Last Saturday, Sweetie, our drummer, our drummer's boyfriend, and I attended an event that was just a wee bit different. It was presented by a Vancouver band called the Odds. They called it "Good Weird Story" (their third album was called Good Weird Feeling), and it was basically the story of their band, presented as a concert with storytelling and a video backdrop. It was very engaging!
This was really the New Odds. The Odds broke up in the late 1990s, although many of them played together on various projects after that. Three-quarters of them reformed in 2008 with a new guitarist and released an album called Cheerleader. They're now officially the New Odds because they and the other quarter are having a little dispute about the old name.
The Odds released their first album in 1991, 21 years ago. Band leader Craig Northey turned a mere 50 years old this year. And I thought, wow, in 21 years I'll be ancient, maybe in a home, maybe ill, maybe dead.
When we started Lisa's Hotcakes, we agreed that we would take it seriously but basically do it for fun. But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. We realized we had a really good sound together. It was amazingly coherent right from the start. We added new material, and it fit right in. And the material was good. My songs, Sweetie's songs, a song by our drummer. They're all different, but somehow they make a whole.
And we love making this whole. We love playing live. Sometimes we even love practising!
The youngest of us is, well, not a kid. We all have jobs. We all have lives. We really should be doing this only for fun. But we know we have something good, maybe even better than that. That guarantees nothing, but it makes us feel that we need to give it a better chance than we might have thought of doing only a few months ago.
We won't have any 20-year reunion. If we have a time, it's now. That's why I feel a certain sense of urgency about this project.
We need to go into the studio sooner rather than later. We would love to do so with a producer, but that might not be possible. We will do the best we can anyway, and I know we'll get good results. Recording studios and I are no strangers. The technology has changed drastically, but playing is playing, at least if that's the way you want to approach it, and we do. We're a rock band. If someone had an analogue two-inch reel-to-reel machine, I'd embrace it. Perfection is not rock. Perfection is boring.
We need a multi-pronged promotional attack, basically. There's no avoiding it. You can ignore marketing and hope for the best, or you can embrace it and make it work for you. We need not just audio, but video, and more internet presence, and probably stuff I don't even know about yet because I come from a far away land a long time ago. If you Google Lisa's Hotcakes, you'll find videos and blog entries near the top of the list. We want to take that sucker over.
I have to stay balanced, of course. We're still not putting our lives on the line to "make it." But fortunately, there are many routes available to us in this new modern music world. I want to find the best way or ways for us. And if enough people decide we're as good as we think we are, all the better.
Turn that shit up!
This was really the New Odds. The Odds broke up in the late 1990s, although many of them played together on various projects after that. Three-quarters of them reformed in 2008 with a new guitarist and released an album called Cheerleader. They're now officially the New Odds because they and the other quarter are having a little dispute about the old name.
The Odds released their first album in 1991, 21 years ago. Band leader Craig Northey turned a mere 50 years old this year. And I thought, wow, in 21 years I'll be ancient, maybe in a home, maybe ill, maybe dead.
When we started Lisa's Hotcakes, we agreed that we would take it seriously but basically do it for fun. But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. We realized we had a really good sound together. It was amazingly coherent right from the start. We added new material, and it fit right in. And the material was good. My songs, Sweetie's songs, a song by our drummer. They're all different, but somehow they make a whole.And we love making this whole. We love playing live. Sometimes we even love practising!
The youngest of us is, well, not a kid. We all have jobs. We all have lives. We really should be doing this only for fun. But we know we have something good, maybe even better than that. That guarantees nothing, but it makes us feel that we need to give it a better chance than we might have thought of doing only a few months ago.
We won't have any 20-year reunion. If we have a time, it's now. That's why I feel a certain sense of urgency about this project.
We need to go into the studio sooner rather than later. We would love to do so with a producer, but that might not be possible. We will do the best we can anyway, and I know we'll get good results. Recording studios and I are no strangers. The technology has changed drastically, but playing is playing, at least if that's the way you want to approach it, and we do. We're a rock band. If someone had an analogue two-inch reel-to-reel machine, I'd embrace it. Perfection is not rock. Perfection is boring.
We need a multi-pronged promotional attack, basically. There's no avoiding it. You can ignore marketing and hope for the best, or you can embrace it and make it work for you. We need not just audio, but video, and more internet presence, and probably stuff I don't even know about yet because I come from a far away land a long time ago. If you Google Lisa's Hotcakes, you'll find videos and blog entries near the top of the list. We want to take that sucker over.
I have to stay balanced, of course. We're still not putting our lives on the line to "make it." But fortunately, there are many routes available to us in this new modern music world. I want to find the best way or ways for us. And if enough people decide we're as good as we think we are, all the better.
It has to start somewhere / It has to start sometime
What better place than here / What better time than now
All hell can't stop us now
All hell can't stop us now
("Guerilla Radio," Rage Against the Machine)
Turn that shit up!
2 comments:
I recommend contacting Danny Michel. If you don't know about him, you should! He works as a producer with lots of cool people and he's always ready to talk to a great new band. He's based out east, so I don't know how that would work, but I strongly suggest that it's worth dropping him a line. :))
I saw Craig Northey and Colin James do an acoustic show... 2 years ago? Freaking awesome!
:) my mentor for quite some time was stephen drake, the last guitar player.
and as for us old birds making music, we are awesome :)
you rock my dear. you are aweseome xoxo
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