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Freddie McLennan
9 April 2013 : Promotion Locomotion…
Apparently the digital age is upon us. The quandary of a modern day musician – whether to go totally digital or still get some CDs printed as well…
The album has been selling well, mostly digital, the hard copies are mostly for sale at gigs. We've also decided to use them to try a now old-fashioned technique of sending them around to a bunch of independent and local radio stations all around Australia. It's been an interesting process, trying to find relevant programs and presenters on each of about 60 radio stations that would want to play our songs. We've had some good responses and some stations giving a few songs a spin, but it's a bit of a black hole to send off a bunch of albums at not insubstantial cost and sit around and wait to see what happens.
Obviously a band can't just sit around and wait to see what happens and expect everyone to start listening to their music. Groundswell, momentum, hype, promotion across a bunch of different mediums is required (unless you're a freak – you know who you are). And at the top of the list is playing live. A lot. A band's most valuable commodity is its ability to entertain a live crowd and get people talking about you. Easier said than done.
Many a movie shows the hilariously entertaining demise of bands trying work out the finer points of how to share the groupies or deal with their first bad review that happens to be in Rolling Stone magazine. It's a cut-throat business and keeping a band together and agreeing on how often to practice and perform and where the limits of an eastern European tour should be are difficult conversations for the closest knit bunch of troubadours. Deciding how often to perform can also be a delicate business when living in a town with less people than the average stock count of a Northern Territory cattle farm. Market over-saturation is a real concern when there's only 3 or 4 decent live music venues suitable for your band in your home town.
Hence, it comes with regret, sadness as well as hope and excitement, to tell you that Cam is moving to the greener pastures of Hanoi in the next couple of months to try his hand in the soon-to-be booming V-pop scene. He also happens to have got an Environmental Engineering job there, which will help pay the bills until things kick off.
So stay tuned for details of our last few gigs in C-town! There's also some talk of another Freddie McLennan album in the works in the not too distant future…