Zach and his Red Wagon

It’s an american icon, the Radio Flyer red wagon; that Zach Seibert chose it for the name of his band says a lot about the timeless appeal of the music they make–sturdy, simple tunes with an easygoing gait that could resonate with a wide range of listeners given the chance to be heard.

Seibert may draw comparisons to Ryan Adams’ early work, but his twang sounds more natural and innate. “Dream of Two,” from the band’s debut CD Learning To Drown, is typical of the direct, yet poetic lyricism he’s capable of. The narrator sounds resigned to his fate of “me being me and you being you”:

“maybe we could work it out
but I’ll stick around and let you kick
this dumb old mule right in the mouth”

The mini-drama unfolds over a musical bed of gentle banjo and hammond organ riffs as he recounts the burial and exhumation of his pride and his conscience, wondering, “Do you dream of two?” while probably knowing the answer already.

Seibert used to play with the band Due East, and this new outfit is an extension of their souful alt-country sound that puts even more emphasis on his songs, and rightfully so.

Seibert and his Red Wagon will play a free show Saturday, March 21st, at the Whig in downtown Columbia, SC. Check out songs from the new album on their Myspace profile here.

How To Market Your Band, Part 1

Read the following on Bob Lefsetz’s always interesting blog, The Lefsetz Letter, and had to reprint it here–mainly because the band in question is actually pretty good and I want you to check them out.

Subject: Re: The Complete Clip

Bob

I want to thank you in the way your advice brings encouragement to bands like ours trying to forge a living in this new world of music. Your thoughts, or maybe they are rants, have really encouraged us to be creative in how we are going about building a fan base without a major label. I wanted to share 2 things we have done that have actually met with some success.

First we adopted the policy at our shows that fans could name their own price for our cds. We tell them that normally they are this price but we know times are hard. So just name your own price for the cds and you can have them for that. We just want you to have to music. And you know what. We are finding that our average price per cd has actually increased since we started doing this. Sure you have people giving you $3 but we have been amazed at the people who will give us $20. We are going to start doing this with all our merchandise at shows as we find it really builds good will.

We also started a new campaign called ‘A Single Revolution’. sarahmacband.com In constantly reading your blog you are always talking about how we are getting back to an era like the 60’s. Well, I remember as a kid being able to buy single 45’s. And also remember that a lot of bands didn’t even put these 45’s on an album. So over the next year we are releasing 1 single every 4 to 6 weeks but we are trying to be creative in the release.

We agree that sales of cds are evaporating these days and that is not going to change. But can you creat a desire for a physical cd by only having a limited number? Well, we decided that we would try this and only press 100 physical cds of the song. Each of these cds would be numbered and signed by the band. We would also have extras on the cd that you could only get with the purchase of the physical cd. Each cd would cost $10, which seems like a lot and also appears to run contrary to our normal cd marketing of name your price, but we promise that there will never be anymore pressed and the 100 physical copies would be it. So we try to add value to the purchase to make it worth the $10. We will then use the proceeds from the sale of the first cd to press the second cd thereby making all the purchasers of the first cd our record lable for the second cd and giving them liner credit on the second cd. Then we will repeat this for each successive cd.

For the people who don’t want to spend $10 for the physical cd we have sent an email to our email list saying they can download the song for free from our website for 2 weeks. After that we will put it for sale on iTunes and other places but we want to get it to places at leass than 99 cents a pop.

We just released our first single and have almost sold out the first run of 100 cds. So we are hopeful that maybe this will have some traction but who knows. Ultimatley this may not be a good idea as only time will tell. But I wanted you to know that your blogs are encouraging bands like us to be creative in how we do things. And we agree that first we have to bring a good product which only comes as a result of a lot of hard work. But once you think you may have something you need to think outside the box if you want to succeed and last in this business.

So thanks for your inspiration and keep writing brother, because it keeps me fired up and always thinking.

Charlie Vanture

Kudos to Charlie for thinking out of the box, trying a couple of different ways to get the music out there and into the hands of both fans and new listeners.

To check out the band’s music and get some for yourself, go to http://www.saramacband.com

Stephen Simmons’ Songs About Girls

Stephen Simmons is another one of those under-the-radar singer songwriters who has been around for a while making interesting music. His latest, Girls, continues his tendency toward sleepy, softly confessional folk-leaning songwriting, like Jay Farrar just after waking up. Check out his Reverb Nation profile to listen to the new songs, or check out the clip below for a taste.

New CD out today from Danny Schmidt

Virginia songwriter Danny Schmidt has been writing soul-baring tunes for several albums now, and his latest, Instead the Forest Rose to Sing, is officially out today. “Better Off Broke” is particularly relevant to our current economic troubles, putting things in perspective in the way only a great songwriter can. Here’s a brand new performance of the song:

Check out the rest of Danny’s music and get the new album at http://www.dannyschmidt.com

No Depression Lives On

The demise of the print version of No Depression last year was followed by the magazine attempting to continue their content online, a strategy that met with limited success. They have recently transitioned to a new community-based site that includes aspects of social networking, blogging, and more from both the general public and over thirty of the original magazine’s contributors, including me.

There are live reviews, album reviews, posted videos and photos, and lots more content, all within the roots music focus of the original ND.

You can find my page on the new ND site at http://www.nodepression.ning.com/profile/kevinoliver