Scott Andrew

I've leaked another track from Save You From Yourself out onto the interwebs.

That is all.

Posted January 14, 2008

The last of the international pre-orders went out today. I goofed up the addressing and had to rewrite all the customs slips by hand. Not a big deal, except that writing out things like "Hellevoetsluis" is difficult when you spend all day at a keyboard like I do. Man, my handwriting has really gone downhill in the last few years.

I also sent copies to Pandora and the All Music Guide. I've been frustrated with AMG in the past, as I've tried several times to have my listing info updated there to no avail. I even had correspondence with a real live person once! Maybe this time I'll get lucky.

I've also submitted to several online stores in the hope they'll include me in their catalogs. No word yet as I just sent out the packages last week. Most of these places have a "don't call us, we'll call you" policies so I won't know for sure until I hear back. Fingers crossed!

Posted January 14, 2008

So there's now an official release date for Save You From Yourself: February 19th.

You might be wondering why on earth the release date is over a month away when I have the boxes of CDs sitting in my dining room right now (proof!). There's a few reasons I came up with this.

First: now that the pre-orders are shipped, I'd like those people to bask in the privilege of exclusivity for a little while.

Second: if you're a member of the Demo Club, fear not. You'll be able to get the album well before 2/19.

Third: the 2/19 date is artificial. The whole thing is a concession to traditional media -- newspapers, magazines, radio -- which still expects an official release date, with press releases and review copies sent weeks in advance.

Why am I bothering with "traditional" media, when I've been putting out music online since 2002? Mostly it's because I've never really, really tried before. Part of it is: with so many bands spamming everyone in the nation with MySpace bulletins, I might actually rise above some of the noise by reverting to old-school methods.

But also: a lot of people who like the kind of music I write aren't online as much as you and I are. I want them to hear about it. It doesn't hurt to swing for the fences now and then. (I'll be reporting the results here in the near future.)

So if you want to get a copy of Save You From Yourself sooner than later (and quite possibly at a discount), sign up. If you want to hear some songs in advance, keep your eye on your favorite social networking sites over the next few weeks.

Posted January 11, 2008

So, over the next few weeks I'll be "leaking" some key tracks from Save You From Yourself out on the web.

I've decided that my #1 goal for 2008 is reach. Money is nice, and yes, I hope I get some money. Thank you for money! But money is hard to come by these days without spins, plays, adds, shares, recommendations, thumbs-ups, etc.

That's why I hope that when you find one of my songs out there, you'll share it with friends, add it to your profile, post a review, playlist it, scrobble it, iLike it, podcast it, twitter it, vote it up, down, sideways -- whatever you do when you want to share music online.

In the meantime, I'll be working the other end of the spectrum, the "real" world, trying to get some reviews from newspapers and magazines. Most of my efforts are going to be excruciatingly local. I have separate blog post about this plan waiting in the wings.

The first "leaked" song is out there right now. Go find it :)

Posted January 7, 2008

Attention valued customers! The US pre-order packages are now in the mail, winging their way to you. International orders will ship later today.

Man, what a crazy week. I've had a few extra days off and I spent a good deal of it stressing over padded envelope sizes, wrestling with Paypal reports, shipping early copies off to media and other stuff. I revamped my about page. I learned that OpenOffice Calc clips the leading zero off of Massachusetts ZIP codes. I wrote a press one-sheet, a distributor one-sheet, a radio one-sheet and a booking one-sheet.

Wait, what business am I in again?

Assembly was a pain at first but I eventually found a rhythm:

We were giddy when we finally sent the last batch down the postal chute:

The pre-orders should be in your hands in just a few days. Thanks everyone!

Posted January 7, 2008

Yesterday I ripped the shrinkwrap off of 132 CDs and signed them in preparation for shipping the pre-order packages. I got a little buzzed on Sharpie fumes but my wrists are fine.

The digipaks are made of matte-finished cardstock. They've got a really nice feel, nicer than the standard plastic CD jewel case. I'm glad I went with the matte instead of glossy finish, which tends to get scratched up and fingerprinty.

Tonight I'm unwrapping another 132 so I'll have a stock of them for mailing to press, radio, etc. It's a long-standing cardinal rule that you should remove the shrinkwrap in advance, lest some frustrated sleep-deprived music writer pitch your hermetically sealed art into the wastebasket.

Posted January 3, 2008

Or the beginning?

Hello from 2008! Well, not really. I'm writing this post in 2026, a bit over 18 years in the "future" but backdating it to serve as the most recent starting point of this blog. If you suddenly saw this post appear in your RSS reader, sorry! (But also: good for you, continuing to keep the RSS dream alive.)

Personally, 2008 was a really big year for me. I joined IMDb, I released my first full-length record Save You From Yourself, I joined Explone as bassist, I proposed marriage to my then-girlfriend (she said yes!) and all of this happened against the backdrop of the newly installed Obama presidency which gave the sense that good things were possible and happening.

Weird, I was just now tempted to put "spoiler alert" in front of this next bit, but it's not like anyone is actually reading this in 2008, lol.

I purchased this domain in 1998. It's undergone many changes: first as a home for my "web design" services (i.e. I could make you a website using tables and spacer GIFs), then as a hub for Dynamic HTML news and tutorials which basically allowed me to have a career of any sort, then again as the launchpad of my online music career, back when intentionally putting your music online was a radical idea. Post-2008 it becomes kind of a mess of music, tech, comics, and other things without much of a theme. Posting kind of slows down in the mid-2010s as social media begins to slurp the oxygen out of the blogging craze. As I write this in 2026, blogging is making a small, somewhat joyless comeback driven primarly by tech nerds with opinions on A.I.

Strewn across various hard drives is another decade of pre-2008 blogging content, going all the way back to pre-Movable Type days. I sometimes think about putting it all back online, but I was a completely different person back then and I don't relish the idea of rediscovering my terrible, uneducated takes and shoot-from-the-hip opinions, much less putting them back online for all to [re]discover as well.

So if you reached this post by paging back through over 18 years of content: congratulations! You're reached the end, or at least the end of what I'm willing to keep online for now.

Thanks for reading. :-)

Posted January 2, 2008