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Thursday, 21 January 2010 00:00 |
Frostwire - January 2009
In January 2009 we teamed up with Frostwire, the P2P software guys, to offer our debut 'Hello Stranger' on the startup page of their software. Within four days we had shifted over 50,000 copies of the EP, and watched in amazement as we crept into the top 20 most downloaded music files on the Pirate Bay charts, finishing in 14th position above Katy Perry's latest album and just below the entire collected works of Metallica , and being the only unsigned band anywhere near the top 100.
High Road House Gig - March 2009
We did a small gig to an invited few at the Soho House's Chiswick residence. It was a good opportunity to catch up with some of our Twitter friends and we drank far too much and stayed far too late.
Hello Stranger CD promotion - May 2009
In the summer of '09 we decided to do a bit more promotion for our 'Hello Stranger' EP and came up with the idea of letting complete strangers getting the chance to hear our music. Unlike our Frostwire promotion which involved files and downloads, our idea this time was to create the physical equivalent of filesharing - leaving CDs lying around for people to listen to.
We created 40 numbered CDs in bright blue containers with the words 'Hello Stranger - Please Pick Me Up' written in bold writing on the outside. The packaging of each CD explained that people should listen to the music, go to our website and tell people where they found the CD and then leave the CD someplace else for some other person to find.
Over the next few months our CDs were spotted on container ships, buses, airports and all kinds of other places until eventually all trace of the CDs were lost. We even went on BBC Radio and sent a roving reporter to go and leave a CD somewhere live over the airwaves!
They are still out there - we have no idea where they are. If you see one, let us know. If you still have one in your possesion, do the right thing and go leave it somewhere!
Independence Day Celebrations - July 2009
We were totally taken aback when we had a call from the American Embassy asking us if we'd play at the US Ambassadors house in Regents Park for the Independence Day celebrations. They had enjoyed the set we played during election night 2008 at the Embassy itself and wondered if we'd mind doing it all over again - so we did!
Strangely enough we were given the room the Obama's kids had stayed in just weeks before. Our butler was very nice. We had some nice booze and food and had a Carry On style escapade getting our gear moved about on the back of a golf cart zooming up and down the grassy banks of the many acres of gardens. Julian nearly fell off.
All2gether Now Berlin - September 2009
Something else that came totally out of the blue was an invite to speak and perform at the All2gether Now conference in Berlin. All2gether Now was designed as a replacement / reaction to the cancelled PopKomm event which had decided not to run in 2009 due to 'filesharing' (yeah lame excuse).
We got flown out there and ended up meeting Andrew Dubber who's blog we'd only previously trolled, but turned out to be in the hotel opposite ours and we even ended up joining in a bit with the panel he was holding. We also did a joint Q&A session with Amanda Palmer, who's also known for being a self promotion success story.
PC Plus - November 2009
In November '09 we had our first ever outing in a glossy mag - PC PLUS! This came out of the blue from one of our Twitter followers who had been watching our story unfold over the year and decided to do a piece on us. It was a three page spread with very big pictures of us standing in fields and singing on YouTube and discussed all the stuff we'd done to get ourselves noticed.
Destroy CD - November 2009
It was a long time coming but we finally finished the follow up to our 2008's 'Hello Stranger' with our new EP 'Destroy'. This time around we invited 30 supporters to buy 4 CDs in advance each so we could afford to get the CDs pressed. Much to our surprise we had the pre-sales within a week, the artwork and audio went off to the printing plant and a few weeks later we were able to send out our new EP, with plenty left over for us to sell online, at gigs and for use in general promotion.
Hawksmoor - November 2009
We did a very small gig after hooking up with some foodies on Twitter and playing in the background for a charity event at the Hawksmoor restaurant in Shoreditch. We had a couple of strange but interesting cocktails and now find our Twitter stream has a lot more references to food related eatery incidents.
Made In Nevada - December 2009
Before we went to Germany we wanted to come up with a new story to 'announce' at the conference, especially as the reason we'd been invited was to talk about our previous promotional efforts. We came up with the idea to record an entire album in our local music shop. Over the next six months we will be going into Nevada Music, the largest music shop on the south coast of England, and recording new material, videoing what we're up to as we go.
We've already started, and you can see where we're at on the Made In Nevada site.
Camera Appeal - December 2009
After starting to document our Made In Nevada project in December, and having discussed radio and television coverage with the BBC, we realised that our old domestic video camera just wasn't up to the job of recording the footage in any quality that was good enough for broadcast. We attempted to get sponsorship with the help of Nevada Music with various other retailers and equipment manufacturers but to no avail.
In a last ditch attempt to raise the £850 needed to buy a new Panasonic HD camera, we put the word out that we needed donations. Within less than two weeks we had all the money we needed, and are now the proud owners of an HDC hs-300 - which doesn't sound like much but it has the kind of picture quality that makes you feel like David Attenborough's cameraman.
What was really amazing about this particular appeal was that people seemed quite willing to give us money for absolutely nothing in return. Half of the money was raised before we'd even thought about putting up a list of stuff we'd give people back out of gratitude. It seems like our supporters really do trust us to follow through on our promises, and to be perfectly truthful we shed a tear at everyone's generosity. This was a great and positive way to end 2009.
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