I Hate Mornings

My latest round of promo emails harnessed all the beautiful power of the internet to give me a virtual underground lair from which to spy on the unsuspecting fools that were reading them…

I was pleasantly surprised to fire up my lair this evening and see that “Nick Gill”:http://www.nickfuckinggill.com had topped the email clicking charts with a massive score of 3. This puts him ahead of all my family, and means that my bid for internet superstardom is off to a flying start. As a prize, I’ve added Nick’s band (”The Monroe Transfer”:http://www.myspace.com/electricoldwirenoise) to my tiny (and therefore very exclusive) list of “Bands I Like”. Well done, Mr Gill.

It seems to me (and has seemed to others before me) that musicians that can, and are willing to, use the geekier technologies that the web has to offer can get ahead. Not so much push out in front of the MySpace crowd, but run a different race. It’s the modern equivalent of drawing badges by hand, or being really motivated to spend your days off filling padded envelopes with home made CDs. These are still great ways to connect with fans once you have some, but they aren’t so useful when it comes to finding them.

Now that I can see who clicks the link from my email to ihatemornings.com (and even who opened the email and who didn’t!) I have a much clearer idea of how the message is getting through. With gigs also being promoted through Facebook (where I can see exactly how many people can, can’t and might make it), I’m almost at the point of enjoying the process of promotion. And for me, that’s quite strange.

I have always been a fan of drawing gig posters, creating flyers and all that artsy craftsy stuff but once I’ve put it out there I tend to forget about it and assume nobody will turn up. And they probably won’t - when’s the last time I went to a gig because I saw a flyer in a sandwich shop? Never. But if a band I know (and vaguely like) emails me I tend to at least check out the site, and maybe 1 time in 10 I’ll turn up.

So I’m going to keep on with this new-fangled way of being a muso, and see where it takes me. And Nick, I’ll see you at the Hampstead gig. ;o)