Assessing Tactful Procrastination
It would be an understatement to say “it’s been a crazy year”.
It would also be wrong to say “this is exactly the year I expected!”
True, I finally got my long-in-development album The Art of Tactful Procrastination out last November (in fact, the first single was released a year ago this month)! That alone was one hell of an accomplishment, all things considered. And I’m really proud of how all of that turned out. It’s a really good album – nearly anyone who has heard it and reported back to me has virtually nothing bad to say about it (and it’s even inspired a couple people to get back into music) and it’s probably the first thing I’ve ever done where I don’t hear it after the fact and think “oh… I could have done this better…” so that’s a big deal (for me) as well.
On the other hand… not much else really went to plan. Part of what took the album so long to complete and release was the research and work I did on building my ad campaigns. Those, unfortunately, didn’t really hit the mark. Double-unfortunate: I didn’t have the free time to develop content that would help me pivot. I knew my audience and I knew what I was trying to do, but at the end of the day from an advertising perspective… what I was doing was too confusing to be accessible.
I still love the Façade rock star idea. I still intend to use it live (see below for more on that), at least for a little bit. But what I should have done was something that really spoke to the message in the music, not necessarily the entertainment piece. Some people did get it, and that’s awesome. But I think I missed the mark by not developing content that I could pivot to when it all largely tanked. And by the time I was seeing that writing on the wall, I just didn’t have the ability to turn around and MAKE that content.
In the end, this is still all okay. No, I didn’t sell anywhere near what I thought I would. No, I didn’t come close to making back what I spent. No, I haven’t really developed my audience base much.
But, hey, you’re here. And I would bet part of that is due to what I attempted above.
That’s a win!
And there are plenty of other wins, too.
Not least of which is having learned from my mistakes. I have a much better sense of what I could do in the future when it comes to advertising, and I’m already working on things to put me in a better position next time around. I understand the strategy and tactics. I just need the additional content to pivot to already-made if/when it’s time to pivot to it.
I’ve met so many new people on this journey that are already connecting me into new places. So, again, next time around I’ll already have a leg up.
I’ve largely met and even exceeded my goal of getting better at mixing, as all of my b-sides (including remixes and acoustic takes etc) were mixed by yours truly. Some not as great as others, but it was a great challenge. (Though I am SO ready to let someone else take over all of that… I’ll get to that too in a bit). There’s a similar caveat here to the marketing campaigns in that I wanted to have all of this stuff recorded and mixed and ready to go LONG before it was due to be released. But I found myself scrambling to put together new songs and remixes and acoustic versions as well as mix them… For those first four singles it went quite well! In fact, I got a song like “Boys And Girls” out of it – and I’m really proud of that. It came together SO fast that I don’t even really remember it.
I’m also genuinely proud of some of those remixes. The “Stop The Clocks” remix of “Still No Closer To Tomorrow” is, in my mind, a gem, and I’m still blown away by how I managed to pull off the “Dreams Don’t Stop” rap in that remix of “Wait of The World”. And had I produced it during the album itself, I would have rather had the “Remove Your Shadow” remix of “If Anybody Asks You” on the album, instead of the actual song.
I liked some of this stuff so much that elements of the latter two remixes mentioned here will end up in the live show.
Which brings me to the live show…
Going Live
I am finally communicating with people and developing mixes and sequences that are going to eventually end up in a live scenario. I’m still a bit of a ways off because the logistics for this are pretty insane, and I’m still trying to figure out the best way to present this… but it’s coming. And I’m really, really excited about it! As I naturally tend to do, I’ve been thinking SUPER big, and I need to bring that down a couple notches (and essentially not make the same mistakes I made with the ads campaigns, at least in the sense that if something doesn’t work I already have alternative content to pull from).
Regardless that’s all moving forward, albeit rather slowly.
The Struggle For Good Ideas
Lastly, among the other projects I have cooking (including demoing for a new album slated for 2024 and a final updated polish of my first album Neon Apocalypse), I am working on a compilation album of sorts tentatively called No Shortage of Good Ideas. At the moment that album is due to consist of b-sides from Tactful Procrastination, as well as the release of some additional works that have been recorded over the years but never saw the light of day.
I’m really, really excited about this because there’s some real gems in here that I’ve always wanted professionally mixed and mastered, and it sounds like that’s finally going to happen!
I’m aiming for this release in 2023.
So that’s what I have currently going on!
Stay tuned – more to come!