The story behing the band and our album Complexification

We finally had a chance to write down the story behind the band, writing and recording our album Complexification and what that word actually means. Be the first one on your block to know the truth! www.ComplexificationMusic.com

Airplane musings

While flying back from New York City to Detroit, bad weather turned the usual 1 hour and 15 minute flight into well over 2 hours. With this extended flying opportunity, I had the chance to listen to both sets recorded live during Jackie Blue's New Jersey show on our Archos Gmini. The Gmini is an amazing music hard disk recording device, measuring about 2 inches by 2 1/2 inches, it not only plays back MP3 and WAV audio files but also records uncompressed CD quality WAV files (16 bit word at a 44.1KHz sample rate). The recording sounded great and I'll be posting some samples on the Jackie Blue website. www.JackieBlue.com

I also came to the following conclusions while circling Detroit in the clouds waiting for our turn to land:
1) There's going to be no end to the "Alice" jokes that were started on stage by Carrie and a certain "White Rabbit" song.
2) How is it the Airbus can build an airplane that's slow, noisy and uncomfortable (the A320 series) while Boeing's 737 are none of these things?
3) By any standards: singing, song writing, stage presence, height; Fee Waybill of the Tubes is one of the most underrated lead singers. And their live shows were just amazing.

Kalamazoo, Michigan WDIR radio

A song from our Complexification Part II CD (they wont tell us which one) will be played on WIDR--FM 89.1 radio on Friday, Jan 20th, between 1pm and 3pm eastern time.

If you're in the Kalamazoo area (Western Michigan University) check it out live or online at their webcast to see which song they selected: www.widr.org

Pre-production of 3rd CD

We've started pre-production on our 3rd CD! Check out www.JackieBlue.com for regular updates, song samples, cover art, rants, raves...

Musician's Hurricane Katrina Fund Raising Tour: Final Update

We're in the news:

What started out as a series of web postings on Jackie Blue's Music Tour Network tribe site musictour.tribe.net has turned into an unprecedented union of grassroots support for the survivors of the devastating hurricanes. The Detroit band produced the tour, recruited the show organizers, established the tour routing and ensured that promotional material was available from the national level to the local level.

The results: 38 artists and 11 shows later, spanning venues across New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Illinois, and California, $9,301 was raised for 4 not-for-profits: American Red Cross, Little Stuff Fund, Habitat for Humanity, and the Humane Society.

The grassroots team is now formally organized under the banner of the Music Tour Network (www.MusicTourNetwork.com). With the wonderful team of show organizers, artists, venues and sponsors who were the ones that made this tour a success, we now have the network in place to support worthwhile causes and simultaneously introduce great musicians to cities where they normally wouldn't be able to play. Special thanks go out to all of the people who came out to support this tour!

Musician's Hurricane Fund Raising Tour: Update

Music Tour Network: Musician's Hurricane Fund Raising Tour
www.MucicTourNetwork.com

Update: 2005 October 12

Contents:
1) Funds raised to date
2) Upcoming shows
3) Photos
4) Sponsors
___

1) Funds raised to date

The October 8th show at the Bullfrog in Redford, Michigan was successful in raising $578 for the American Red Cross.

Thank you to Jim and Janel at the Bullfrog for their hospitality. All of the bands--Zuby, 8 Lives Gone, Midwest Syndicate, Euphoric Haze, Styrofoam Buzzards and Jackie Blue. Rick, webmaster of MichiganBands.com, for being a great Emcee. And Jennifer from Tribe.net for her enthusiastic support and promotion of the event.

Totals funds raised to date: $1,494

Breakdown of donations:
American Red Cross: $808 www.redcross.org
The Little Stuff Fund: $386 www.TheLittleStuffFund.org
Habitat for Humanity: $150 www.habitat.org
Humane Society: $150 www.hsus.org


2) Upcoming shows
We have a busy weekend.

Friday, October 14, 10:00pm@Sizzle On Broadway, 6157 N. Broadway, Chicago, Illinois: Matt Jones and Jackie Blue (unplugged)

Friday, October 14, 8:00pm@Token Lounge, 28949 Joy Road, Westland, Michigan: Chunkhole, Forsaken, Deadhouse, Take This Oath, Death Grip, Stain Glass Torture

Saturday, October 15, 3:00pm@Old Town, 109 S. Main Street, Brooklyn, Michigan: Cuppa Joe, 6 Hands Down, Bert & Bea Furman, Roshambo, Organized Mess, Strength in Numbers, 31 Seconds, Jackie Blue, Farwell, Core, Triple Pane

Sunday, October 16@The Rusty Nail, 3993 West Road, Cortland, New York


3) Photos

Photos from the events have been posted at www.MusicTourNetwork.com


4) Sponsors

Thank you to our sponsors:

Jackie Blue www.JackieBlue.com
Chicago Music Guide www.chicagomusicguide.com
Free Radio Jackson www.live365.com/stations/aaronchilds
Bullfrog www.bullfrogrocks.com
Michigan Bands www.michganbands.com
8 Lives Gone www.8livesgone.com
The James Joseph Group www.jamesjosephgroup.com
BlackStain Productions www.blackstain.com
Colborne Street Creative www.colbornestreetcreative.com
Rock for the Cure www.myspace.com/rock4thecure
Midwest Bands www.midwestbands.com
Silent Products www.silent-products.com

Networking

I'm a regular reader of web based networks ranging from Dave here on Great Lakes/BlackStain to Jenn at MidwestMusic.com to Mitch & Rick at MichiganBands.com, Mary at MichiganArtists.com, Derek at CDBaby and a bunch of others. The common thread that all of us who either play, promote, manage, or own a venue is networking. Many people don’t see the value in this and instead they prefer to not work together--to each their own. We support the above people and communities commitment to helping each other by trading shows, letting other artists know about shows available to them, and helping to get artists paid for their hard work while making money for the venues that support live music. As we all know, this is not an easy thing to do in this industry.

I'd say booking is that hardest thing to do in this industry. Coordination between the agents, artists, and venue can be a real challenge. And by booking, I mean in major and smaller markets throughout the Midwest. To help move this along, we moved what was originally a discussion topic on Tribe.net to form the Music Tour Network www.MusicTourNetwork.com

This growing team of people, which includes folks from the above named websites, is focused on bringing together artists, venues and promotion people who strongly believe in two ideals:
1) The unshakeable belief that music is the world's language.
2) Trust

For now, the Music Tour Network is building a tour route that spans from New York City, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago and smaller cities between. To make this work for everyone who wants to tour and make money we need three things:
1) Local Host artists in each city that we can count on to do what they say they’re going to do: Organize a great show, perform a great show, draw enough people to sell the venue out, show up on time, no bad attitudes
2) Traveling artists who: Perform a great show, show up on time, no bad attitudes, and agree to organize a show on their home turf and invite the Local Host artist from another area to perform
3) Venues: Who are interested in working with us and gaining confidence that the right mix of local and out-of-state artists will make them money.

And there's the key issue for venues: Making money. I've done a lot of financial consulting for music and entertainment venues and they are in a difficult financial situation as well. From their perspective, it's less expensive to pay one DJ to spin a record or do karaoke, then it is to hire a band, rap group, or even duet to perform live--Less equipment, lass hassle, and more money for everyone.

So how can bands and venues be successful? Hardcore advertising and getting the word out: Using Myspace and all of the other websites plus E-mail is step one. But the real work comes by following up with phone calls and arranging to sell tickets in advance. (Note: This is not the same a "pay-to-play" since you’re not going to get “fined” for not selling tickets). If you’re the Local Host artist or from the area where the venue is located, it’s your job as part of the network to fill the venue up with people until it's bursting at the seams. The traveling artists will have little draw at your venue, but when it's their turn to host a show, then the burden is on them to draw like crazy. Note: Please be conservative with your estimates on draw--it's much better to promise 100 and bring in 200 than the other way around.

As an example: With effort, Jackie Blue will draw 150-200 people for a local show. So we assume for planning purposes that our draw will be 100. If a show at a venue will be sold out at 300 people, we need to team up with 2 other local bands that will very conservatively draw 100 people each—as proven by selling 100 tickets in advance of the show. Then the fourth, opening band (Traveling artist) can be brought in without the concern of having to draw.

In this way the artists play to a packed house, make money, and the venue makes money and sees our collective commitment to help the venue prosper. It all requires cooperation and planning between the show organizers, artists and venue (lots of phone calls and E-mail).

As positive examples on how to get people to shows, I know of at least three people who do this very well: Shannon and Greg from Zuby's band and Carrie from Jackie Blue.

If you have your own ideas, suggestions, or positive examples on how to expand our combined artist's network, I welcome them.

Tom

Independent Musician's Hurricane Katrina Fund Raising Tour

The Music Tour Network: www.MusicTourNetwork.com

From small towns to large cities across America, we're asking you to join us in helping raise money for the victims of Hurricane Katrina through the common language of music. At this early stage of the aftermath, net proceeds will be donated to either the American Red Cross or the Little Stuff Fund.

Many of us have either lived in the areas struck by the hurricane or have family and friends who presntly live there. Saving lives and giving people a hand up who are in need is what this tour is all about. The first step is to raise as much money as we can so that the victim's short-term needs will be met: Water, food, medicine, clothing and shelter.