Hi, My name is Joe Hickman. I am 25 years old and I live in Dallas, TX. I am a Web and Print Designer and Developer. I have been doing this for over 6 years and I have the experience and knowledge to handle almost any project. I am Jamey Jasta's "web guy" and I work full time for Atomic Design & Consulting in Plano, TX.
We’re spending the weekend in Las Vegas, courtesy of Jamey Jasta and Hatebreed. Jamey is not here yet, but should be here within the next couple of hours. Here’s some pictures so far of our trip. I’m having so much fun, it’s really nice to get away from Texas and all of the work. I know I will have hell to return to but that’s life…
I hope everyone else in the world is having a great weekend too, be thankful for everyone in your life and never take anything for granted.
If you happen to be one of the great customers of Stillborn Records online store (www.stillbornstore.com) you will soon see these finely crafted Stickers and Postcards inside your envelope of goodies in the mail from us. It took me a complete hour to throw these bad boys together and I have to say they turned out better than I expected. I wanted to do something a little different. When I order stuff from Roadrunner / Victory or Sumerian, I always get a postcard type paper or a cool little sticker with about 90 bands on it. That's cool. I wanted to keep it a little more personal this time around.
You see, Thy Will Be Done and The World We Knew both recently released new albums via, you guessed it, Stillborn Records. I really enjoy both of these albums a lot. Not because I have to, but because they're both really killer albums. I think you should spend some time checking them out and consider purchasing via our fine online web store or via iTunes, both of the albums.
Personally I love loud music and the TWBD record slams on my two 12's. I buy a lot of metal and hardcore records that are poorly produced and or mixed, and listening to them in my car just isn't a treat for me, sounds like grumbled up crap. I was impressed when I inserted the albums into my fine Pioneer (yes I know, I need an Alpine!) stereo and proceeded to turn the volume upwards of "40" and let my 1k watt Alpine amp heat up my two Memphis 12's. It was and is every time, a beautiful, beautiful sound.
Anyways, here are the Stickers, let me know what you think. How's that for a long drawn out plug for the albums, do you want your 3 minutes back now, you speed reader!!?
The past two weeks have been pretty much pure hell for me since E1 Music (formerly KOCH) has started releasing the tracks (week by week) from the new Hatebreed covers album, "For The Lions". Let me just explain a little more... First of all Roadrunner still had ownership of the domain, then E1 got it. But here's the problem, nobody knows what the FTP information for the website is on RR's server. Why is that a problem you ask? We can't download the site, or backup any databases but it's sort of okay with me for one reason... We get to build a better website! The current website is great and all but it's not very user friendly. Expecially since social media has pretty much taken over since Hatebreed released their album, "Supremacy" in 2006. Now Jamey Jasta uses twitter daily, and we depend highly on social media to spread the word of news and tour information. We HAVE to have this stuff.
The current Hatebreed website doesn't have dedicated pages for each post and everything is generated in one iFrame (I don't know who's genius idea this was, even in 2006? WTF? You can't bookmark any posts on digg or facebook, or even twitter. The biggest problem for me is there's no way for the fans to respond to the news we post on the site and you can't bookmark a damn thing on there. Not to mention we can't advertise anything on there.
Check out the newest band website that I built for Walls Of Jericho (http://www.wallsofjericho.net). When I set out to redesign and rebuild that site, I wanted a way for fans to respond to the band and post comments but I really didn't want to use WordPress... The website turned out great, it's easy for me to update and there is a banner manager for the site so I can design several banners showcasing several tours, items for sale in the store or contests, I mean there is a impossible amount of options there and it's a great tool that every band should use.
What of some of the features you like about your favorite band's websites? Do you even visit your favorite band's websites anymore? Comment!
By the way... I'm not knocking what the guys over @ Sons Of Nero did with the website at all, they do great work!
