JUST WHAT HAS OCCURRED
1.28.24
Happy belated New Year, everybody. I hope you get my message in a bottle. Here's year 8 of my site, with almost zero evidence of anyone visiting it, and absolute zero evidence of anyone reading these news posts I do every month or so. But I'm a sentimental chap, and so, I hang on to this online diary.
The State of the QB Union is strong. I had my first interview, like, ever, with Jeffrey Lord's Funkytown Podcast. Jeffrey came up and introduced himself at the December show last year with Itchie Richey, although we did have some texting contact the year before when he featured "Anything for Christmas" on his Christmas episode. You can listen to the podcast we just did, here.
Forgive me, if, like an infrequently-visited relative, I give you news of myself that I've already told you. I believe I mentioned previously that I've been attending the weekly meetings of a singer songwriter org, The Songbirds of Fort Worth. We talk shop talk. We write new songs based on weekly prompt. I've written 8 songs so far, and you know what I'm thinking: to release an album featuring all of them. It's my favorite time of the week, those meetings. Really lights up a Monday with a little healthy competition plus a drive to impress other writers.
The big news today is tomorrow's release of the new EP: Sudden EP. Readers of this space have been hearing about this for almost a year—how sudden is THAT??–and, at last, it's out. Six songs of bass + a real, live drummer. DAW-recorded, for the first time since 2017's Western Man from Back East. This EP, however, I mixed and mastered all by myself, unlike that album. In any case, Sudden EP is a swell addition to the growing QB back catalogue, and has bought me time for the next album, which may be the above-mentioned Songbirds project, or another one that I've collected songs for and I'm currently arranging. Stay tuned, as they said back in the day when there were tuners.
No shows on the horizon yet, which I'm somewhat glad about. All the extra rehearsals that an impending show needs I have no time for now, as I've decided to up my amount and variety of social media posts. TikTok seems to be working, slightly, for me these days, as I chop up existing music vids into bitesize bits and post them. I've got about 100 followers now, growing by one or two per day. Give it another year at that rate and I'll be...still pitiful. There's a recent TT acquaintance of mine, who's my age, and her thing is...she's a regular person. She's got 12K followers. If I had half that, I imagine I'd feel like some kind of superstar. I think. Unless I found then that it's not appreciably different than having 100 followers. 250 views or so and a few likes. Every once in a while a comment. If that were the case, I'd really be in a quandary as to which way to turn, promotionally.
There's always good old YouTube, of course. New video from the Sudden EP, "All I Have Left" should be up by now. Stuck at a miserable 370 followers with average views of maybe 60, I'm nothing to text home about on YT. It's a funny thing. There's one video of mine, "Take a Naked Walk" which sits, a massive Gulliver among Lilliputians, with 150K views. (The popularity almost certainly due to the illicit video of a vintage nudist camp film.) That video's success is a testament to overall failure. If one can hit big, why can't the others? To continue and repeat that success, shouldn't I use that successful video as a guide in making future vids? One success is a fluke. Even ten successes is a fluke. Social media keeps us fetching the ball of attention like e-golden retrievers—sometimes we run when the ball isn't even thrown. And that's all...whatever. But it's keeping me from actually picking up a guitar and playing daily. I doubt seriously I can keep it going, minus some kind of ego feed/recognition reward to keep me running the maze. Social media is the mother-in-law of my beautiful wife, music. I'm in love with music, but I spend most of my time with her damned annoying mama.
Which reminds me, Instagram has this new X-competitor app, Threads. I'm on there, but all I do is post truisms about art and artists. I write one every day and so far I think only two have been read. I'd ask for your support there, dear reader, but you're not reading this, either. Sigh. I gotta get this posted on my own site, now. Here's to an interesting year!
3.13.24
Skipping over Valentine's Day to wish you a Happy Saint Patrick's Day, impending. Swinging my notes here from Hallmark™ holiday to Hallmark® holiday is about the most I've been able to mangage so far this year. Not that I've got anything particularly cooked up that's keeping me busy. Stewing, is more like it.
February saw me giving my social media efforts an exceleration, but, to my astonishment, it wore my right down in nothing flat. I set out for a good two or three weeks to post something on TikTok—and farm that content out to the "others"—3 times a day. I can't say I saw my numbers skyrocket as a result. Just the same 1 to 2 follows per day and the same 250 views per post. No movement on Spotify. Didn't take me long to say, "Dear Madame Barnum: I resign as clown." (Thanks, XTC!)
It got quickly to the point where I didn't want to pick up the bass and play. That's not something unique to me, it seems. I've seen quite a few posts on Threads reporting the same syndrome: social impotence. Social media is the easiest, ever-open art gallery. It's the coffee shop anybody can go to and perform in front of. But it's not horribly different, it seems, from the good old downtown telephone poles of yore, where bands would staple posters about upcoming shows. Our posters stayed up bright and attractive for about ten minutes until it rained. Or another band stapled their poster on top of ours. Or the authorities ripped them down. And if none of those things happened, those posters got weathered and sad looking. Social posts have about the same longevity and effectiveness as those old posters. And just like the poles, one has to post at the right time to catch, oh, anyone's attention.
What's a beggar to do, Question or otherwise? Me, I'll just post when I post. Drop singles and albums when I drop them. Play shows when I play them. I'm still not seeing a music scene anywhere, local or national, that's on fire or even catching fire yet. At such times, it's an artist's lot to hunker down and keep creating for a more attentive someday, should one emerge.
Towards that end, I've got some significant new avenues to explore for upcoming projects and shows. I've gathered ten songs or so for an upcoming album using the newly-refurbished Eko bass hybrid. It's got a very bluegrass/middle eastern sound to it. Then there's the songs I've written as part of the Songbirds of Fort Worth group. Got an album's worth there as well. I've also made a new pedal/sound discovery that I'm currently experimenting with. Also, I've discovered a new tuning to use that I'm intrigued by, but haven't written anything for as of yet.
Also, possible show coming up, end of May. Stay tuned.