Tag: Camera Obscura

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last week I promised secrets (pt. 2)

Friday, I really didn’t think about what was going on. It was one more tedious day at work, so that helped. It wasn’t until Sarah asked me if I had heard from Andrea yet when I got home. It’s really unlike me to NOT fixate on even minor things, so this is really an indication of how serious I thought this was. Saturday morning we went out to buy a new lawnmower. When we got back home there was a message on the machine from Andrea, saying she had some good news about the CD. So, I called back but got her machine and left a message.

She finally caught me around noon. She gave Amy the CD at the meeting on Friday. Afterwards she drove home, where there was a message from Amy, saying, “oh my god, I love this CD!” Andrea said she hadn’t heard Amy that excited in a long time. She was surprised, too, because Amy isn’t really a pop fan, she listens to a lot of punk. Saturday morning Andrea was trying to get my phone number, and then had to go out. When she got back home there was another message from Amy on her machine, saying, “oh my god, I love this CD!” Amy wanted to talk to me before she left for Europe on Tuesday, which was why Andrea had been trying to track down my phone number.

I’ve met Amy a couple of times, when I was still in the old band. She was always very friendly and had nice things to say about us. She sent our drummer a really nice card once, with a long note about how she thought we were a special band, and she gave some advice on how to go about things in general. It was really very kind.

Anyway, she called Saturday around 2pm. She couldn’t really talk because she was in meetings all day, but she wanted me to know that she really loved the CD. Apparently she had been listening to demos all week, and she had heard some good stuff, but mine was the only one that had jumped out at her, and sounded like it was finished. She said she was excited about the prospect of doing something, and she’d call back Sunday at noon to talk with me about it.

Still more to come…

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last week I promised secrets (pt. 1)

So. Hi there. *cough*. Okay.

So, at that show last weekend, on the 13th, Andrea from Daemon Records was there. This was no surprise, she lives with Lee, and even apart from that I’ve met her many times and she’s been at shows before. She’s the one who, awhile back, asked if I’d like the label to feature Slumberland on the their site and sell it there, which they did for three or four months. After we played I sat for a bit with her and pretty much the rest of Gentle Readers during the last set. At one point she leaned in and asked if I would mind if she played the rough mixes of the new stuff for the label (which she had heard since Lee was rehearsing to most of them the week before), and would I mind talking with them at some point about the CD.

This, for those of you scoring at home, was where I quoted That Thing You Do!… “I don’t know… I’m reluctant to sign anything that has to do with my music…”

So, I sent her a copy of the songs on Monday (Lee only had a few of them). I sent her an email to let her know they were in the mail, and she wrote back asking if we could get together at some point during the week so she could ask me a few things that she knew Amy (Ray, she owns the label) would want to know. I met up with her after work on Wednesday at Eddie’s Attic. I had actually written out a short list of things I was trying to accomplish, which I repeat now for your enjoyment and ability to mock later…

  • a decent chance to be heard
  • build a fan base
  • play Largo in LA
  • licensing for film and TV
  • make a living
  • get “Little Plum” to Jodie Foster
  • get “Jeff Lynne” to Jeff Lynne
  • national reviews
  • airplay
  • tour with someone, opening or in their band, I don’t care

Though, really, my goals can be summed up more succinctly: I want to be able to release a CD and play out, and make enough back so I can release another CD, ad infinitum.

She wanted to know about my availability to tour out of state, to which I responded that touring solo is not much of a problem, but if she meant with a band that was a much tougher animal. This did not seem to deter her. She told me a little about the label, how they structure deals usually, it sounded pretty similar to the deal I had with M Records with the last CD, they recoup their costs and then money gets distributed percentage-wise. They don’t do tour support but would be happy to advise and give me contacts. Everything discussed was kept fairly vague, I think on both our parts. I don’t think I really quite grasped what was going on, or at least whether it was serious or just sort of a getting-a-read-on-me kind of thing. She said Amy would be in town Friday for a meeting, and she’d play the CD for her then, and she’d try to let me know something afterward. The gist seemed to be that they had an interest in talking about doing something together, but that it was up to Amy in the end. She also said that, even if nothing came of it, I was welcome to come by the label and make use of the resources they had, databases, that sort of stuff. Which seemed very kind to me.

Thursday I went to see Gina (M Records). I had set up this meeting the week before, because I was trying to start lining up everything I needed to do to release the next CD, and I wanted to pick her brain about what we did last time, and what she was doing for weaklazyliar’s new CD. It didn’t seem to me that what happened Wednesday had really altered that, and I didn’t see any reason why I shouldn’t assume that I still needed to figure all of these things out and work under the assumption that I would still be releasing the CD by myself.

Yeah, there’s more, tomorrow morning.

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13 Apr: Atlanta

13 Apr – 10 High (Atlanta, GA)
with 6 Against 7, Over October

A quick run down the roll call…

Lee Cuthbert is amazing. Just so everyone knows that at the outset. We rehearsed twice (more or less) for this show. I went over the Lee’s house one night last week and we went over the songs, just the two of us. I think we did them a couple of times, at most. Then Monday night the band rehearsed, and she already had most of them down. We rehearsed Saturday morning and she had them all down, and we came up with a cover song for the show to pad the set out. Just like that.

Similarly, my band is amazing for their abilities in that regard. I feel lucky to have people like that around me.

Finally, Nicole, who books the Ten High, is great. I had a realization today as to why, and it’s because she actually gives you the sense that you matter, which is something I think it’s safe to say is extremely rare in booking shows. I was talking to her after the show about booking another, and I was wondering how far in advance she was booking, because I wanted to try and get one more show booked in there before my hopeful CD release in August. When I mentioned the release her eyes went wide and she said, “You HAVE to do it here!”

I’m sorry, you’re a good club that has crowds and you WANT me to do the show there? When did I enter this strange parallel universe, anyway? So, anyway, the night will be mine to organize and pick the other bands. I digress. We’ll talk about this later.

The show was good. We were surprisingly tight, I thought, and I felt relatively relaxed once we started. It felt normal, if that makes any sense. I just deleted a bunch of crap because I came to a sudden realization… up to this point I have been playing these band shows with a strange sort of mindset. I think subconsciously I haven’t felt as if they were really… mine. Like, I was still the guy from Radiant City and I just happened to be playing a show with some other people. It’s funny to realize that after over two years. But this show, without articulating it overtly until now, it was me. It was my band and my show. I know I was more animated than I have been up until this point, more focused. Most of the previous shows I have done a lot of thinking about where I’m standing and am I playing the right chord and is my voice okay and on and on and on… this show there wasn’t so much of that. And it felt good.

Hey, it’s me, Paul Melancon. I just didn’t realize it until now.

So, the cover we did was “September Gurls” by Big Star, which worked well, I think. Thanks to everyone who came out… you know, I stress before every show about the turnout and it’s almost always unfounded, and I’m grateful to everyone for that (though maybe I shouldn’t tell you that, you might stop coming). I stuck around through the rest of the show (we were first) and hung out with the band and also with Gentle Readers and Andrea from Daemon Records. Pete, David (who I should also mention gave me CD copies of the Beach Boys’ Smile and some Martin Newell stuff for my birthday before the show. The big lug!) and I went walking up to the CVS for needed refreshments after the set, and at one point Pete asked me out of the blue if I had heard Beulah before. Thankfully I had already discovered them recently, just in time to appear to be hip to the scene, and then I made one of about 4 mentions of Death Cab For Cutie during the evening.

Let this be number five… I bought their CD Photo Album a week or so ago and am still playing it incessantly. I pushed it with abandon Saturday night and I see no reason to stop now. Death Cab For Cutie – Photo Album. Go get it.

There was one other thing during the course of the evening that was really kinda cool and has some potential for the future, but right now it’s just something I have to keep to myself. I don’t mean to tease, but a) I hate to mention it and then have it not pan out, and b) I watch a lot of baseball and have become a very superstitious person about my music career. But it did allow me to quote from That Thing You Do!, as if I needed more excuses.