Best Friend Forever Login

Oh, so this’ll be my first show in Ottawa in a while or two. Gonna be trying out some new stuff, plus old new stuff and then last — but by no means least — …old stuff. Bruce Enloe and the Burning Sensations will be opening. I worked on Bruce’s two rad records, Unseasonably Cool and the raw, live-off-the-floor Bonfire. Both worth checking out, Bruce is an excellent songwriter. Geoffrey Gibson made us this beautiful poster:

And here’s the Facebook event.

What a big Record Store Day I’ve got coming up this Saturday. My friend Dan at Backbeat Music suggested we press some Making Me Nervous postcard flexidiscs. And now they exist:

POSTCARD FLEXIS

See, it’s a postcard? But if you put it on a turntable it’ll play a very scratchy, low-fidelity version of my song Making Me Nervous? Disclaimer: I’ve tested them a bit and some auto-return type turntables haven’t been able to play them so uh: no guarantees they’ll work on your system. But they’re neat!

If you want me to mail you one, just Paypal me $10 USD and send me your mailing address and I’ll get it out to you asap.

SHOWS

I’ll be doing an in-store (duo) performance at 3pm at Backbeat on Saturday. Everybody who buys a record gets a free flexidisc! Details here.

After that, I’m heading to Kingston to play a full-band Brad Sucks set at The Mansion in Kingston. Details here.

I think that’s it. After that, I’m gonna lay down for a while.

Thanks to y’all who came out to the Montreal show. I’m actually glad there weren’t more of you because I’m very shy.

Winding down the year here — I’m playing bass December 27th as a replacement member of The Burning Sensations. The next day there’s a Brad Sucks show in Kingston on December 28th and then it’s time to get cracking on rehearsing and recording some new things in the hopes of a musically productive 2014.

(poster by Geoff Gibson)

I’ve got a few shows coming up:

November 16: The Branch, Kemptville, ON
November 30: Il Motore, Montreal, QC
December 28: The Mansion, Kingston, ON

Posters by Geoff Gibson (Samurai in Street Clothes):

Hey party people. Got a few real world things coming up, which I must share with you:

Thing 1: On April 27th I’ll be in Boston at the Rethink Music conference (a Harvard/MIDEM/Berklee College of Music joint). I think my panel’s at 4:45. And I think I’m doing something at the Berkman enter while I’m down there.

Thing 2:

(Poster by Geoffrey Gibson)

Saturday, May 14th I’ll be playing Kingston with Dave Norris & Local Ivan at The Mansion. I believe it will be six Canadian dollars. (Here’s the Facebook event.) Next:

Thing 3:

(Poster by Bill Mead)

Saturday, June 11th we’re playing Ottawa. I don’t know who the opener will be yet, but I’m sure whoever it is will be great. I’m trying to only play one show a year in my hometown so if you miss this sucker I’ll see you in 2012.  (Here’s the Facebook event.)

If you can attend or know of anyone who might, please spread the word. Thanks!

Hey, the Toronto show was nice, thanks to everyone. And so ends the first few shows with the new band. They’ve been fun, I’m pretty happy with how everything sounds and I don’t feel totally ashamed which is new.

Anyway, gonna take some time out and work on the next record and think about what’s next. There are a bunch of things that’ll need some adjusting as I go forward with the live show – like not losing money for instance. That would be awesome to not lose money.

After a lot of planning, promotion, practice and worry, the show in Ottawa last night went pretty good I think. It was the first real club gig with the new band and I was surprisingly happy with the sound.

The crowd was energetic and fun, if not as large as I had hoped from the amount of frigging time I put in promoting it. Lots of people sang along with my songs and knew the words and I guess that might be the best feeling in the world.

I still feel scared having a laptop on stage. I wish I had a better solution but I don’t. I love computers and am good with them but that also makes me aware of how easily they can fail. When girls are dancing on stage all I can think about is “I hope they don’t accidentally yank out my firewire cable.” So, not exactly a carefree experience.

But it was good. Total success basically by all goals I set for it. And I’m looking forward to Toronto next Saturday. And then more shows?

All I’ve been doing lately is trying to promote my upcoming shows (July 31 Ottawa! August 7 Toronto!) Previously I’ve been lazy about show promotion due to insecurity and shame but desperation has once again won out.

I’m pretty sensitive and protective towards people who subscribe to my mailing list. I don’t want to piss them off with bullshit updates or waste their time. This is mostly an issue when I have an occasional show – nobody cares if there’s a show far away from them that they can’t attend and it’s annoying to get those emails. So I built this mappy email signup thing which you can see on my live page.

I’ve built up a good number of email addresses in there and they’re targeted nicely. Anyone in there has specifically entered their email address and selected their location. That’s about as opt-in as it gets in this world. “Please contact me if Brad Sucks is in this area, no fooling.”

So while I went about contacting folks I tracked the event detail clickthroughs with a url shortener and the results were disappointing:

Listmessenger

First I sent email the way I usually do — I use Listmessenger from my server. I’ve had suspicions for some time that my mail was not getting to most people on the mailing list but I didn’t have anything super important going on so I didn’t stress about it.

The clickthrough rate for Ottawa was 8% and 16% for Toronto. From what I can see that’s not a bad rate for your average semi-spammy email list. But again – this one is as targeted as it gets. Why isn’t it much, much higher?

Eventful

I have a decent number of demands over on Eventful. I’ve bitched before that they don’t give me access to my demanders’ email addresses (and was laughed at by the CEO for the suggestion I should have them if Eventful gets access to them). I sent out mail to my fans in areas in and around Ottawa and Toronto. For Ottawa and Toronto both I received zero clickthroughs. For Toronto I got 1.

I’m pretty shocked at that. What’s the deal? Did the emails bounce? Are the addresses invalid? Are the Eventful emails getting marked as spam? I have no way to know. You fire your message to people who have demanded you in the area and that’s that. Hope for the best.

Anyway I’ve put the Eventful widget up places (including my live page) thinking it couldn’t hurt but I think I’m done with that. No point gathering fans through a service if I can’t reach them.

MailChimp

Frustrated with these results I signed up for MailChimp. It’s a pay mailing list service that’s been highly recommended to me and they appear to have a great reputation. My best guess was that ISPs were maybe shitcanning my emails? Anyway, I bought some credits and sent out apologetic new versions of the emails to the same lists (removing anyone who replied that I knew had received the emails).

This time Ottawa got a clickthrough rate of 10% and Toronto got 3%. So it got me some extra eyeballs but it wasn’t a huge improvement.

In the end

Out of all the fans in and around Toronto and Ottawa who voluntarily gave me their locations I have been able to contact only 5%. Awful.

Of course I feel bad for selfish reasons – I want these shows to go well, I want lots of people to come out, I want them to be a success. I’ve rented the club in Toronto and I’d like to not lose money. And psychologically a lot is riding on them for me. These will likely determine if I go ahead with some tour plans next year.

But I also feel like I’m letting these folks down. They’ve specifically asked me to tell them if I’m playing near them, which is such a nice thing for them to ask. I’ve promised to tell them when I’m in town and now I feel like I’m not able to hold up my end of the deal. That sucks and I have no idea what to do about it.

Venue: Cafe Dekcuf
City: Ottawa, ON
When: July 31, 8pm
Cover: $10

Event listings:

Facebook
MySpace
Eventful
Upcoming
last.fm

Venue: The Tranzac Club
City: Toronto, ON
When: August 7, 7pm
Cost: $12

Event listings:

Facebook
MySpace
Eventful
Upcoming
last.fm