There are lots of other bands that took a while to gain a following. It seems like a regular trend.
My point? If it takes 7-15 years of my life for the band to gain traction, I’m down.
A few weeks ago, we took several hours out of our weekend to attend one of the SPARS Sessions at NAMM 2010 to hear “Building a Buzz and Selling your Music Online: how to make the most of today’s internet music landscape (and double your sales in the process) – an industry expert round table.”
Saying that the panel was really informative doesn’t do it justice. I think they did a great job giving us insight.
The mailing list is now on MailChimp for its flexibility, stats and friendly service. We’re getting shirts for our fans. The digital CD is on Bandcamp to help with distribution and stat tracking. Lastly, we’ll release the physical CD in the next couple weeks.
Because of our journey, I have hope.
Facts:
Bill, James and I have made music for the past five years.
Chris has been with us for a little over one year.
Bill is one of the most talented and dedicated musicians I know — and he’s self-taught.
Chris can write lyrics and create a new a melody with ease.
I hope everybody is getting their money’s worth (or lack thereof) of our first EP You Don’t Need This… It’s always a treat when you finish something that you’ve been working on for a long time and share it with people. If you haven’t gotten a chance to listen and download it, make sure you check out our Bandcamp Page, where you can do so. I would describe it as naughty and perverted with a little bit of OH-NO-THEY-DIDN’T.
Anyways, I bet you’d like to know what I’m up to this weekend. I’m pretty busy with snowboarding at Mountain High in Wrightwood, CA, Chris’ Birthday dinner-thing, and a show on Saturday at CKB in Pasadena. I must say that playing music in front of people, whether it be 5 or 5000, is the most fun I could have without taking my pants off. Hm, maybe I should try playing my drums with my pants off; I bet that would be fun (all opposed say “Nay”).
I invite you to come and hang out with us Saturday night. If you see me and mention this blog post I will personally buy you a drink. I’m not sure if CKB sells beverages, but in any case I’ll limit this offer to the first 3 people who come up to me, so I don’t go bankrupt. Take it easy, hope all is well…
So here I sit at my computer desk at work, early in the morning, thinking to myself, “man I hope our band makes it and we could play full time”. Every band member’s dream, right?
Anyway, I am feeling in a good place right now, because things with The Scarlet Paradigm are all starting to fall into place and take direction. We had a great rehearsal yesterday, and ran through a couple of new songs (you can hear them at our 1/30 show) and they sound great! We released our EP to the Bandcamp Page last Tuesday, and we have a good bit of merch coming soon for everybody to get their hands on. Things are looking up. It is times like this that makes being in a band worth it, and getting to share it with great people at our shows is the icing on the cake for us. Thanks for all you do, and we’ll see you at the next show!
Also, if you’d like to stay updated on where we’re at in life, make sure to hit up and join our mailing list.
On that note, since I am feeling crazy at the moment, I leave you with this:
Two days ago we released our Album “You Don’t Need This…” through Bandcamp, which is a really fresh site for unsigned bands like ourselves. We recorded the entire album in my home studio and it took us months of tracking, mixing, listening, critiquing, and mastering to reach its final release-worthy state.
After some research into independent music marketing, we came to the conclusion that we ought to offer downloads of our album for free with the option of paying as opposed to trying to squeeze 3-5 dollars out of our friends and fans. This way people can download our music without worry of whether they will like it, cause it won’t cost them anything. Seriously, who would buy an album of a band they know absolutely nothing about? I for one wouldn’t, but I would definitely consider downloading an album for free and giving it a shot. I might even spin a few bucks at the band, because at this point, I am well aware of the countless hours and/or dollars in the studio it takes to put out a decent product.
Creating and listening to music is one of the most awesome things us humanoids do, and I am grateful that we could be a part of it. I am grateful that we can share our music with people all around the globe through the cyberspaces and whatnot. Thanks for reading, thanks for sharing, and thanks for listening…
I’m still working on the CD artwork (insert, back and label). Fortunately, Bill made that cool abstract you already see, so that’s one step closer to completion.
How can I stay in the loop with you?
Our newsletter is a fantastic place to start. We won’t spam or share your email address — promise.
(If you’re already subscribed, I just switched from FeedBlitz to MailChimp. You don’t need to do anything. I’m just letting you know.)
