Longing for the day ...

Huge's January Review

Well, 2011 is not off to the start I had expected! Floods, cyclones, dead websites, lost mobile phones ... still no PhD ... can we start again, please? :-)

Special thoughts go out to Tah Phrum Duh Bush, who came home in a NYC snowstorm to find his apartment waist-deep in his neighbour's water. Tah's a true champion of the underdog and he's had a bit of a rough trot recently so check out his brand of theatrical Hip Hop at http://www.tahonline.com and show the man some love.

At least I now have a fully functional website once more, which I'm redeveloping here. Watch out for a significant ramping up of activity on that site ...

Fan of the Month

I was Feature Act at the first SNQ Presents night at Bohemia Bar, Caxton St Petrie Tce in Jan. Stu did some great work behind the bar and sang along so enthusiastically that I just had to slip his name into the last song of the set.

As you can see from the photo, he had to stoop to get into the frame with me ... he's a big boy.

Hopefully Stu will be at Bohemia when I play there again on March 31 ... see the gig list at the bottom of the page.

Tips for indies

Hardcore Internet marketers devote a lot of attention to the idea that "content is king" and that the key to online business success is to create compelling content and serve it up to your fan base as effectively as possible. "Compelling" is generally not defined, or is left as the je ne sais quoi of making a hit.

Recent research and discussion has provided a much better guide and in this blog post, I draw the threads together to show that the whole point of providing "content" is to engage with people. If the content is something people feel like putting the effort into engaging with, those people will quite probably become your fans. If they do, they'll do the work of telling like-minded people how much they loved your "content" and a viral hit is on the cards.

So, stop trying to produce "content" and focus on engaging with people ...

Into the future

My website has been moved to a new host and upgraded, so I will make much better use of it this year. I also have some videos of recent shows to upload. As soon as possible, I'm starting to program the "Step-by-Step Music Career" workshops around south-east Qld each month. Let me know if you'd like one near you ...

I've started pre-production on a second album, and have started putting the band back together, which will keep me busy for the next few months. Coupla questions I'd like your advice on: first, should the next album be a studio album or live? I've been told that my recordings don't do justice to my live shows, which will get even better this year when I add the band ...

Please let me know which you'd rather hear: a live album or a studio album?