The last couple of weeks have been … well … sweaty. Sweaty and exciting. Jesse Barabe and I are hard at work on my record Holy Motor Blues and over the last few days, the first single has appeared on Spotify. Pretty soon we’ll be live on iTunes, Amazon, and pretty much anywhere else you can purchase/stream digital music. To be a musician in your early thirties, in 2012 is an interesting experience. Here’s why:
In 2004, my old band múnbút was doing the best they could traveling around the Midwest, trying to garner fans. We had a 1992 Ford Econoline van (with the Tousley Advantage [wood paneling, a fan and a crappy TV]), a few sleeping bags, some pens and paper, and one really lousy CD player. Technology wasn’t our strong suit, and it made the rides boring, but we did our best to bring our sound to cities across the Midwest. We had a decent following, but our social media capability was limited to a few hundred email addresses on a clunky list that was nearly impossible to operate.
It’s easy to sit around and imagine what it would have been like if múnbút was playing in 2009, or 2012. Facebook was around in 2004, but it wasn’t something everyone did. Twitter wasn’t “necessary” either. iTunes, Spotify, and all the other digital music site either weren’t around, or had a small impact on exposure. Now, I can’t imagine what it would be like to play shows and ask for people to write their email address on a sheet of paper. In 2012, fans are made on the internet.
I have a love/hate relationship with technology, but in the case of Holy Motor Blues, it has allowed me to spread the word about this release. With the advent of pages like Kickstarter.com, I can ask for support from the Michigan community, something absolutely necessary for budding artists, given the 2012 economy.
For the time being, technology and social media aren’t going anywhere, so I might as well get used to it, eh?
“Holy Motor Blues” is now listenable on Spotify, and in the coming days/weeks, it will be available for download or streaming on iTunes, Amazon, Google Music, and most everywhere else you can get digital music.