How my band funded our first full length album.

[papercuthemos]

Sorry if you have already stated this, but you should get in contact with Cheryl at KEXP and look into setting up an in studio. They are super easy to work with and all great people. Congrats on the release.

[mambo4]

Originally Posted by papercuthemos

Sorry if you have already stated this, but you should get in contact with Cheryl at KEXP and look into setting up an in studio. They are super easy to work with and all great people. Congrats on the release.

That is definitely on our to-do list!
In a similar effort, this weekend we're off to do some live video at Joonior Studios This will be great for giving us some YouTube content. I'll post here when it's up.

[Marial]

Nice!!!

[mambo4]

Updated, complete list of YouTubes in order of my faves
The old You
Queenless
change it back
too busy
Evidence
Pinhole Camera
Ghost Paper
Air travel

recorded at http://jooniorstudios.com/

[effenj]

Love the music! Linked it on my FB. Great advice too, and thanks for sharing!

[mambo4]

we recorded at jooniorstudios.com
Chris Mathews is a great guy, and a talented engineer.
He charges very reasonable rates
(I won't publish the exact rates -it's his buisness)
- but it's an unbeliveable value for the money.
We easily coverd it with the extra kickstarter funds.
If you are anywhere near the Puget Sound area, you ought to check it out.
We gave him an extra $100 and threw in a case of pyramid ipa.

We had chosen 7 songs to prepare and spent 2 rehearsals boning up. We ran through them quickly before packing up and heading to Joonior studios.
We arrived at 2:00 and set up just like a rehearsal.
Chris took ~45 minutes to mic and get levels.
Everything went live into Cubase through some gear -see pics.
Chris filmed everythign with his digital camera as we went.
We spent around 5 hours knocking stuff out, we played 8 songs all told, hitting some twice.
Chris stood in the middle with his Canon dSLR, shooting it.
The dog is also very nice.

[mambo4]

We just checked the data on our facebook hits. The videos launching on the 5th of March effectively doubled our typical social reach (that is, posts about us and likes, plus friends of those), which are usually pretty consistent. The average reach per post is about 300. Since the videos, it's been over 1,000 for a week.

Sporadic airplay on KEXP continues (7 times since mid Feb)

We have a show at the end of the month, I'll report on any improvement in turnout the airplay and videos may have contributed to...

[vespito]

Thanks for the continued updates, and I'm really enjoying the music. Just picked up the cd through your website, which looks great btw.

Hopefully I'll be able to put all this info to good use one day.

[mambo4]

We were wondering who our first web store customer was!
Much, much appreciated. Hope you enjoy it!

[scottfeldstein]

Great music! Love the video, too. The group I just joined is using kickstarter to fund an album of covers. Dig it:

Endless Blue's "Undercover": Trip-hop-izing your favorites!

Note: the woman in the salmon top? HAWT. Just saying.

[fenderhutz]

I wouldn't let you stream it for free either. Charge 10 bucks for a physical copy and 5 bucks for a digital copy. Let me people stream 60 second clips for free of each song.

I agree. The age of giving away music for free befuddles me to no end.

[mambo4]

Originally Posted by fenderhutz

I wouldn't let you stream it for free either. Charge 10 bucks for a physical copy and 5 bucks for a digital copy. Let me people stream 60 second clips for free of each song...The age of giving away music for free befuddles me to no end.

It's good question: Is streaming the same as giving it away for free? Sure if some one wants to take the effort to record the stream they'll have 'fee' copies of digitally compressed tracks. I'm willing to bet nobody has bothered. I'd be happy for my band to be famous enough to get pirated.

Given the realities of the internet age, and the fact that essentially unheard of,
I don't think the strategic question to ask is "do we charge or not?" but under what circumstances do we charge?If we stream our album to the internet as a "promotion", we are potentially exposing our music to huge group at very small promotional cost."Money lost" by streaming can arguably be considered as "money saved" on promotion.

So what we should really consider is when does the actual loss incurred by pirated streaming outweigh the advantage of promotion & exposure we get for it?

[scottfeldstein]

They say the real threat to musicians today isn't piracy, it's obscurity. Heck, Neil Young says piracy is the new radio.

[mambo4]

Getting ready for our first gig, post-you tube videoand post- Radio play
Today the KEXP DJ played a track and plugged our show.
It will be interesting to see if our draw changes noticeably, I'll chime in later.

[mambo4]

Sorry to report, no real impact on turnout last Saturday.
A little disappointing, but I guess these things take time.
Still, it's only early spring in our "year of promotion" , we'll see where things lead...

We rocked it anyway, so the few who made it were pleased!

[mambo4]

UPDATE 8.29.2012
So It's been six months since our CD release show.
We haven;t been promoting our album as much as would be Ideal.

Here's what we have seen:

Radio:
13 plays on KEXP, most form the same DJ, which trailed off buy the end of June.

Press:
We had a few blog posts and one print piece
(Seattle Weekly, buried among a long list of new local releases)
all were positive.

Gigs:
Our gig frequency and opportunities have remained pretty much the same,
There was a small uptick in weekend access to better venues,
but this was due to networking with other bands, not from the album directly.

Sales:
Our biggest sales of CDs was directly from the Kickstarter campaign,
with meager sales slowly trialing down to nothing by july.

ultimately we were faced with boxes of CDs gathering dust.
We felt that reaching new ears was more important than unrelaized profit,
so we made a decision to give them away our next show, to good repsonse.

While we didn't net any money over actual production cost,
the costs were more than covered by the kickstarter support.

RECAP:
For now the benefits are intangible, not monetary.
Having a professional looking CD, photos, Onesheet, Radio and press coverage (however meager),
adds to the legitimacy of our efforts.
The personal contacts we have made will no doubt be helpful in the future.

The biggest lesson we learned that to *really* release an album,
recording and pressing a disc a fraction of the real budget both time and money wise.
At least half of the effort on an album should be aimed at promotion and visibility.

We have a new EP mixed and ready to press, but we are waiting on it,
until we have a better plan in place to follow up with a stronger promotional effort.
you can bet that the DJs who played us and the Bloggers & Journalists who coverd us
will be among the first folks we contact when we move into action.

[guitarist09]

WOW! thats really inspiring! CONGRATS and all the best to your band!!!