Tag Archives: Jackie Bristow

Blogging Til I Win A Grammy: Day 1,064: 15,000 Views for “Over Me”

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Post #61 of ANNIE B.’s D.I.Y. MAGAZINE: 15,000 views for Over Me!!!

OMG, the plays on YouTube is freaking me out a little bit! Bugsy entered the 2nd Annie B. video he produced, “Over Me,” into a video contest and it went from under 3,000 views to over 15,000 in a week or less! Now our job is to get views for these videos in Europe. I found a list of European music video blogs and wish I had the time to start contacting those folks! I just posted for more interns for Annie B. Productions earlier this month.

Also had a nice long talk with Diana Lopez a few weeks ago and she gave me some great suggestions on our Europe campaign.

The Vox Concert Series last Friday was a great experience… The incredibly talented songbird Jackie Bristow flew up from Austin and we had a lot of fun hanging out all weekend, playing 3 shows together… The show at Best Place on Saturday night was a blast, and the show in Chicago on Sunday for the Chicago Acoustic Underground was also a lot of fun and I was happy with the HUGE turnout on a Sunday night!!! Lots of e-mails to add to my MailChimp list… I have been over 1,000 people on my fanlist for a few weeks now and that’s a good sign. I have heard more than once that the “magic number” you need in order to start seeing a good turnout at your shows is about 1,000. I can say that this seems to be correct.

The BIG job now is contacting all those European & US festivals that are in the database Carmen is working on… she seems to be making some pretty good headway quickly… Thanks, Carmen!!!

There were some videos taken for my shows this weekend and it’s ABOUT TIME I got some solo/acoustic videos up on the site! Enjoy!!!

Blogging Til I Win A Grammy: Day 1,013

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Post #58 of ANNIE B.’s D.I.Y. MAGAZINE: Got my Grammy Invite!

Yes, I got my invitation to the 54th Annual Grammy Awards (Feb. 12, 2012 in L.A.) in the mail today! The new ABVC CD Fancies of a Random Heart missed the deadline to make it into the preliminary ballot, but hopefully that means we can be on the preliminary ballot for the 55th Annual Grammy Awards!

Got some great news today about the January shows with Jackie Bristow: We should have some radio interviews surrounding these shows! Brian Sauer sent a message to Jackie last week about an interview for our Marshfield show, and Michael, the gent handling the tentative Chicago-Area house concert for Sunday Jan. 22nd, suggested we could have a radio interview. Pretty exciting!

The focus on original music opportunities continues to grow. Today, Jodie and I found a number of new SE WI venues to contact, and she talked to Matt over at Turner Hall, who “keeps Annie B in mind for upcoming dates.” I am hoping to open for a big national act or two in the next 6 months. I am feeling it, and so is Jodie. Let’s PUT THAT OUT THERE!!

We are now working with a new guitarist, Don, who is getting himself up to speed at quite the decent pace! Totally excited about that, and his attitude and energy is so very positive in a big way! We really put a lot of time into the new song Julie last night, and Don is bringing something pretty amazing to the table. It’s been a huge pleasure working with Daniel Nathan, but he is unable to commit (and he shouldn’t commit) due to the focus he needs to put on his own project, Well Informed Citizens. I only wish the very best for him…. he totally deserves all the success in the world! He’s the guy who first got me involved in the Academy when he invited me to their blues event over the summer.

This week looks pretty quiet overall. Still looking to fill those Thursday nights with work! A couple of my venues have been cancelling their Thursday night music due to the economy… UGH! Things were really steady there for several months and now it’s looking a little scary! No, Mom, don’t make me get a day job!!!!! Thinking about some creative ways to get work on these nights!!! Maybe I need to look at more out-of-town venues?

Keep smiling and creating your OWN rules!!!
:)
Annie

Blogging Til I Win A Grammy: Day 1,008

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Post #57 of ANNIE B.’s D.I.Y. MAGAZINE

Music Under Glass at the Mitchell Park Domes was totally fantastic, and I did the WAMI Fast Pitch event a few weeks ago and already got a decent cover gig for my cover band! I need to e-mail those contacts every week or so myself since I personally met them at this event. I also got into contact with folks from Chill on the Hill, State Fair, and Port Washington Fish Day – those are some great opportunities that I need to go after!

I guess I am feeling kind of lazy these days. It’s been such a busy and stressful year, and I still feel overwhelmed with everything even though we had such a great year. Now that the CD is out and we should be “done”, there is always a next step! Now we need to start contacting regional & festival booking agents, college booking agents, and I STILL want to get to Europe for a month in 2012.

I need to pick up the slack with the booking since Jodie is unable to commit to her 12 hours/week. Carmen is picking up some of her hours, but she can only do about 3 hours/week. I need to evaluate what is going on with the booking database and pinpoint more venues that will allow the original music to be the main focus. One third of my gigs need to be cover only and 2/3 should be “original-music-friendly” venues, even if I still play a lot of covers at those venues, I need to establish my original music around here as a force to be reckoned with. GB Leighton played at Shank Hall last night and I had no idea. Something is WRONG with this picture!

I am also focusing heavy on building up the ABVC mailing list. There is also a texting group thingy that I should investigate. Not sure if there is a monthly charge or if it’s worth it, but I need to check it out.

Mike and I are both sick today and I am just hoping to get more work done before the end of the night. Been working all day long but not sure on what? What did I accomplish today?

Milwaukee Artbeat stuff:
-updated website & FB page
-sent out a MailChimp*

Annie B & ABVC stuff:
-got a list of 5 or 6 venues in Appleton Area to contact
-website issues addressed (with Heather Acton)
-Jan 21st at Best Place is confirmed as of yesterday… Jackie Bristow sent me her info so I can start promotions
-FB activity, down to 94 friend requests* that I need to answer (UGH!)
-streamlining FB leads with a “lead capture” form being built by Heather

Why does that not seem like very much stuff for a day’s work? Probably because of all the “grunt work” involved in certain tasks… these have a “*” after them. One of my problems is that I don’t trust anyone do to my gruntwork. THAT is a huge problem. I have 2 options:

(1) I need to stop caring so much. That’s when I can trust others to do my gruntwork, because it WILL get done with errors if I let someone else do it. So I have to ask myself, what’s an acceptable rate of error?

(2) I have to automate as much of it as possible. Which costs money (like the lead capture form that I am having built). I need to start looking at list growth once the thing is built and decide if that was a good investment.

It’s no wonder artists supported by labels have such a huge edge over those who are not. All of the many time-consuming tasks being completed by the many components of the machine behind them are allowing them to focus on their music. For us indie artists, finding a balance of the creative side with the business side is difficult at best.

On that note, I’m going to get a snack & pet the kitty!