The remarkable story of Good Songs and the reason for which I released rough, unchewed, material
I never thought I would have to deal with music marketing as a musician but truth is that before a certain stage musicians have to do all the work themselves. I do have some theoretical knowledge on marketing but I find the actual work on it so uninspiring and tedious so there’s always a hope in me to outsource the whole thing, which needless to say never happened. Here. I’ll try to shed a little light on that and also on Good Songs a song of mine which was lost and then found
The story about Good Songs begins with a book. A book which I encountered in a rather unexpected way about a year ago while trying to figure out how to get my message to the world. Luckily, I have something to say which positions me ahead of many artists if not most. But with whom should I be sharing my thoughts with? And How?
One day while on a family trip to Vienna with my father I stumbled into a little old book shop. Wondering around I noticed a used and stained book titled Welcome to the Music Business: You’re F**ked! The bookseller was old and reeked of pipe smoke and hardly spoke any English I had to use my washed German which I already forgot from using it infrequently for many years. There, In that book by someone called Martin Atkins, I first encountered the idea of “Release everything” In music. I am still not sure if it is the right thing to do but I am pretty sure it’s better than to sit still in limbo and wait…
The book convinced me to release everything and I just did it without a great deal of forward-thinking. I have jumped into the deep ocean of music and art publishing. I knew there would be some ugly moments but where aren’t those moments to be found? I decided to do release everything, what the heck…
So I have just released all my recorded material into the public space even though it wasn’t given the treatment that I thought it would deserve. Re-recording it now meant to pass on recording other songs and material which are on par with those. That is something I’m reluctant to do
Since then, I have tried many approaches to find a way to the listener’s heart. In some instances with very little success. Frankly, I will probably never be the top marketer that most successful artists are nowadays. Nevertheless, I intend to upgrade my skills in that domain to a workable one. I’ll try to do that while keeping my main focus on writing and recording music which comes more natural to me
On a more general note, what strikes me as problematic in the music industry of today (and it may have always been) is the deceit that is being pushed on to the fans and art consumers. The image of most acts is so remote than the real personalities of the people that are projecting those images
With regards to all that, I have not give up and also tried some marketing necromancy and attempted methods which few undoubtedly boomeranged and not in particularly subtle ways. But then again I am not a marketer and there are many other roles I play before that like music artist and manager. I am feeling that artists today concentrate on their marketing at the expense of their musical talents and that can be seen as a misfortune. I am not sure if that helped them write good songs but that’s the way it goes in today’s world. But let’s get to the song already that’s why we’re all here after all aren’t we?
I was browsing my old PC audio files the other day and accidentally discovered the song which I completely forgot that I had recorded way back in my previous round of recording. Hearing “Good Songs” now I liked it more than before. Then I did not have the means to release my songs anyway and now it’s a viable possibility.
Back at the time, it didn’t fit the concept of my Sketches EP that I was working on at the time because the EP was even more minimal with an acoustic guitar and vocals only. Now Good Songs also has my dear first fender black and white Mexican Precision bass (which got lost but that’s another story which might be told some day)
When I first reheard this song it made me really emotional and I kind of hardly recollected that it was recorded back when the recording machines were really hard to work with and I did not have even semi-decent monitoring equipment or setup. So I felt the tears running down my eyelashes and my cheeks. I know most bloggers and musicians usually don’t cry but I was because I was inundated by the whole experience of losing something and finding it again
In case you wondered how all of this sounds. Here it is – Good Songs: