A wee rant…
February 13th, 2012Hey folks, how’s tricks? Tomorrow our third album Facts officially comes out. If you were one of the smart folks who pre-ordered it(cheap!) you get your downloads of the remaining tracks tomorrow morning sometime. Vinyl should ship sometime in the next week or so, depending on the manufacturer finishing the job, so sit tight.
This release and tour have been all consuming since November, threatening to derail my holiday fun-times in Eurpoe in Nov/Dec and slowly shredding what is left of my sanity. While I’m real happy with how things are going, the ‘democratisation’ of the music industry has made life tough for self-managed bands with any shred of ambition. On balance, I think the demise of the ‘big business’ record industry is a good thing. Every label* we’ve ever been involved with has gone under and we never saw a cent from record sales anyway. Watching the money drip in from Bandcamp sales(iTunes settles quarterly) from you kind folks over the past few weeks has been really gratifying. It feels great to see a direct link from recording/mixing/mastering a record and then selling it.
The process of booking the Facts tour and organising the digital and vinyl releases has been a real eye-opener. We’ve booked plenty of tours in the past and though I should know better by now, It never ceases to amaze me how totally unprofessional a lot of the venues are outside of Melbourne. We have things really good here, not even Sydney can hold a candle to the level of professionalism shown by mid sized venues in this town. This is reflected in the fact that no matter how organised you are as a band manager/booker, you are always relying on other people, most of whom only work a couple of days a week and seem to believe if there is a band name listed in the calender their job is done.
So, 12 shows booked, tickets on sale(Sydney, Melbourne) and we’ve moved on to promoting said tour and record. We have engaged a great publicist, someone we’ve worked with before and loves our music. This is the biggest single expense of the whole endeavor, but having tried to promote things on our own in the past it’s something that just can’t be done without. I think regardless of further changes brought about by the internet, publicists will continue to be integral to the success of any band for the foreseeable future.
We’ve also committed to a string of street press advertising, street posters and radio carts. Street press especially is something I would rather not have poured money into. Due to the slow failure of the street press industry(the print side anyway), these poor bastards are just desperate for cash. It has come to the point where asking them to run something as small as a tour announcement(50 odd words) requires committing to advertising. I guess in the past advertising from major and large indie labels would have sustained the magazines, leaving them some room to throw free editorial in the direction of totally independent bands. But no longer!
One other thing I recently discovered/realised is that most potential new fans of The Ramps are going to assume that it’s spelled Alex. Having done a Google search I’ve found that while there is plenty of content under the misspelling, there are no links to our proper site(s). So I’ve spent the weekend registering and redirecting sites with the misspelling in an attempt to direct traffic in the right direction. So you know, the list of things to do keeps growing and surprising me.
Anyway, enough ranting. Facts is out tomorrow, have at it! Come see us on the tour, it’s gonna be wild!
Watch this video of us performing Icy Facts live in September while you’re at it.
*For the record, our previous labels would be classified as ‘indie’ but they sure had a lot more money to throw around than we do.

March 1 2012: The ANU Bar, Canberra. Guests Readable Graffiti and Waterford. Tickets $10 at the door. Doors at 830pm.
March 2 2012: The Patch, Wollongong. Guests TBC. Free Entry.
March 3 2012: GoodGod Small Club, Sydney. Guests Megastick Fanfare and Shanna Watson. Tickets from Moshtix or $15 at the door if available. Doors at 7pm.
March 4 2012: Chinos, Newcastle. Guests Megastick Fanfare and Shanna Watson. Tickets $10 at the door. Doors at 6:15pm.
March 8 2012: The Rails, Byron Bay. Guests Scraps. Free Entry. From 6pm.
March 9 2012: The Spotted Cow, Toowoomba. Guests TBS. Free Entry.
March 10 2012: Tym Guitars in-store performance. Afternoon show.
March 11 2012: The Waiting Room, Brisbane. Guests Tiny Spiders and Scraps. Tickets $10 at the door. Doors at 8pm.
March 22 2012: The National Hotel, Geelong. Guests Lowtide and The Ocean Party.
March 23 2012: The Northcote Social Club, Melbourne. Guests Lowtide and The Ocean Party. Tickets $15 from NSC or at the door if available.
March 24 2012: The Hotel Metropolitan, Adelaide. Guests Wild Oats and Radio Spectacular. Tickets $8 at the door. Doors at 8pm.
March 31 2012: The Brisbane Hotel, Hobart. Guests Tiger Choir, The Native Cats, Pines, The James Parry Band and more!


