Blog
READ ME FIRST READ ME FIRST 09.12.12
Written by Jimmy
Whew. Hard to get someone’s attention around this place. Welcome to our Website. Its 2010 now and we hope you had a great holiday and Happy New Year. This little blog is meant to orient you around this website and convince you that we’re worth more than one visit! (Read more)
Whew. Wasn’t even sure you’d press the ‘more’ button. Thanks for that. Now, first I need to tell you about dog food. Sorry, I know this isn’t where you thought this would go. So there’s a company called PetsMart. It sells dog food. And cat food. And things weren’t going too well because no body wanted to pay a lot for dog and cat food and prices kept going down and so did profits. In business jargon, the industry was commoditising. But PetsMart found that there were a group of consumers that really loved their pets and really wanted to treat them special. They called them Pet Parents and said you were a Pet Parent ONLY if you said OUTLOUD to your dog or cat, ‘I love you,’ not once, but twice a day. Seriously. And they found that Pet Parents wanted all sorts of things for their pet children. Like a little hair cut before the puppy goes to the park for the first time – and not just a hair cut, but actual spa treatment. Or, if you go away and have to put the pet somewhere, PetsMart offers Pet Hotels, with Bone Phones so you can talk to your pet everyday. We’re not kidding. And they transformed the pet care market.
So what the hell does dog food have to do with us? Well, we figure we’re a website for those who say outloud not once but twice a day — ‘I love music.’ You’ve got to be a bit of a music junkie to like us. And you can’t be too cynical about music. And you can’t be too earnest either. So you have to love music, but also freely associate music with Octopus Mud Wrestling.
So, with that pre-amble about dog food, here’s our pitch for why you want to hang out at this website now for a bit and why you should visit us every week for a little refresher. We’ll divide you into two groups — those that are here as ‘fans’ (and that includes those forced to visit at least once thru emotional blackmail) and ‘musicians’ (which includes aspiring musicians, songwriters, producers, etc…).
Here’s the top 3 reasons that ‘fans’ should hang out a bit:
1. Free Eclectic New Music: We have three major things going for us – our music is currently free. So we guarantee its worth the price! And its eclectic enough that if you don’t like a song, just go to the next one — always different and we’re certain you’ll like one of our songs a little bit. Or your money back (see point one). Now to check out our music, just go to our songs and start with the album (get used to these link things — everytime you see a word in a different colour click on it and enjoy the journey), Saturday Morning Canasta Club. If you click on first song, it just starts playing and you can go thru whole album. Or you can download your favourites. Easy. Now, a big reason to come often to the website is we’re always posting demos and new songs we’re working on and alternative versions. We’ve sorted decided to release some of our ‘misses’ before we’ve had a hit, and some of our alternative takes before we’ve had a preferred one. We’re the Beatles Anthology Tapes before they had Rubber Soul, the Dylan Basement Tapes before Blood on the Tracks. But what it means for you is you get 2009 CD now and outtakes and you’ll get a free song or two a month of the 2010 CD as we come up with the songs. That’s the always new bit. You also get to be a groupie even if you don’t like us much. We are also going to give you all sorts of ‘behind the scenes’ views of the songs — origin of lyrics, of music, what stupid things Ed did, Martyn’s inability to know his cable (see item 6), etc…
2. Our weird blogs. Some are weekly regular features, like Song Discovery (new and old music that we love), Magic Dust (our favourite little bits of a song that give it magic dust) and Top 5 (what’s weird and wonderful on the internet) . Some are just weird — we are trying to create the world’s most bizzare tag cloud (the thing on the right when you’re in our blog bit). We are fairly sure we are only website with regular blog entries about Worrying LiveStock, Small Plane Crash Victims Amongst Musicians and Octopus Mud Wrestling. You’ll need to find those yourself.
3. Our community and a chance to be a founding fan. We’re just starting, so do read about us. But one thing you’ll discover over 2010 is we’re creating a weird and maybe wonderful little community and we want you to be part of it (check out our previous newsletters to hear news so far). This is happening in someone’s house, with someone’s family hanging around — with stupid dogs and angry cats. There will be a search for scholars, a fund raising for Africa, and starting very soon a selection of 6 Founding Fans. These fans will get featured on the these pages, will be invited to the studio, will feature in the music, will get their own blog. So as the weeks go by and you explore this little thing — let us know if you want to be in the running for ‘founding fan.’
Here’s the top 3 reasons musicians should hang out with us:
1. We’re looking for scholars: If you’re just starting, looking for a little break, you’re what we’re looking for. If you become one of our scholars, you get to record at least 2 of your songs for the next album, you get to be part of the rest of the songs, you might even get a couple trips to the ‘Southern Studio.’ Ed and Louise were our 2009 scholars and now part of the Saturday Morning Canasta Club and they’ve given you four amazing songs: No Poetry, Let Love Shine, I Love You Anyway and Tommy Come Home. Check it out and talk to them about their experience with us. We hope they would say it didn’t sung, since they’re still hanging around. Oh, and free pizza and Diet Coke.
2. We’re sharing our experiences. We’re not very good at what we do. But we’re very good at telling you how bad we are. And our lessons learned. So you’ll hear how we created a website, set up a studio, etc…. And every two weeks we’ll have another major feature.
3. You’re joining our community. Again, you might not like us — most of our partners even raise some serious questions. But you’ll like folks that hang around us. You’ll become a moonie, not like the earth but liking the rotating objects. So, when we hook up with folks that do videos for us, that set up websites for us, that work on our Africa project, we’ll also introduce them to you. And maybe you’ll become part of the community and bring your friends.
Well that’s it. Please take a spin around. Enjoy the tag clouds. Please sign up for our newsletters and ask for our CD, which we should be able to get to you (maybe charging you a bit for postage). Enjoy the free music. After all, at the end of the day, it’s all about the music.