And so we come to the end of another year. We had lots of fun, put out some music and a kooky video, played a lot of shows, made a lot of new friends, even got to play on a Hearts of Animals album, and last night we closed out the last rehearsal of the year under a cloud of bourbon, beer, and pointless drunken debates with Lord Hightower. So thanks everyone for a lovely musical year.
Now though we’re moving on to 2015 and we figured we’d share with all of you some of our plans for the year.
- Less talk, more rock. The first thing I’d like to share is a change in the whole blogging and posting thing. You’re going to see a lot less of it in 2015. We’ll still be busy at work in our underground Rock and Roll laboratory but I’ve come to the conclusion that, as a band, the whole constant blogging thing is pointless. You know what we do every week; we drink and we jam. There isn’t much more to it than that. Eventually all that work pays off with a few songs that we can share and hopefully y’all will dig it. Nobody needs to know where a record is in the manufacturing process or how far along we are on a video, all that’s really important is when it is released. If we slip off of your radar for a few months, that’s OK.
- No more posting about some cockamamie idea that is floating in the ether. From now on we’ll only post about shows or projects that are imminent. You folks don’t need to know what ideas we have or when we expect to have those ideas ready. Odds are those plans will fall through. Sure, we might have some cool idea floating around but then it may look better on paper than in reality and when that happens, we discard and move to more productive things. That’s pretty standard for any creative endeavor but if you post about an idea that eventually goes nowhere, people will come back and ask about it and you just sound like a dork. Yes, we have a gazillion screwy ideas and yes, 90% will fail. We’ll spare you that and just surprise you folks with a show or release when it’s a real thing. Ideas are a dime a dozen; it’s the ideas you see through to the end that matter.
- NO MORE 7″!! A perfect example of cockamamie ideas is the whole 7″ plan we had involving a release every six months. What we found out is that regardless of whether you release a full length or a single, it will take just as much (or almost as much) work and time to release it. Add to that the fact that when you release a 7″ it is a money loser. Consider “C is for Cthulu” – just the manufacturing cost of that release (ignoring the costs of the video and a lot of other junk) comes to $7.50 per copy and, yes, we sell them for $7. That’s right every copy we sell costs us fifty cents just on manufacturing costs. That’s fine with us – no complaints really – but if we were to put the same amount of effort into a 12″ or a CD, the costs would be the same or less and we can sell them for more which is totally nuts when you think about it. No, we won’t be raking it in but we can at least break even which is much more reasonable as we can then throw that into the next release. Additionally, a 7″ gets very little exposure. Release a 7″ then release an album and see which one gets a reasonable amount of press and which is at best a blip on the radar. The album just naturally get a lot more recognition because there is just a lot more to discuss for a writer. In short, that same song you worked so hard to spotlight in that 7″ will get a lot more mileage if it’s part of an album so I say balls to the 7″ format. Balls I say! Don’t get me wrong, we’re happy with the ones we’ve released and glad to have made them without cutting corners despite the costs but we just want to release more music and for that, albums are just the way to go.
- So what can we say for 2015? Well, of course we will be playing shows (and we’ll mention those as they come along) but, for now, the big plan is to write new material for the next album. We’re a band and making music is what we do. Will the new stuff be Stoner Rock? Psych? Maybe a Space Rock Opera or some other thing united by a theme? Who knows? All we know is that we have a lot of ideas that we’re already throwing into the pot and what comes from that process is anyone’s guess. Just know that we’ll be hard at work every week, drinking beer, having drunken arguments with Lord Hightower about junk we’ll forget the next day, and making loud, stupid noise! Each week we’ll be a little more deaf and our livers and lungs will be a little worse for wear as we march towards that new album but fear not, new tunes are coming and they will rock. That much we can promise you!
Until then, thanks for a lovely 2014 and Happy New Year from all of us at LP4 Labs
