic element, which would make it seem/look like a concept album (if not *actually* conceptual) and also haha just kidding there are no effing rules for Series 4, ya dig 👺😎
THE MUSIC of EPs, SERIES 4:
Scroll over cover to reveal EP title; click a cover to listen:FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Upon completion of the 330th EP, High Master Vernon Howl declared that The Pizza Puppies Inc. Recording Concern will no longer produce any more EPs. LPS ONLY. LONG LIVE LPS.