On a shoestring project: On a shoestring project part 28

  Over 600 views on our first video in a less than a week, 30th on the Youtubes Irish musician charts, thank you people! Seeing the support from our friends near and far has been just over whelming. It has been a phenomenal week for us, waking up every morning checking the views, and I know some of you have done exactly the same:-) There is something amazing about the new model of music business, where independent artist can be exposed to this many people in such a sort time. Ten years ago this would have been unheard of. But yeah, it still takes lot of work. You need to make a video, and Tomek can tell you, this can be lots of work. And before this you need to have the music, and a recording of it. Then once you have posted your video to YouTube or any other video hosting site, you need to tell the people it is there. This means links, and lots of them! But I can't help my self, here is the video again for those of you who did not see it yet.

  The first live performance is upon us. Don't forget about it;-) Thursday the 10th of March, upstairs in the Pint. As I mentioned last week, it will be a good night of music (and few beers). Adm €6 and all the pints are €4. The doors are at 8pm and music kicks of at 8.30. And don't forget to mention on the door you came to see us.

  So as you can imagine we have had a busy week of rehearsing. With the aid of pack noodles, lots of coffee, few cans of Denmark's finest and of course doughnuts on Thursday (fat Thursday) we have worked our sweet bottoms off. Before a concert the way you rehearse needs to change a bit. You put a side learning new songs and concentrate on the set. And you play it through until you know it in your sleep, or in the wise words of Sebastian: “If you are passed out drunk and some one wakes you up, you need to be able to play it”. Now I would not necessarily recommend you to try this, but you get the point. And not only knowing how to play the songs, you need to work out the changes between the songs. And for all you guitar and bass players out there, hope you have your tuners with by pass switch? No one wants to hear you tuning between the songs. Figure out who introduces which songs, sounds pretty bad if you talk over one another, over the microphones. I was at a certain band night in certain venue in Dublin few weeks back, and it was a mixed bag of music, some still needed lot of work, some was promising and some was pretty good. The Night ended with a band from Vegas on their European tour, and they tore the place apart. But one thing that I was very surprised about, how few of the acts actually promoted them selves. If you play in front of a live audience, you need to make the best of the opportunity! Tell people about your website, facebook page, myspace etc. Make sure people remember your bands name. You get one chance to make an impression. Engage with the audience, and look like you actually want to be there. And especially this kind of band nights, your set is limited. You dont have time to warm in to it. You need to jump in the deep end and give it all you got from the very get go. So can we practice what we preach, or am I just talking bull here? Well, there is only one way to find out, come along and check it out on Thursday;-) But I'll promise you this: one way or another, it will be a night to remember!

  Also some of you already downloaded our new EP. We would very much like to hear what you think of it, feel free to post reviews on our facebook page, myspace, on this blog or just email them to jpkallio@hotmail.com
And for those of you who haven't got your copy yet, just join our mailing list here and you will receive the download instructions straight to the email address you entered:-)

We are also making some physical copies of the EP, for those good old fashioned music fans that still like to have something to hold on to:-) (like we). I just resourced some cool materials, and the EPs will be packaged and printed on 100% recycled material. These will be available at our concerts and later on from our website. But the download will remain still completely free. But more on that on later date. For now, hope to see you at the gig, and if you can't make it, see you here next week:-)