Death of a Copycat

4 new songs at the Candy Store tomorrow.

2010-06-03T12:53:00.000-07:00

We'll be debuting 4 new tunes tomorrow on Pete's hallowed stage. Had rehearsal last night at SweatShop in Williamsburg, and Angela (drums) and Cheever (bass) caught on right away....as usual. We played 'til around 1am, then figured they were as good as they're gonna get for tomorrow's show. After a quick ride to my apt from Angela, I passed out watching Iron Man (1, not 2, so don't spoil it for me ;) Will try to take some video clips of the show for those who can't make it.

Details:
7:30pm Friday, June 4th
Pete's Candy Store
2nd stop into Brooklyn on the L
709 Lorimer
FREE!

The Day Job Dilemna

2010-03-24T14:39:00.000-07:00

I'm anxiously sitting here at my admin job at quarter to 6 on a Wednesday waiting for my boss to leave, when what I REALLY want to be doing is standing in front of my microphone, figuring out a melody for one the new DCCs tracks. But I know that by the time I take my 45 minute commute home, I will be starving and lifeless, and WORSE, creativity-less. This lends to the age-old self-haunting question -- when can I quit my day job?
I'm a lucky one. I know this. I have a job, which is something a lot of people right now cannot say. And it affords me to be able to live in kick-ass New York City and buy microphones and guitars. But I can't help but wonder, how much do I really need this steady money, and what toll is this 40 hour work week taking on my songwriting? I'd love to hear some thoughts from other artists...anyone? Success stories? Advice?

Jango is a waste, don't bother

2010-03-08T14:01:00.000-08:00

So it's been three months since we went nuts with Jango's airplay system, and the results were...well, disappointing. I had no real illusions about the service making or breaking us, but I did expect to see at least moderate success. First a little back story...

The Delancey festival offered - as part of the signup process - the option to get 50 free plays on Jango's airplay system. That meant we could upload a few of our tracks, and have them played right after any artist(s) currently in Jango's regular circulation. So, for example, we could have one of our tracks played right after a Lady GaGa track and the listener would see a popup asking whether they liked or disliked what they were hearing. If the user chose "yes", then they would see a page that asked for (optional) comments on the track, band etc. When this happens, we get an email saying that someone has become our "fan", and that we could go on to contact them directly with show notices or whatever. The idea is to create a one-on-one relationship with each person who (claims to have) liked our music.

After a trickle of new "fans" turned to a steady stream of 5-10 new ones per day, I thought, "This is great! We're getting far more exposure than we've ever had, and people seem to be reacting well to what they hear. Wonderful!" So I bought 4000 more plays at around $100. Seemed like a slam-dunk investment. $100 for 4000 plays meant $0.025 per play. 4000 plays got us around 80+ "fans", which is about 2% of the people who had a chance to hear a given track. Normally 1% is considered a decent ROI for most marketing campaigns, so 2% seemed about right for such a highly-targeted system. (There were also stretches where we upped that to more like 5%, which was simply exhilarating to watch unfold each day).

So all seemed great on the face of it, and though I'm not entirely convinced that its useless (building an international emailing list is worth the price alone), but there is one ENORMOUS problem: not even one of the people who became a "fan" bought any tracks! Not one! When we got our reports from emusic, itunes, amazon, etc. for the month we supposedly acquired almost 500 new "fans", I was absolutely stunned.

At first I thought, "This has to be a mistake. We're don't suck THAT badly, do we?" Perhaps we are not as excellently awesome as would like to believe, but not a single track? None?!? Can't be. We received comments on our Jango profile page like "You rock!" and "keep it up" and "love it". Why would someone take the time to write such things and then not pick up even a single track?

Then I thought, perhaps we set up our "Buy Now" links incorrectly. Nope. They all worked fine.

I finally came to unfortunate conclusion that Jango is probably either rigging the numbers to keep people hooked on purchasing plays after the initial trial period, or far overstating the meaning of a new "fan". They recently started using "new fan" and "song like" interchangeably, which makes me think that they are trying to boost the number of new "fans" reported in the weekly updates. So when we get an email saying "JoeXYZ has become your fan!", what they really mean is that user clicked the "I like it" button to get past the "Support Jango" nagger screen so they can continue listening to music for free. The listener, after all, is not paying Jango a dime. The artists and advertisers do. Well not us. Not anymore.

Surf Bar

2010-03-05T09:51:00.000-08:00

Sometimes the best songs are written on the fly, or while waiting for someone to show up to the bar where you're supposed to meet. I ended up finishing song lyrics at Surf Bar last night while waiting for a friend who was a half hour late for Tiki drinks. Oh well. She actually did me a favor. Cheers! Dead Copycats.

Phase I Underway

2010-02-16T09:33:00.000-08:00

New tracks are now being crafted in earnest. Some are band new and others have been around for a while in the form of rough ideas recorded on cellphones, but all are a departure from what we've done in the past. In terms of tone and mood, we're not going goth, but expect more weight and more drive.

The thing I am most excited about is that unlike the first album, which was almost entirely comprised of material written before the band was formed, this one is a real collaboration. You've heard what we can do, now get ready for what we want to do...

Pocket Change

2010-01-24T11:26:00.000-08:00

New realization today: When it comes to digital distribution models, monthly download allotment plans are the most helpful to new/unknown bands.

In such a model, the user purchases a pre-determined number of downloads per month, and uses them to freely acquire music available from the site's catalog. eMusic, for example, has a 45 download per month package which can be used to grab anything from their site, so if you were to download an album with 10 tracks, you would end up with 35 downloads remaining for the month. The key factor here is that the downloads do not roll over to the next month. So if you have 6 downloads remaining on the last day of the month, it's "use 'em or lose 'em". Very similar to most cellphone minute plans.

The result of this no-rollover policy is that if it's two days before your downloads are refreshed, and you've still got a dozen or so sitting around, you are likely to just grab something - anything - to avoid feeling as though you wasted money. In that moment of consumer desperation, you'll be much more willing to grab that new indie album you've heard about. Or that experimental jazz record you've been meaning to check out but couldn't justify with other more "practical" choices available. Such a justification is much harder when you've got to break out the credit card for each new acquisition.

This leftover pocket change is not enough to make every unknown band famous, but it just might give a few of them a chance to reach the next level.

Mag Article

2010-01-12T10:14:00.000-08:00

Just did an interview for dammagazine.com, which will appear sometime in the next couple of issues (check back for more details). We talked a bit about the writing process and how we got together. I don't expect much of what was said to make it to press. But we'll see...

Here's one of the photos they (might) use:

As for our current status. Still writing, writing, writing...

Writing, writing, writing...

2009-12-14T11:52:00.000-08:00

Played our final show of 2009 at Pete's Candy Store the other night (Dec 11th) and we had a blast. Pete's has a great little stage (check the vid below), and the sound was remarkably good for such a small room.

We'll be scheduling shows for the spring very soon, (if you have any suggestions for venues, please let us know). Until then, we're going to use the free time to write, write, write. We've already got a half dozen new tracks in the works, and hope to release a full length album by late spring, so be sure to keep an eye out for demos and such we'll be posting along the way.

Speaking for myself, the writing process is quite nebulous and I don't really know how to explain it except to say that I do quite a bit of pure experimentation and most of it is horrendously un-listenable. Some of it is just me playing with new chord progressions. Some is free form improv. And some is an experiment in translating ideas into phrases or just sounds. All of this is incredibly pretentious to talk about, so I'll leave the rest to your imagination. But I do want to keep a running journal about how this album gets written, so if you're interested I'll be updating this thread fairly often.

That said, I'm done updating it for today...

Seeing the Future

2009-11-25T08:48:00.000-08:00

The gig at The Delancey last Saturday (Nov 21st) was our second with new drummer Dave Varraile, and I think we're on to something.

Preceding us on stage was Charli, a cartoonish group of characters ranging from a portly gangsta wielding a shiny blank and white strat to an Ann Wilson-ish vocalist who started their set with a karaoke performance whose conviction captivated everyone in the room.

Then it was our turn. We found the room a bit empty by our standards, but I think that was a good thing because we were definitely not ready for a packed house. Dave had only played with us once before (at the MEANY festival a few weeks before) and various flus and trips to who-knows-where made rehearsals difficult. But once things got started, I found myself having as much fun on stage as I've had in quite a while.

The groove felt great and there was a sense of drive and emotion that I think had been lacking for a while. We had played the first album live so many times that it was (rightly) starting to get a little boring. But when Dave's style forced us to change things up a bit, it was as if we were playing everything for the first time.

The rather strict time constraints imposed upon us by the otherwise excellent sound engineer put a bit of a damper on our spirits towards the end, but when all was sung and done, we had a blast.

From almost the moment we started breaking down our equipment, the room rapidly began to fill with bridge and tunnel types (albeit the upscale variety) for a dancy funk band called Kite. Now whatever image you have in your head about what a dancy funk band might look like, keep in mind that Kite is from Staten Island. If you know anything at all about the place, you'll also know that they look like this:

Didn't have the chance to stick around to hear much of the set, but they did sound like fun.

On to, well...The Delancey again on December 4th at 11pm for the MEANY fest's big "Notable Mentions" show (we were among the most popular bands in the festival, but alas not among the top three). See you there!

2009-11-15T14:21:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting in a time-warp of a coffee shop in N. Brooklyn -- photos of Sinatra preserved in saran wrap and red ribbon on the walls, Brenda Lee on the radio, Egg-cream for sale, Sara and Joe behind the counter. I wandered here, looking for a safe place to write some lyrics, but find myself too lost in the 50s vibe of the place to concentrate. It's impossible for me to write my own lyrics when other music is on. But all is not lost. I'm enjoying myself immensely -- this place is completely unpretentious. Sitting here and soaking up "the real deal" will hopefully reflect in the lyrics later.

Besides, the band just polished off the arrangements and lyrics for 3 new songs, and we have another almost complete. Hopefully we can debut "Drifting", "Flight", and "Can't go Home" with the full band at our show at the Delancey this Saturday. We had to cancel (horror!) our last show due to the influenza, so we'll have to make up some momentum on Saturday. Ok, my sugar and caffeine high is rattling me out the door into the lovely, and freakishly nice, November weather. Until next time.

Come inside!

2009-10-29T22:08:00.000-07:00

Its cold out. Enjoy the warmth.