The same day in May that I signed the publishing deal with Fogsongs, I’d attended a meeting with the City of Sydney to discuss the launch of their King Street podcast; or “The King St and Enmore Rd Chapter of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Walk of Fame ‘n’ Shame” to give it its official name. An old friend of mine, Ashley Russell, had produced the podcast for the Sydney Council and he was promoting the idea that my band play at the podcast launch party.
Months passed and after a few months of waiting and hoping it all came together. The launch would take place at the Vanguard on King Street. I’d arranged that the night would also be the launch for my band’s new CD. In the end the City decided to make the podcast launch an invitation only event. So that kind of killed the CD launch idea. But it was still going to be a great opportunity to showcase the songs from the new CD to an audience of media people and Inner West movers and shakers. I was also keen to follow up on my idea to give a copy of the new CD to each of the guests on the night.
Jeff and I were going to fly up to Brisbane the weekend before the Vanguard show to do some gigs that I’d booked months before. I wanted to be able to sell the new CD at those shows so that gave me a deadline to rush toward to get the CD back from the factory. We picked up the boxes of CDs from the Foghorn office and proudly inspected the CD package. It all seemed fine and I started to show the CD to friends later that night. It was only then that someone noticed that the lyric booklet pages had been stapled in the wrong order.
The next day frantic emails went back and forward between me and Marshall from Foghorn and the CD factory. Eventually they promised to fix the problem in time for the podcast launch date the next Wednesday. I took a bunch of those CDs with the mis-stapled booklets with me to Brisbane to sell at the shows there. I reckon that the people that bought the CDs have now got themselves a bone fide collectors item.
Back in Sydney the week started relatively quietly. All I had to do was let the factory do its job and it would be alright on the night. The night came. The soundcheck was completed. The doors were about to open. And guess what? That’s right. No CDs! After some mad phone calls, the CDs arrived at the eleventh hour. (Well it was 5pm actually.) With the help of the guys in the band we were able to get the CDs into the showbags provided by the City of Sydney just before crowd started to drift in.
Now the night wasn’t really about us. There were speeches about the King Street podcast hosted by another friend, Alastair Walton from the SCC. (It’s good to have friends.) Councillor John McInerny and Greg Kahdoorie from the Newtown Entertainment Precinct spoke about the importance of promoting local culture and how that would help stimulate trade for local businesses. Despite these interruptions we did manage to have a good time and celebrated the arrival of our new CD. We’d been able to invite a bunch of friends and with the booze flowing freely, we played a solid show of my Inner West classics and showcase new songs from the new album.
A highlight of the set for me were performing Motel Satellite; the song written by a guy from San Francisco called Pat Johnson who’d I’d met in Berlin. Another was having Megan Heyward join us for the first time to do the duet on the CD title track, Is This Not Paris?
The live set ended but the show wasn’t over. Ashley’s partner in podcast production, Hugh Liney, had arranged to have some of my early video clips show on the big screen at the back of the stage. King Street and Miracle (in Marrickville) were screened showing me and some early Love Gone Wrong lineups proudly sporting full heads of hair. Ahh the glory days!
It was good to have our partners with us. “It’s a long way to the shop”, as they say, so it was a great opportunity to celebrate the event with those that have supported us through some cold and lonely nights at the Cooks River Motor Boat Club. Old friends like ex-bassist Steve Broughton and fellow inner suburban troubadour Perry Keyes were there too. Steve got to hear the song Tiki Woronora live for the first time at the show. It’s a surf instrumental that was inspired by his Tiki Hut behind his home on the Woronora River where we used to rehearse and sample Steve’s excellent home brew. Speaking of surf tunes, I had a good chat with Toby Creswell who had the indie hit, Cool in the Tube, back in the day with his band Surfside Six. I’d last spoken to him waaaaay back in 1987 in an interview when he was editor of the Australian edition of Rolling Stone magazine.
I rolled slowly home afterwards down King Street in the surprisingly warm late winter’s night enjoying the moment. I was still in the honeymoon period of the CD release process. It’s a time when you can live in hope. When you can dream that this release will make a dent in the cultural landscape until you’re smacked in the face by the cold, hard reality of commercial failure. Again.
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Is This Not Paris? CD: Part 5 – The CD soft launch
A story in 5 or more parts.
Part 5 – The Soft Launch
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The King Street Podcast
http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/AboutSydney/VisitorGuidesInformation/HistoricalWalkingTours.asp
The same day in May that I signed the publishing deal with Fogsongs, I’d attended a meeting with the City of Sydney to discuss the launch of their King Street podcast; or “The King St and Enmore Rd Chapter of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Walk of Fame ‘n’ Shame” to give it its official name. An old friend of mine, Ashley Russell, had produced the podcast for the Sydney Council and he was promoting the idea that my band play at the podcast launch party.
Months passed and after a few months of waiting and hoping it all came together. The launch would take place at the Vanguard on King Street. I’d arranged that the night would also be the launch for my band’s new CD. In the end the City decided to make the podcast launch an invitation only event. So that kind of killed the CD launch idea. But it was still going to be a great opportunity to showcase the songs from the new CD to an audience of media people and Inner West movers and shakers. I was also keen to follow up on my idea to give a copy of the new CD to each of the guests on the night.
Jeff and I were going to fly up to Brisbane the weekend before the Vanguard show to do some gigs that I’d booked months before. I wanted to be able to sell the new CD at those shows so that gave me a deadline to rush toward to get the CD back from the factory. We picked up the boxes of CDs from the Foghorn office and proudly inspected the CD package. It all seemed fine and I started to show the CD to friends later that night. It was only then that someone noticed that the lyric booklet pages had been stapled in the wrong order.
The next day frantic emails went back and forward between me and Marshall from Foghorn and the CD factory. Eventually they promised to fix the problem in time for the podcast launch date the next Wednesday. I took a bunch of those CDs with the mis-stapled booklets with me to Brisbane to sell at the shows there. I reckon that the people that bought the CDs have now got themselves a bone fide collectors item.
Back in Sydney the week started relatively quietly. All I had to do was let the factory do its job and it would be alright on the night. The night came. The soundcheck was completed. The doors were about to open. And guess what? That’s right. No CDs! After some mad phone calls, the CDs arrived at the eleventh hour. (Well it was 5pm actually.) With the help of the guys in the band we were able to get the CDs into the showbags provided by the City of Sydney just before crowd started to drift in.
Now the night wasn’t really about us. There were speeches about the King Street podcast hosted by another friend, Alastair Walton from the SCC. (It’s good to have friends.) Councillor John McInerny and Greg Kahdoorie from the Newtown Entertainment Precinct spoke about the importance of promoting local culture and how that would help stimulate trade for local businesses. Despite these interruptions we did manage to have a good time and celebrated the arrival of our new CD. We’d been able to invite a bunch of friends and with the booze flowing freely, we played a solid show of my Inner West classics and showcase new songs from the new album.
A highlight of the set for me were performing Motel Satellite; the song written by a guy from San Francisco called Pat Johnson who’d I’d met in Berlin. Another was having Megan Heyward join us for the first time to do the duet on the CD title track, Is This Not Paris?
The live set ended but the show wasn’t over. Ashley’s partner in podcast production, Hugh Liney, had arranged to have some of my early video clips show on the big screen at the back of the stage. King Street and Miracle (in Marrickville) were screened showing me and some early Love Gone Wrong lineups proudly sporting full heads of hair. Ahh the glory days!
It was good to have our partners with us. “It’s a long way to the shop”, as they say, so it was a great opportunity to celebrate the event with those that have supported us through some cold and lonely nights at the Cooks River Motor Boat Club. Old friends like ex-bassist Steve Broughton and fellow inner suburban troubadour Perry Keyes were there too. Steve got to hear the song Tiki Woronora live for the first time at the show. It’s a surf instrumental that was inspired by his Tiki Hut behind his home on the Woronora River where we used to rehearse and sample Steve’s excellent home brew. Speaking of surf tunes, I had a good chat with Toby Creswell who had the indie hit, Cool in the Tube, back in the day with his band Surfside Six. I’d last spoken to him waaaaay back in 1987 in an interview when he was editor of the Australian edition of Rolling Stone magazine.
I rolled slowly home afterwards down King Street in the surprisingly warm late winter’s night enjoying the moment. I was still in the honeymoon period of the CD release process. It’s a time when you can live in hope. When you can dream that this release will make a dent in the cultural landscape until you’re smacked in the face by the cold, hard reality of commercial failure. Again.