Not a whole lot going on today. Taking it a little mellow.
Assembled some copies of Lost Kisses 6.
Working a little more on the SLF nuclear recordings.
Gave my eight year-old nephew a rudimentary drum lesson, so he probably now is as good of a drummer as me.
Got about 130 promo packages done today. So I’m feeling pretty good about that. I was hoping to get the new XO art in by today as the only packages I don’t have made are the ones I was planning to sneak it in with. So maybe I’ll not bother sending copies of my mini-comics to The Wire & what-not this time. Eventually a comic release & music release will match up.
Been talking to a few folks about the questions for the guitarist issue of QRD. In general people just say, “Those are good questions! You have all the bases covered!” Always hard for me to tell the difference between compliments & patronization.
Oh, I canceled my shows at the end of the month. Just too much I have to get done between now & then.
Got the final payment to Starbage Hands for the Hotel Hotel disc. Nice to have no outstanding debts.
Got in the Hotel Hotel CDs. So I have spent the day making up packages. Got around 50 done I’d guess with about 150 to go.
Talked to Brian McKenzie (Electric Bird Noise) & he might be expanding on one of the Vlor tracks based on the rough mixes. Always nice to see the project grow organically a little more.
Starting to feel the crunch of some time deadlines on music stuff. We’ll see what all happens.
Also was talking to Shane (North Pole Records) about recent problems with getting picked up for distribution & my lack of word back this week from any of my distributors is making me feel like I might have the same problem.
Oh the official street date for Hotel Hotel & Northern Valentine is November 4 (shipping pre-orders now). So you can get whichever you want in this two party system or even both at silbermedia.com
Mainly working on filling orders & writing the postcards today. Only about thirty postcards left for tomorrow.
Printed some Lost Kisses for promo use, need to cut them up.
Good day again today making progress on the letters to radio. About 50 to go.
Made the promotional page for my distributors & emailed them some info. If you know any distros (that pay) that you think I should work with, please let me know.
Got the promo materials for the slicnaton noisefloor ep.
Contacted a couple more music supervisor types. Everyone seems to think that’s what will make the label money one day. I guess we’ll see what happens on that.
The Hotel Hotel discs are supposed to be in this Friday. So hopefully everything else will be done by then. I’m kind of concerned that the packages might be over the weight where I can just drop them in a blue box to mail them. I guess I’ll find out….
Got more radio update work done from intern Jim Kiley, thanks Jim!
So today seemed tedious.
Continuing writing the postcards (finished the press side). About 100 left to go.
Got the final approval for the Hotel Hotel press release & printed them up.
Spent a long time working on some html coding for the new releases & uploading image files & sound files. I always think it’ll take ten minutes & ends up being a few hours & still not done. Still need to make the distributor one-sheets which absolutely should’ve been made a week & a half ago.
My brother’s niece (one that isn’t related to me) made a comic book that she wants me to mock up & print & everything. So at least I can do a good deed that is within my expertise. That’s nice.
So today was a lull. Just spent the day writing notes to the press people for when the promo packages go out. Does writing hand written personal notes to my press contacts increase reviews? I don’t know. But I think it does speak a bit for the idea that Silber is about connectivity & friends & family. Because it is tedious, but sometimes so is talking to family members.
Been trying to re-work the Hotel Hotel press release a bit, sometimes things are a little tedious by email.
Things seem to be starting to roll along.
Got the approval for the Electric Bird Noise blurb sticker & stickered all the promos.
Got a call from Shane at Starbage Hands & the Hotel Hotel discs are going to be shipping on Monday.
Started work on the grant application for the proposed tour in China.
Started looking into the possibility of also having an Australian tour.
Fixed up some bits on the Hotel Hotel press release for a second draft (pending band approval).
Wrote some more of the promo letters for the packages.
Got a confirmation from Melissa Gardner that she’s going to commit to XO5 & that the art for 4 should be here by the week’s end (expect a new avatar here on MySpace).
Worked on the nuclear tower Small Life Form recordings a bit. Cleaning up a little noise & boosting signals of the raw files so they’ll be ready for mixing. Unfortunately there seemed to be a short somehow on the guitar I was using as a microphone & it had a little click noise about every two seconds. Still 4 usable tracks to mix from & six pieces. So it should edit into something cohesive pretty easily. At least as cohesive as my music gets.
Semi-productive day today. Picked through my promo list for who to send the 30 promos of slicnaton’s noisefloor ep & the 75 Electirc Bird Noise. Even started writing the personal letters to people.
Worked up the first draft of the Hotel Hotel press release. Waiting for band approval prior to printing.
Recorded a couple more bass lines for the new Remora.
Contacted some folks about shows in the northeast the end of the month.
Got some of the radio research back from the Silber intern Bill Pernell. Thanks, Bill, it means a lot.
So today was spent making the promo stickers for the Northern Valentine disc & putting them on the discs. Did the promo sticker for the Electric Bird Noise, but I’m waiting for artist approval on that as it’s a unique situation on how to tell people to play a 26 minute track on radio.
Sent out a couple packages, always nice to get some of the stock in the house replaced with money.
Got in the letter-pressed postcards from Starbage Hands & they are beautiful as is the Hotel Hotel cover. If I could afford it, all the discs I put out would be like this.
