This summer looks like it might shape up to be pretty cool, actually. We thought we were playing it cool, not pestering people too much on the booking tip, figuring we’d focus on writing and recording. But some pretty cool show opportunities have found their way to us, including possibly a couple with It’s True, who we love, and who just released their first album like two days ago. We heartily recommend them.
Of course all this means we have a big issue that needs solving soon: we need a van. We missed out on buying She Swings She Sways‘s van by virtue of it being a bit more than we could afford at the time. (We don’t really need one with a TV in it anyway.) So if you know anyone else who is selling one, pleeeeeeeease let us know.
Sorry if anyone else has noticed problems with our online merch store. I kinda hate it, frankly. There’s a real chicken-and-egg problem with something like that: I don’t really know if the store works until someone tries ordering something, but nobody wants to try ordering something if they think the store might be broken. And broken it is, at least on the products page. I just noticed today after installing the upgrade for WP-ecommerce that now half the products don’t appear. Instead, it shows the poster, then the shirt twice, then the 7″ twice, then the Fifteen Feet cd twice. This certainly doesn’t inspire confidence in the potential customer, let alone in myself (come on developers, how hard is it to iterate a list of things?), and nothing I can figure out to do seems to fix it, so I’m taking the page down for the time being. I apologize for the trouble. Given that the store’s never had a single customer, however, makes me wonder whether it’s worth my time to even bother with the thing, let alone bother with the time and effort of registering an account at WP-ecommerce’s support forums so I can post there (I’m still waiting for a registration email with my password, and I’m sure by the time it arrives I’ll have forgotten half my question), then waiting to hear a reply. I really wish there was a simple way we could offer our stuff for sale online that didn’t (a) suck, and/or (b) require money upfront just to get something half-working when, as we’ve seen so far, nobody’s buying anything anyway. It’s so depressing. If anyone out there has a suggestion, feel free to offer it.
One thing that’s not depressing, however, is going into an awesome studio and making beautiful sounds, which is what we just did this past two days at Flat Black Studio in Iowa City. We worked on five songs, then took home some rough-mixes to obsess/compulse over for a while. Disclaimer: “compulse” is not a real word, I just invented it because “compulsive” needs a verb form (“compel” seems wrong in this usage).
Another thing that’s not depressing is playing a show with a band as good as Pharmacy Spirits who were just getting their tour started when we had a show with them at the Mews several days ago. They’re at Big V’s tonight, so I encourage you Twin Cities folks to go there. After that they’re heading towards the East coast and then will be back around the Midwest early next month.
We’ve got a couple shows coming up too, though not nearly so many as those guys.
