The End Of The Beginning

The polls have closed, the results are in.

It's the first week of May 2020 and I have FINALLY put my first Bikini Test Failure single in a decade, UNCOMPLIMENTARY, to bed, promotionally-speaking.

It's taken almost three months of dedicated, daily grind, finding and emailing as close to "all" the radio stations and music reviewers I could find, telling them not only about the existence of my new single, but in most cases about my OWN existence: the artist-who-goes-by-the-name-of Bikini Test Failure. 

It's no surprise that many of the recipients of my wonderful missives weren't born when I started making music; a lot weren't born when I released my first BTF album! Whilst a ten-year gap between releases was for me about two changes of car and five new t-shirts, to some of my new "fans", it's half a lifetime.

Like all amateur scientists, firstly I state my hypothesis ("release and promote a new single in this uncertain, digital world where money no longer changes hands and The Undertones are no longer the most important thing in anybody's world"), secondly I do my experiment ("single out, video out, radio and reviewers informed"). Thirdly, I record the results ("radio plays, written reviews, video plays, Spotify streams, lesser scores like, Followers, Twitter numbers"). Then finally I can write up my report and see if there is any conclusion to be made ("Just how much of an impact can a complete unknown, from a cold start, make on an uninterested and over-saturated world?") and if that might lead to a theory.

As with those same amateur scientists, so must I accept the results of my experiment, good AND bad and remember that ANY result is better than the NO result that would come from not trying.

So here, as good a place as any, I must reveal my "rewards" for three months of breaking rocks:

Radio plays: (drum roll...) of 1500 stations contacted, 42 played it. Of which 12 were US/Canada and 30 UK. Many plays, delightfully, were by stations or DJs who'd played my previous releases and like me, were still beavering away in this strange business without intervention from anything as silly as "common sense". 

And a couple of weeks in, many stations DID shut down/go to automation/stop answering emails, but that's no excuse eh?

And of course, that's just the 42 I know about; I'm keen not to do too much following-up, adding unsolicited email on top of unread initial email, but I suspect there have been a few more I'll not know about for a while. 

With virtually no other direct promotion, Spotify has had... 59 plays. Just the 59. Or perhaps, "Wow! 59 people have heard my new single! Fab!" It's hard to decide which.

The YouTube Video (another special creation by DJ Alf at KTCL Denver and his videographer pal Bryan Bugfrog) wins hands down, with 297 glorious views.

(The figures in the picture at the top of this are the latest viewing stats for the BBC "Homeground" telly programme my dad appeared in, back in 1981. It's clear that old railways and industrial archaeology have far more fans than cutting-edge indie-pop!)

So that's that. Perhaps no new theory, but some kind of conclusion to be drawn: that I'm not so much blazing a trail for my forthcoming releases as hacking a path through a rainforest with a blunt machete. It needs doing and it will slowly, surely build.

There's something masochistically comforting about starting from a zero base level. But in common with all the best school reports, James "must do better" and hopefully, next time, WILL do better.

A Numbers Game

It's been two months since the "release" of my first new Bikini Test Failure single in a decade. Possibly the worst two months in modern history in which to release a single.

However, because my "day-job" work (live events, here, there and everywhere, technical, corporate) collapsed a good month before the point when the bars and restaurants had to close, I'd recovered from the shock and embraced the odd reality of no income and nothing in the diary, for perhaps the next twelve months, before the Cheltenham Gold Cup had gone ahead and broadcast news had even started to lead with the story.

Now, April 2020, I'm in a daily routine, based on near-100% things I want to do, rather than have to do. And what better time to have infinite time on your hands than the moment you release a single and discover there are perhaps 2000 eligible indie radio stations around the world, any of which may want to play your song. If only you can look them up, find the right person and contact them.

Consequently, I've spent every day of these two months doing exactly that. A good day might find 100 new contacts, a bad one only ten, but one way or another, beginning with searching for my old radio heroes from Fleecing The Easily Pleased days in 2010-11, then Wikipedia's extensive lists and finally adding in the mighty resource that is The Indie Bible, I was able to locate, update and contact around 1500 stations and shows out of the 2000 considered, that might at least listen to my song.

That is, of course, if they're still open. 

Daily, as I sent out my beautifully researched, personalised messages, replies began to flood in, but like the rapidly increasing bad news numbers we see each night on TV, they soon changed from, "Hi, thanks for the music, we'll have a listen and let you know!" to "We are operating an automated schedule", then "This station is closed for the duration". 

Undeterred, (actually I was VERY deterred for a few days) I decided that this research needed doing sooner or later; this first single, UNCOMPLIMENTARY is merely the first of a dozen in the current batch and, if I can avoid another ten-year-hiatus, the first of the next forty years of new tunes released. So rather than build up a list of contacts over several releases, I may as well contact every eligible person with this first single, blaze a trail for the future and generally start as I mean to go on.

And STILL it took two months! Imagine though, back in 2010, I had to find the right person, ask them if they'd like an album, package it up, mail it, wait a week, check they'd received it, follow-up two weeks later... no wonder I did little else for two years after the last album was released. 

And so, the other day, after a hard day "at it", I realised that was it! I'd reached the end of my radio list and my bloggers and reviewers lists. I opened a beer, toasted the Muses and clicked "Check New Mail". The stars were clearly aligned that evening because THIS review came flying in. Someone, (DJ Vlad from Canada's CJAM radio) had written a fabulous review for the Rock At Night website, based in Tampa, Florida. At least with this particular gentleman, I have managed to create the EXACT impression I intended.

I sent the review to my pal Jeremy, fellow music producer, former studio colleague and Music Director of my previous masterplan band, Blunder. He knows me well. He said, "He seems to have nailed YOU down to a tee!"

Even my mum agreed.

Please Release Me...

Well, I hate to say a pattern is developing here, but a decade between releases seems to be a habit for me. Two years after devising The New Big Plan and over a year of recording experimentation, practice, tutorials and generally getting-to-know the new all-digital studio, later, almost falling at the last fence when I realised, nine years on from last time, I'd need to get my ears back up-to-speed and re-learn how to mix a song, it's finished.

And here it is. I have to say I'm very proud of it:
bikinitestfailure.hearnow.com

Last blog, I mentioned news of a small dream-come-true; a decade of digital development might have had no impact at all on the eternal necessity for "good ears", but delightfully, it now means you can send your track to Abbey Road studios to be mastered, for (currently) just £90GBP. Sign-up, upload, email any instructions and what seems like minutes later I received notification it was done and ready for me to download.

If you're not in such a rush, you can even choose your mastering engineer; they are profiled on the site. Between the folks listed, they must have mastered my entire record collection. What a brilliant thing to be able to do. (For £250 they will MIX the thing for you too! Maybe next time...)

So. It's done. It's got a sleeve design. (I spent NO time at all considering that. I've learnt from past efforts that the photos I choose are automatically "Bikini Test Failure" in nature and when my simple logo, fonts and colours are added, it becomes simply the latest in the series, no matter what the subject matter). This week it's on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon and the rest. But the question remains... what now?!

Obviously, one answer is: do another, quick!

And so I will. (And surely, it'll come to fruition in MUCH less time, this time!)

But before I do, I'll be conducting a bit of very old fashioned PR. 

Aside from a no-frills Twitter announcement, it would be ridiculous for someone as anti-social (and OLD!) as me to engage in the "here's-my-haircut-and-my-dinner!" hourly postings of the Instagranny/Fleecebook world so I was quite pleased to hear a CDBaby DIY Musician Conference 2019 seminar in which Rick Barker revealed the ultimate aim of such dribblings should be to move your "followers" from those sites, to your own, private mailing list. It was as if a light went on! As so many people have noticed before I did, nothing has actually changed, just the methods of delivery. 

Back in the day, late-'90s, my first "Masterplan" band, Blunder, had a physical address mailing list, started with Freepost return postcards, handed out by friends at gigs. It quickly grew to a couple of hundred interested and engaged early fans who, in return for filling out the card and mailing it in, received a cassingle (no less!) and quarterly, two-page newsletters. (A bit like this blog only with more NEWS in them...)

Imagine what a great start 200 engaged fans would be right now.

Next stop, Radio Stations. Do people still have radios?

Uncomplimentary

Ah. Here we are then. A preview of the new single. 

Look! I've made a picture sleeve. That looks like New York or something. 

Happy Christmas, dear reader. Have a listen here, it will make you smile.

Restored, Repackaged, Re-released

A few years ago, KTCL Radio, Denver's "Adventure University" show DJ, Alf Kremer, made the extraordinary decision to make a video for my Bikini Test Failure song, "Missing A Gene".

The result is one of the finest and most moving independent music videos in this entire Business of Show. I kid you not.

If you missed it first time around, don't despair, it's been restored and I'm relaunching it here on Bikini Test Failure's own YouTube Channel.

Somehow, he persuaded a dozen Colorado bands and singers to learn and perform my song, then cut together a masterpiece. I still can't believe it actually happened but I'm eternally glad and grateful that it did.

Tonight, a few days before Christmas 2019, I'm busy mixing my FIRST new BTF song in NINE years. I'll post a link to a preview version this week, then I'll hopefully have a real, personal-dream-come-true, musical story to tell when I release the real thing in January.

Meanwhile, thanks again Alf!

Release A Single?! How Does THAT Work These Days…?

It’s nearly time. I’ve learned to sing again. I’ve learned to use Waves’ Vocal Tune in a subtle enough way that nobody notices. I’ve learned to use Logic Pro X’s mixing desk, I’ve bought half of Abbey Road’s old gear and made it all work. I’ve found a few holes in my arrangement and added a couple of nice bits of discordant weirdness. I’ve got my ears in - it’s time to mix!

By this point, I’ve been running a monitor mix for so long that the song will virtually mix itself. So, just before it does, it’s time to start looking ahead. Or back…

In 2002, ahead of my first BTF album, I made a four-song EP, then a two-song single, both released on CD, physically distributed to a thousand radio stations in the US & UK over several weeks. Along the way, I recorded a further six or seven songs and at the beginning of 2003 was ready to produce and manufacture my debut BTF album on CD.

I approached all my radio station fans again, promoted new songs from the album and kept the whole thing rolling along for the next six months. Physical distribution deals followed (ripped-off, on two continents!), radio interviews and live solo sessions.

A month after all my promo and radioplay had died away, the music world changed and for the first time, an independent label like mine was finally able to make its music directly available on iTunes, Sony, Amazon and all those good places. Too late to help sell the album, but after the two-year process I’d been through to this point, it bode well for the future.

I’d generated enough interest and goodwill to carry me through to the second album, eventually released in similar fashion, CD, radio, sessions, in 2010. This time, I’d learned lessons and streamlined the process; targeted mailouts to radio stations, no more carpet-bombing, no wasting hundreds of copies on distribution to stores which were disappearing in droves - anyone, anywhere could now buy a copy online, easily, from a few dozen places, including directly from me. But honestly, why would you? The music world had shifted again: THIS time, the album was available from Day One, for free, on… SPOTIFY!

Forward-wind to now; new studio, new attitude, same old Bikini Test Failure and the first couple of new songs, nearly ready to go. I’m still excited - as excited as I ever was. (I’m just not sure why any more).

BUT how DO you release a song nowadays? Wait until you have produced a dozen, then manufacture a CD? (Well, I suppose you can…). Or do you just pay the $9.95 and upload your single, solitary song to your digital distributor (CDBaby in my case) and minutes later watch it pop up on your Spotify page? I presume radio promo now consists of emailing a download link. Then a follow-up email, “Hear it? Like it? Gonna play it?”

Then what? Send out a couple of tweets with a new bit of banner artwork, make a half-arsed video that no-one will watch?

Well, that’s seems to be the done thing… …wish me luck!

Those Who Can, Do…

Those who can’t, watch (endless!) tutorials.

Apple’s Logic has within its virtual walls everything my old, “physical” studio ever had. When I consider the recent Old Days of multiple sync’d-up harddisk recorders, taking twenty-minutes to boot-up everything, longer if one wasn’t talking to the others that day, I’m instantly ashamed I didn’t make this leap into the 21st Century earlier.

Exactly NINE years ago, I was mastering my second (and still latest) album, designing the sleeve and beginning my US radio campaign. Nine years on, a beautifully empty summer ahead and only music (and a bit of tree-pruning) to fill it and now, mid-September, I feel I’ve turned a corner.

But if you’d have asked in July what I’d got planned, “sinking up to my neck in software” wouldn’t have been in my top ten answers.

The shift from recording to mixing has given me the feeling that, like “The Matrix” film, the Logic-world I’d lived in until now was merely a pleasant-looking sham, designed to keep me passively content, whereas the grimy, real business was going on deep beneath the surface.

I found myself lost and adrift, aware of the power of my new setup but overwhelmed by options and unable to get an exciting-sounding rough mix going, quickly, the way I once would. 

So, against the best advice of Jason Timothy in his splendid book “The Mental Game Of Electronic Music Production”, I typed “Logic Pro X” and any combination of “mix/edit/EQ/compression/bass/drums/vocals/plugins” into Google and promptly disappeared, for days, into a swamp of tutorials, YouTube channels and adverts.

As I read and watched countless well-meaning “youngsters” tell me how THEY do it, I became aware of the tail-wagging-the-dog, Emperor’s-New-Clothes-nature of some of these new technologies and saw the disproportionate effort put into attempting to add interest, clarity or excitement to a dull melody or uninspired performance which didn’t deserve it. Back in the day, no doubt suffering from Gear Lust, we’d say the answer was a new piece of pro kit, (which we’d never be able to afford). Today, it’s “a cheap new plugin”!

Ohh the plugins. What a wonderful bundle of joy they are. Scratching itches you never knew you had. There’s a sale, you say? I’ll take the lot!

Eventually when my own “logic” prevailed, I did what I always do: I simplified, I limited my choices and put a small, finite, definite frame around my otherwise infinite options.

Specifically, I recreated my old studio, “in-the-box”. I want THAT compressor and THIS delay and so on. If you want your drums to go through an Abbey Road desk channel strip, great! But don’t go putting an SSL on the vocals and a Neve on the bass, JUST because you can…

I created a template, with compressors, EQs, sends, reverbs and delays all in place, drums bussed, instruments sorted. This “mix” template will of course become my new “recording” template too. In my old studio I’d make mixing decisions from the start of recording and now, as then, I’ll stop worrying, see sense and start using my ears.