80. unsocial networking :(

we got a message today from a girl asking about our success via the internet/myspace and if i had any advice for her friend (singer/songwriter). I thought about all of the steps that we took to get to where we are today, and i realized that our outline for success would not work in today's cyber world.

it seems to be a lot harder these days for new bands to spread their music online to mass amounts of people (as opposed to a couple of years back). if you had time and a work ethic 2 years ago, you could get your music to thousands of people every single day without even relying on their word of mouth to kick in.

when facebook first launched, each of us would send out HUNDREDS of messages every single day from our own accounts linking people to our band's purevolume.com page. now there's a cap on how many messages you can send via facebook before they flag you and threaten to delete your account. it's also a lot harder to search people. all we had to do was pick a college and type in a similar music interest as us, and we could go to town on these people. it was an amazing outlet. i think purevolume was a lot more popular back then too. i had a facebook account deleted some time last year for sending out like 15 messages or so.

we also used to add hundreds of myspace friends per day very easily, but that has also gotten a lot more difficult. you have to type in codes every few requests and with all of the spam and porn profiles circulating, everybody has their security options on full protection.

although we put in a lot of effort over the past few years, we also got very lucky that we emerged when we did. the social networking scene has tightened its leash quite a bit. it used to be a free for all, now there's blockade after blockade. you really have to get creative and find new and more powerful ways to promote yourself...

when we had less friends on myspace and less to do, we could also respond to people's messages and comments in no time. it's a lot harder for us recently to get back to every comment and it takes months sometimes for us to clear out our inbox. eventually a band does have to write and practice and fans have to understand that... ESPECIALLY the ones that haven't even bought your music. so if your comment goes unanswered like many do or your message hasn't been responded to in over a month, we're sorry but we still love you immensely! come to a show and you can talk our ear off! we dont even bite most of the time.

sean

79. sorry philly :(

my deepest apologies go out to our many philadelphia residing fans. for reasons beyond our control, the show that we had scheduled for the troc in march has been canceled. this has happened in the past and we've yet to come play for you, and we are sorry. we hope to make an appearance before the end of the year.

we're still waiting on more march tour dates so please keep checking back for them on our myspace so you're not one of the ones asking "why dont you come play in ______" the day after we play there. (i hate that)

"these are the nights" is going through mix madness and still has no radio release date... you will be the first to know when our campaign starts!

if you're an incredible drummer who wants to be in a band, we're a band... make a video and let us check you out!

ps. the warroom (as many have been inquiring) is the room we write, record, get work done, talk to you guys in. it's been under construction and we just got new carpet.

sean

78. touring = lack of snoring

the first batch of our upcoming tour dates...

Feb 23 2008 5:30P
@ICC Church w/Secondhand Serenade Allston, MA
Feb 24 2008 6:00P
@The Loft w/Secondhand Serenade Poughkeepsie, NY
Feb 25 2008 8:00P
@Jammin’ Java w/Secondhand Serenade Vienna, VA
Feb 26 2008 7:00P
@Knitting Factory w/Secondhand Serenade New York, NY
Feb 28 2008 6:00P
@Mr. Smalls Theatre w/Secondhand Serenade Millvale, PA
Mar 1 2008 6:00P
@Subterranean w/Secondhand Serenade Chicago, IL
Mar 2 2008 6:00P
@The Loft w/Secondhand Serenade Madison, WI
Mar 3 2008 7:00P
@Creepy Crawl w/Secondhand Serenade St. Louis, MO

ALL SHOWS ALL AGES

the first leg of the tour goes from Feb 23 - Mar 16th. so we started ordering a ton of new merch. ~ fresh designs and slick styles... i promise you nothing less ~ ~

adam came over today. we practiced Wide Awake atleast 35 times while he sat and nitpicked at every aspect of our performance in an attempt to achieve perfection. the song sounds amazing; now all we need is a drummer to come on tour with us. i guess we should probably start looking;) if you know any amazing drummers, send them our way.
tomorrow we are getting a plush new carpet installed in the warroom. exciting right?

peace
g

77. jacey em 8 hundy

today was a loooong day. we woke up early and went down to jersey to pick up a new amp head for steve. he bought it from ebay. it's a jcm800. we love that amp... we've heard it doesn't work for our sound... and we disagree. then we had to do hours of design work for merch and tour poster stuff and of course, slap bracelets.

tomorrow is another long day of practice, practice, practice.

it's 6:20 in the morning... i'm dead. bye

sean

76. bag it

thanks for all of the suggested locations for us to tour, but on this tour we have no control of location. we will get a list of tentative dates in the near future and that is where we will be! hopefully it all works out...

today i was at the gym watching "deal or no deal" on the treadmill in closed captioning. one of the shows had 9 million dollar cases. i didn't get to see the ending though... there were a lot of amusing [ AUDIENCE GROANS ] and [ CROWD CHEERS ] subtitles.

somebody is selling an old signed picture of us on ebay... very funny to us...

ebay auction

and steve's girlfriend made us some bags out of our shirts... some are just one shirt and some are two shirt reversible. we're gonna sell em on the road.



das it
sean

75. haha

i had fun battling some of our mid-western fans during the game today, but the giants prevailed, and you all look silly. after the games we jammed out at greg's dad's house. we're practicing up in case we have to be on tour soon. and should we go on tour and we are playing in a venue near you, COME HANG OUT WITH US!!! and if you DO make it to the show, introduce yourselves... we wanna meet you all. and if we didn't play a song you REALLY wanted to hear, we're sorry... but we'll play it acoustically for you after the show if you ask nicely ;) we wanna have fun on the road and who better to have fun with than you guys!

see you in the streets!
sean

74. reeeeeeemix

i'm in the city... had dinner w/ adam and our lawyer at a place that took forever. had red snapper. went out... weak night. we're gonna have "practice" tomorrow cuz we just MIGHT be hitting the road soon... if we can find a drummer in time. i'm chewing on a block of sharp cheddar before bed. "these are the nights" is getting "fixed up" tomorrow. as soon as we're allowed to show you we will.

night night,
sean