Shop Sage Suede & ElectroPapi EP

Welcome to my new store Shop Sage Suede!

I will be adding fashion, street wear, music, accessories and other wonderful things to the store. I am currently working with suppliers on setting this up.

ElectroPapi EP

I am working on a new release called ElectroPapi EP. It will be 4-6 tracks and features a futuristic electro-pop sound. I have evolved significantly since DIAMONDBACK Demo, as you can probably tell. When I released DIAMONDBACK, it was just me every step of the way. My music continues to rely solely on my personal growth and my drive to succeed.

I really wouldn’t have been able to make this site without choosing a career in marketing. I have years of experience with designing sites, sending emails and all that jazz from work and that has made all the difference. Because I didn’t have an online presence at the onset, I have had to focus more on the marketing than the music component and there are still outstanding issues with DIAMONDBACK Demo. I released it in all music stores un-mastered, because I didn’t know any better. I used almost no vocal comping, etc..

Check out the mirrored dance video for DIAMONDBACK. I made it of course, with my okay video editing and dancing abilities.

However, My Mistakes Are Good News For You!

I don’t want anyone to pay full price for the demo anymore, especially since I didn’t master it before release. As a result, DIAMONDBACK Demo is 100% free un-mastered through this site. You can also get the mastered version of DIAMONDBACK Demo for only $3 in Shop Sage Suede. I am very generous about sharing with my fans, because your support is very important to me. I am charging $3 for the mastered demo, because it is much cheaper than the un-mastered version and that’s essentially the cost of a single song including tax and yes, the state of Texas is taking a cut of that $3, so I’m not actually earning anything. I was just hoping that I could get enough to cover the mastering fee.

Note: I will be uploading the mastered version of DIAMONDBACK Demo to replace the un-mastered version in other stores.

More About ElectroPapi EP

I am almost done with the first few tracks of my EP. The lead track is called Soft Serve Chillin and you can find the preview below:

Skirt Flirt is another track on the EP, but I haven’t shared a preview yet.
If you dig deep, you can probably find it in one of my recent Live.me streams.

I also shared 2 previews of Takin a Sip (this is the least finished, so it has a lot of potential to change).

Takin a Sip pic.twitter.com/eCDQ9Ro9Xq

— sᴀɢᴇ sᴜᴇᴅᴇ (@Sage_Suede) August 16, 2018

Takin a Sip – k pic.twitter.com/cHTMU1cDaq

— sᴀɢᴇ sᴜᴇᴅᴇ (@Sage_Suede) August 17, 2018

Will You Revisit Tracks on DIAMONDBACK Demo?

I haven’t decided if I will remix or re-make any tracks on DIAMONDBACK Demo yet. I am considering doing a new version of Shaky Lips (Lazy Sunday with You). If there is a track that you really love and you would like me to improve on the EP, then please let me know!

I learned a lot from DIAMONDBACK Demo, mostly about audio editing, but also all about sharing my music. It’s not easy at all and it’s really hard to get any support from people.

If you’re someone that really values my work, I highly encourage you to share it! I won’t be able to do touring, until things scale up further. That being said…

Sage Suede Has Grown a Lot.

When I started this website in May 2015, Sage Suede didn’t exist. I didn’t have any music online, except for under a myspace persona called T.D. Maurader (spelling?).  I don’t even remember and it was the name I was calling myself. Before Sage Suede, I also briefly went by the name AJ Bluejay. That’s why you can find an image or two on this site with that name.

I finished DIAMONDBACK Demo in March 2017. In retrospect, it definitely wasn’t finished without mastering, but I had to be thoroughly criticized and maligned to acknowledge that I’m held to a multi-billion dollar industry standard that really isn’t achievable for anyone. I really do mean that, because it’s rare to find independent artists that even make it to my current musical quality, without paying $300/song for each mix and that same price again for every master + 50 other people that make minor edits to all of their tracks. Unfortunately, that’s what people think music is and they laud mega-celebrities to the point of desperation. I wish I could be respected for what I’ve made, but most of the time it’s just a comparison to somebody else.

Since all of that, I now have social media across the internet. I’ve completed a lot more modeling experiences, which is a passion of mine, and I started up my YouTube channel. I really want to help provide people with the cool stuff they’re working on and I’m doing the best I can with what I can afford. I hope that y’all can keep things in perspective, but don’t worry about ElectroPapi EP – it is up to the standards of the music industry, but only because I’ve gotten much better at audio editing, singing, and more! I already have it stuck in my head every day lol.

I’m at ~50K followers now, but I feel like too many of those are for a followback. I wish I had time to look through everyone’s posts, but I don’t and I try my best to be present when I am online (note: if you engage with me, I do my best to look at your profile afterwards ;)). As of late, I’ve been holding off on followbacks because that kind of makes me sad. I try so hard and struggle to get visibility, like the last time I promoted a video on my primary social profiles, it only got 15 more views. That’s awful and it is a trend in social media that it becomes more and more like an advertising platform, as they shift their algorithms to remove all of your friend’s content from your newsfeed. You can blame Facebook for that, because they started it and it’s still happening across social platforms. I’ve never been happy about it as an indie artist.

Anyways, after much self-debate, I have decided to continue following back on Twitter for the time being. My reasoning is that it’s better to have people that follow me for the followback than to lose people that have a genuine interest in my hard work. I would rather followback people that won’t engage than lose out on an opportunity to get to know people that genuinely care. I am not following back on other social platforms because they have low follow limits.

It Was So Hard to Make Everything on This Site

I’ve lost a lot of friends while pursuing these goals. I’ve lost relationships and been berated by others for having an online presence. People used to respect my intelligence more before I got good at styling my hair and I enjoy modeling too. I don’t do this because I’m a narcissist. I don’t need to share my modeling photos and I really don’t need people to acknowledge what I look like. I am working to materialize a goal that I’ve always had and that’s to be a musician full-time. I’ve learned to improve everything at a very fast pace, while constantly being told I’m not good enough, but I know that my main skills are in music. I am a multi-instrumentalist, although I had to focus on the audio production aspects for a while. I didn’t pick up marketing until internships in college and I really learned most of my skills by working (I only took one course in marketing in college). It’s been a really long ride and in many ways, a constant struggle.

I am looking forward to a day when I can be respected for who I am. That might not happen until I die. I don’t really care anymore. I’m tired of people trying to write me off, because they bought into a person that was sold to them for millions of dollars. I don’t have that kind of money and I don’t want to be compared to them. Few of them have any of the skills that I have through working so hard towards my goals. Pretty much everything I do for Sage Suede is outside of my work hours, so it’s like a full-time job and I just want to share my art with people.

I am really excited to share the new store with y’all!

You may or may not know this, but I have good taste in clothes and I am carefully curating every item for the new store. It may not be until next week or so that I get the first new item on the store, but that’s only because I am in the process of re-designing my logo. You will love it, I’m sure. I have design experience but the designer I’m working with is much better than me with illustration and clean images. I want it to be high quality for y’all and I can’t wait for the products to start getting released! In the meantime, you’ll probably start to see some prodfucts without logos.

The style of the new store can be described as street wear that is actually cool. I don’t want to give much detail, because if it’s anything like the last time I got a pair of glasses, 15 people will imitate me the second they see it. I have an innate eye for style that can’t be imitated though and I know that I have a lot to offer the world of fashion. At some point, you will also be able to purchase these products at my concerts.

I look forward to sharing more with everyone! Download the free version of DIAMONDBACK in my store, or help me cover the small fee of getting it mastered. I’ve come a long way since debating my name two years ago and struggling to finish my Demo during college. I am so happy to have you with me on this journey and I hope you’ll check back soon. You can also subscribe to my new email list for access to blog posts and new content one week before everyone else! It’s the tab/pop-up in the bottom right of the screen called Saucy Posse Fast Access.

Written by sagesuede