I’ve just spent an hour uploading various songs, videos and pictures onto this site, the last stop this evening on the never-ending publicity train. To be perfectly honest, I had no idea that No Depression even existed until my brother told me about it yesterday afternoon. Following his direction, it became my latest project in promoting the album we released on New Year’s Eve.
This is the first time I’ve ever really worked a disc. We released an EP two years ago, and were able to sell 500 (OK, 100 or so of those were free promos, so more like 400). This time is different. Following the last slog of a mini-tour, we invested more than we should have in a real recording studio and real engineering. Which means we have a product we have to sell, or at least be able to tell ourselves we did left no stone unturned in pushing it.
We went to Target and picked up 200 yellow CD ready bubble envelopes, and I’ve spent hours on the web picking up names of reviewers and DJ’s who allegedly play original music in Belgium or Japan or Australia. I’ve learned to make e-mail contact first, rather than finding the same envelopes returned two weeks later. I’ve got a list — a huge list — if anybody is interested. An Australian retiree who hosts a program once a week in the Yarra Valley (is that near Melbourne? Can they hear this in Melbourne?) and who took a trip to Austin to learn about Country music. He’s on the list — a really nice guy. The German gentleman who is interviewing our drummer because, well, our drummer happens to speak fluent German, a fact of which I was previously unaware. He’s there too, and I suspect he also speaks fluent English. There’s a woman in Nova Scotia who plays banjo and claims to review CD’s once a week, although from her website it appears she has not done so since 2008. She’s there, because hey, maybe she started back up. Is it worth $5 of CD and postage for a shot at a paragraph? Just a paragraph to put on my website?
There is a lot of promo advice out there, all of which is conflicting. Do I take the shrink wrap off the CD? Looks more professional, but less likely to be opened. Include a review from the local paper? Amusing or pathetic? Handwritten note, typewritten note, note from the lawyer who comes to some of our shows? Who the hell knows.
So this brings me to No Depression, just a hope to find someone to listen to my CD and write a couple of sentences saying it doesn’t suck. At this point, everything available here seems overwhelming. But I’ll stop my crying, at the end of the day it’s good to be here.
