Band in LA, Boss Stays Home

The Passionistas ventured to LA this past weekend - see the nifty flyer - while the boss stayed back in San Francisco. The idea of accompanying the band on road trips/tours/etc sounds really fun to me - however, given that this was just a weekend trip, it didn't quite make sense. If the text messages are any indication, the show went pretty well - "we made friends and everything" Aaron wrote me. Even though we don't yet have a record to sell, I was glad to see them getting out of the city as it is important to me that we build an audience outside of the Bay Area. As much as I love San Francisco, it is pretty challenging to sell a band in this city, if your name isn't the Lovemakers or Kelley Stoltz (thankfully the latter is in our corner). San Francisco is more on an event city, thus there aren't high sums of people eager to check out random new bands. Furthermore, with most shows being 21+, selling merch can prove exceptionally difficult. However, I think the Passionistas have serious potential to be one of those big San Francisco bands - and making it here would be a serious accomplishment. That being said, I'm excited for our out-of-city shows, like this Sacramento show with the Music Lovers in late June.

With our June 5 release date approaching, there's a great deal we've got to do. The to-do list is just getting longer ...
-Sort out cover art for digital release
-Sort out cover/booklet art for cd
-Print cds
-Firm opening act(s) for cd release
-Design website
-Edit 2-3 more video podcasts
-Re-launch new and improved Radio Hour podcast
-Band photo shoot
-Send out press releases
-Secure interviews
-Media strategy session w/ band

And I don't even think that's everything. Like, T-Shirts and buttons - we probably need that stuff, too. Even with all that, we've still be plotting more releases for later in the year. God's Boat will probably be the only major N&UR release in 2006, but there could be a couple digital only ones as well.