Toronto Mike

Custom

Total 37 Posts

CDLX - Whatever

We lost Custom in 2021. Here's an audio tribute I recorded when I learned Duane Lavold had passed away. I mentioned I have a bunch of unreleased Custom tracks in my personal collection, but he would often send me MP3s to get my feedback. Most of it was excellent, including
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Josh's Time With Custom

A little over a year ago, Duane Lavold, better known as Custom, passed away. This is Josh's story about Custom's final months. I'm sharing it here with Josh's permission. For some background: I was born in 2001 in Sherbrooke. My family and me lived there until I was 12. We
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More Unreleased Custom Music

I got an email from Scott asking me to update Custom's MySpace page with new unreleased tunes.  I no longer control Custom's MySpace page, so I offered to share a couple of tracks here. This won't be the first time I've done this.  I shared an unreleased Custom song a
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Custom Gig at Guastavino's in New York

Years ago, Custom put out an album entitled "Fast".  It was a great album, but it was on the experimental Artistdirect label and everything fell apart shortly thereafter. I came on board Team Custom in 2004, rescuing the teamcustom.com domain from Artistdirect and helping out with the web parts
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Custom's Official Blog

Do you remember Custom?  He had a rock radio hit back in 2002 with the single "Hey Mister" from his debut album Fast.  Shortly thereafter, his label went under and that's where I came in.  I got to come in and rescue his teamcustom.com domain from the defunct label
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Custom Update

I spoke with Custom today.  Custom is a great guy who has had a few bad breaks over the past few years trying to get his music back on store shelves.  His 2002 release Fast is solid. It sounds like I might be able to make a very cool Custom
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The Rapid Decline of CD Sales

I got the latest issue of Rolling Stone last week, but I'm only getting a chance to read it now.  There's an interesting article about how January 2007 was the worst week for CD sales in SoundScan history.  The Dreamgirls Soundtrack led the way by moving 66,355 units which
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180° in Six Days

Only six days ago I went off on MySpace.  I believe I called them facist bastards and worse.  They cancelled my myspace.com/teamcustom account without indicating why or giving me a chance to appeal.  I was pissed. Custom and I chatted about it that night and he, like many
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Those Facist MySpace Bastards

Personally, I hate MySpace.  The pages are ugly as sin, the users are perpetual pre-teens completely void of depth and the network is a cesspool of scams, abuse and danger.  For these reasons, I don't have a MySpace page, but as the third most visited page on the web, you've
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Giving People What They Want

Ever since I started Custom's MySpace page we've stuck to sharing new, unreleased tunes.  People seem to dig the new stuff, but requests for one older song have been flooding in ever since.  Today, we decided to give the people what they want. Now streaming at http://www.myspace.com/
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Beautiful By Popular Demand

Over on Custom's MySpace page I've taken down "Fogg" and am now sharing "Beautiful".  We've actually shared "Beautiful" before, but people seem to really dig it so it's back by popular demand. For more on Custom, check out the official site and register for the bulletin board. Give "Beautiful" a
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TeamCustom.com Makeover

It's been about a year since we re-launched Custom's official site and some felt there was a little too much white space.  The clean layout with plenty of white space was actually there by design, web 2.0 and all, but after a year it was probably time to mix
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Wicked CDLX

When Custom first sent me fourteen new tracks he was working on, I was blown away.  What I haven't been able to write about until today is that he also shared with me a bunch of tunes that he was producing, performing and attributing to a side project he called
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Point - Counter Point

Custom's video for his new song "USA" is a thought provoking, politically charged video that's garnered some controversy.  You can download the .mov file or watch it in Google Videos.  It's raw, it's effective and it's real. On the other side of the spectrum is Dennis Madalone's "America We Stand
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Madison's Story

One moment can change your life forever.  One seemingly typical event on an otherwise normal night has the power to radically alter your life path and turn the world you thought you knew upside down.  This is Madison's story. Raised by acadmemic parents in Miami, Madison focused on scholarly pursuits.
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