Happy Easter!

For A Sunday Morning

From Ashton Kutcher's upcoming movie 'Spread'.

The Garden You Planted By Sea Wolf

My new favorite song.

So cool!

Adrienne (Pierce) and Ari (Shine) are recording Tess Dunn for the Christmas album. I am so excited to hear this song!
This year's album is shaping up to be a work of art as is the new website....the art has just been approved and as usual Johnny has really come through for us. Josh will get it up and running and then I'm on to the marketing aspects of the project. It's much easier since the SPCA has started selling the cds at all of the shelters.

U2 and Wed updates

Watched a very good interview with U2 today, as funny as it was serious and one thing they said was, it's not arrogant to think you can take on the world. Dream as big as you can, and as big as you want, look where it landed them.

And it's landed Melissa right at the foot of her first dream; on September 29th she'll be singing with the African Children's Choir at their 25th Anniversary Gala. Not only that, they'll be singing their heart out on her new song 'Away'. Proceeds from this song and partial proceeds from the album will go right back to them. We are over the moon, over-the-moon. I can't even say how happy and excited we are.

Whew! And we have got into a good groove with Bobby's tunes and are coming into the home stretch, working on the last three..and maybe tonight, will have just two left to go. Sometimes the ones you think will be the most challenging, come together so easily!

Am right into Twitter mode and as a direct result of being in touch with so many industry people now, I have found some great information. I'll just list the sites here so you too can get right in there:

http://ow.ly/2csw

http://ow.ly/1UZ6

http://arielpublicity.com/blog/archives/write-an-artist-bio-that-stands-out

(And really anything on Ariel's site!)

http://www.newmusictipsheet.com/page.php?id=read_commentary_archives&comm_id=77

http://www.waycooljnr.com.au/2009/04/01/how-to-get-music-bloggers-to-write-about-you/

This week on Twitter...

I know there are more than these two Twitter stories, but these one's are right up our alley and go along nicely with my previous postings about jumping on every new social network you can in order to self promote. The first that happened was Adaline's close encounter with a movie star who is filming locally, which brought her thousands of fans the result of one tweet (Twitter post):

http://www.vancouversun.com/Entertainment/chance+encounter+with+Twilight+star+Robert+Pattinson+changed+life+Vancouver+indie+artist+Adaline/1461623/story.html


and the second is this...the proof is in the pudding folks...

E-Mail Of The Day
From: Amanda Palmer
Subject: re-Please Drop Me
my label-dropping game has become very fun. please pray for me.

it’s a lesson in how the future of music is working -
fans are literally (and i mean that….literally) lining up at the signing table after shows and HANDING me cash, saying "thank you".

i had to EXPLAIN to the so-called "head of digital media" of roadrunner australia WHAT TWITTER WAS. and his brush-off that "it hasn’t caught on here yet" was ABSURD because the next day i twittered that i was doing an impromptu gathering in a public park and 12 hours later, 150 underage fans - who couldn’t attend the show - showed up to get their records signed.

no manager knew! i didn’t even warn or tell her! no agents! no security! no venue! we were in a fucking public park!
life is becoming awesome.

also interesting: i brought a troupe of back-up actors/dancers on the tour (we were only playing 300-1000 seaters) and had no money to pay them, so we passed the hat into the crowd every night. each performer walked from each show with about $200 in cash. the fans TOOK CARE OF THEM. they brought us dinner every night, gave us places to sleep. (i couldn’t afford to put up that many people in hotels). all sans label, all using email and twitter. the fans followed the adventure. they LOVED HELPING.

so?
the times they are a-changing fucking dramatically, when pong-twittering with trent reznor means way more to your fan-base/business than whether or not the record is in fucking stores (and in my case, it ain’t in fucking stores).

twitter is EVERYTHING that you explain in your rants: it is a MAINLINE insta-connection with the fans. there is ZERO middleman.
my fans hung out with me all day on twitter today while i unpacked weird tour shit, fan art, gifts and paraphernalia that usually just ends up in my closet or in the trash and took pictures of it for them.

xa

Amanda Palmer Blog

Something about Mohammed and connecting the dots....

What is the old adage, that if Mohammad cannot come to the mountain?

Well, I guess I have always thought this way, and we are always trying, especially with the Christmas album, to get the voices of lower mainland artists out to a new fan base - I mean, we sell the album at the fish market, butcher shop, the dry cleaner down the road, anywhere and everywhere a new fan may be.

So it was a nice surprise to have such a positive response this week from the Howe Sound Rehab.Society when I offered up the idea of connecting them with lower mainland artists. It was an even nicer surprise to have so many bands and solo artists get really excited about this idea, the idea of performing in places where people are not able to get out to live music venues. And I don't mean a FEW bands and artists, I mean A LOT!

It's amazing how fast and easy things come together when they fit.

Thanks to all of you who are going to be involved, and if anyone would like more information about this project, please drop me a line or tweet!

Next blog, a bunch of great self promotion material I have come across in the last few days...stay tuned...

Christmas is coming and I'm feeling it!

Busy week, learning Twitter, trying to get a good grasp of marketing in time for Melissa's next album release, trying to get the garden dug and sorted in my spare minutes and feeling the Christmas album come nearer and nearer! It won't be such a big job this year, in fact I think so far we are not recording any of it here unless we write a tune ourselves. Almost everyone sent in pre-recorded tunes which has been a joy! Reckon I should send out an update soon though and get on a bit of marketing - I would love to have it as an offering on the BC Ferries in their gift shops...but I have tried for 3 years and have not been successful yet.

The weather has been very strange, and possibly Mother Nature's April fools - snow in the morning and a blowing storm tonight....not helping out the hay fever at all, and the dog has gone into hibernation. Maybe this is a good time to bundle up, make a hot rum, put on some Bing, and get on the Christmas marketing!