As I tested the other link, the one that takes you to the place where you buy our stuff directly via CD baby?
Ahem.
CD Baby retired our music store in March of 2020 in order to place our focus entirely on the tools and services that are most meaningful to musicians today and tomorrow.
(cough) bullshit
hmmm, If I was running an e-commerce store for music and I decided without notice to the musicians to withdraw the direct-to-retail option, I wonder how I might, hypothetically, phrase it bluntly.
Maybe like this:
'we weren't making enough out of this to warrant dealing with retail customers so we're gonna let Apple & Spotify make the $ and we'll make our money charging you to sign up to them. All that 'we're in this together' stuff from our founder is well gone because, well, no one's making enough money out of it. Oh yeah, by the way, your customers can pay more to buy through the retailers while you get less but oh well, that's business, nothing personal kid.'
Obviously I am not saying this is what they meant.
Wherever you are out there dear cellar dweller, stay safe. Stay solo, where you can.
After that Public Service Announcement it's off to the races!
Surf's up at the end times!
The shelves were overflowing with food today. People wore masks, ok so that's a bit freaky. Even amidst the Toilet-Paper-Pocalypse of blank shelves, people are starting to realise that society as a whole has not collapsed.
Yay!
This whole situation is history happening amongst us.
No one will be centered on the 20th century from this point forward, you were either here for covid or you weren't: welcome to the 21st century.
Another observation, and I'll keep my soapbox small, is this:
Given how thoroughly the Australian Government has restricted movement, enacted fines and upended the entire world in order to survive Covid,
After all the massive change,
all the change that probably can't really be undone,
the unintended consequences that we can't even begin to foresee from here...
after all that,
has it dawned on you that we really can fix pretty much any thing we
want
to?
Like climate change
Pollution
Poverty
yeah.
When we decide to do it...
it gets done.
They just...enact a law and enforce it.
All it takes is the will.
And to borrow and paraphrase from wiser minds, nothing so sharpens the mind as a close call.
COVID, the bushfires, floods, anyone getting the message?
Ok not that message.
The message that when we stop playing magical numbers games with money and start counting our rolls of toilet paper, what really matters becomes evident.
It also becomes evident how much power we really do have at the ballot box.
Who you elect to lead you is who you are entrusting to help you when History yells out 'surprise!'
Meanwhile, in other Moments Of Levity - life outside the trenches
Regular Cellar Dwellers may know that this blog was originally setup for friends and family who were serving & living overseas.
I am positive I have told this story before; I'll chance to repeat it.
When I asked Dad about his correspondence when he was deployed, he said he wanted to hear about the ordinary.
The mundane. Home life. A link to somewhere outside the jungle, somewhere safe. And we keep on doing it now.
Looking behind the curtain
This is a time to hold fast. the science is simple. stay put.
To help with that, I am going to open up a little more of the behind the scenes stuff that we are up to.
As you know, or may know, we were in a rest period after the US tour finished in Feb.
The Global Shutdown sort of coincided with scheduled downtime anyway. Except for gigs, which have all been cancelled. Ok so that sucks but hang on. where was I? Oh yeah.
We were due to try our first streaming show on the 11th of April. So we're sort of on Schedule.
Of course being in Super-Duper-Triple-No-Backsies-Lockdown presents a new set of challenges.
Streaming Steps
Thanks to Dion, Monte and my other mates of note, I have now come up with the next streaming hardware test thing.
In a nutshell, I have to connect things together, I have been working out which things connect well.
With luck we'll have a shot at it this week. Will be looking for cellar dwellers to test the streaming platform and also to rate sound. after sound we'll work on vision.
Songwriting for multiple projects
SC12 is in mixing. is it an EP? A full album?
Dunno.
There are songs written in the US we didn't get time to track.
SC 13 is theoretically anything that's not SC12.
unless it's from the 'Salon' Project
Oh yeah.Is that SC14? Who bloomin' knows
The Salon Project
As we figured we'd have a 'quiet' 6 months after the US Tour we thought it was time to go back to recording.
Of course that didn't account for the random emergence of SC12 on tour. oops.
The idea of the Salon project was to do the same thing as we had done for Kansas City Gold, except this time, here.
That meant collaborating with a bunch of our local mates.
We started that off with CrossFire with Den & Christina, writing something in a fusion of their styles. I really dig it. here's a reminder.
That took almost...9 months of producing before it occurred.
12 months maybe?
Anyway.
Having had the idea to do it, we had begun writing songs to suit some of our favorite local muso mates and we were expecting to start when we got back.
So I did and I am.
Phone calls have gone out...of course now that we're restricted in access and travel we have another challenge.
Ah. Ok.
A years worth of work
Finishing what we already started could take us the rest of the year.
I tend not to talk about the next thing we're doing until we get into it because:
A: they take forever sometimes
B: they sometimes get a bit explodey.
But as we all seem to have some extra time, perhaps a trip to the development lab is in order.
if I get my tech together this week, I'm on it.
Stay tuned and keep grooving on your apocalypse. Things are never gonna be the same, so to quote Mr Bowie, let's face the music and dance!
