In the last installment of this blog, I wrote about releasing the DownTown Mystic on E Street EP, which at the time was less than a month away. I was a bit apprehensive about doing the release but I figured if not now, then when? Anytime you’ve got a project with musicians like Garry Tallent and Max Weinberg, there’s going to be some anxiety about creating a build-up to the release.
The 1st thing I wanted to do was get out the word to my contacts at Radio on AirPlay Direct, the digital downloading platform for Radio stations to get new music. I highly recommend AirPlay Direct to any artist out there that’s looking for a good inexpensive way to get their music to Radio. They have nearly 10,000 radio stations from around the world as members, so there’s an international presence, which is very cool. Over the years AirPlay Direct has proven to be an invaluable tool for me, and once again, it did the job I needed to get done.
When I released the Turn Around and Go Digital Single at AirPlay Direct in March, I knew it was more Rock than Americana, so I made the decision to promote it that way and landed at #12 on the APD Top 50 Rock Albums Chart for March. I was off to a good start. The APD Global Indicator Charts are sorted by different musical genres, each with an Albums and a Singles chart. The charts are totally determined by the amount of downloads a release receives and not by airplay, so the playing field is as even as you can get for indie artists.
I also decided to go into the Rock genre because, quite frankly, it’s a genre in need of some new blood. Call my music “retro”, call it “old school”, I really don’t care because I know there’s really nothing quite like DownTown Mystic out there on the airwaves. And it seems that more and more Radio Programmers are agreeing with my assessment too. So I was going to put it to the test with the release of DownTown Mystic on E Street.
Robert & 1976 Les Paul
I started putting the word out on June 1st and by the end of the day E Street was #1 on the APD Rock Charts—for Albums and Singles. By the middle of June DownTown Mystic stayed at #1 on the APD Rock Albums Chart and owned the first 15 places on the APD Rock Singles Chart, and the official release was still a week away! Incredibly, and I use the word “incredibly”, because it’s incredible to me that E Street stayed #1 for the entire month of June on the APD Rock Albums Chart!! That had never happened to one of my releases before and I THANK every programmer and DJ that downloaded the tracks! 🙂
The DownTown Mystic on E Street EP has 4 tracks—the retro rocker Hard Enough, which I went into detail about in the last blog post. It’s an up-tempo number that owes a great deal to the great New Wave band Rockpile, which featured guitarist Dave Edmunds and bassist Nick Lowe. I think when Bruce Springsteen released his Tracks box set it reminded people just how busy he was writing and recording during the New Wave period. It was kind of a renaissance for Rock’n’Roll and Rockpile quickly became one of the main influencers during the period. Bruce even wrote the song From Small Things (Big Things One day Come) with Dave Edmunds, so he and The E Street Band were well versed in Rockpile.
The 2nd track, And You Know Why, is the single from the EP and it got a great Exclusive Premiere on The Vinyl District website the week of the EP’s release. It features a very economical bass line from Garry and one of the most restrained drum tracks from Max that I think he’s ever played. And You Know Why has a great deal of meaning to me personally. It’s a song that came to me at a time when I was burnt out on writing and playing music. I was seriously thinking about giving up music altogether and this little tune would not let me quit. Then to have the good fortune of getting to record it with the E Street rhythm section is really quite a blessing.
The 3rd track, Way to Know, was previously released on the self-titled DownTown Mystic cd. Including it on the EP is kind of like playing with the house money because it was already successful at Radio worldwide and went to #1 on the Roots Music Report. The original demo that I recorded for the song was a bit more mid-tempo and much sparser in the arrangement. It also featured a piano part. Garry was the one who really changed the tempo and the arrangement, so I have to blame him for this recorded version. 🙂
The thing that I was really going for on Way to Know was writing the song like 2 people were talking to each other one on one, but it could also be taken from the perspective of the singer making a commentary on the world at large. Particularly in the view of what’s happening here and around the world today, the song seems very perceptive and in the moment. It’s ironic that it probably has more meaning now than when it was written. As I’ve stated previously, the funniest thing I remember about cutting the track was hearing Garry tell Max to “play like Charlie Watts”. 🙂
The last track Sometimes Wrong (Demo) was an idea that I had to rock up the song from the way I originally wrote it. Garry and Max gave it their best shot but I don’t think it really quite meshed the way I had envisioned it. I finally decided to go back to the original version when I recorded the track with Steve Holley and Paul Page for the Standing Still cd and it worked much better. But I did keep most of the guitar parts from this version for the one on Standing Still. Plus, the guitar solo I play on the end of the song is one of the best off the cuff solos I’ve ever put down on tape. It was a one shot live take that I was able to pull off. I just wish I could mute the incessant vocal track singing “sometimes wrong” on the fade out! 🙂
All in all, DownTown Mystic on E Street has been a very cool project to put together and an experience that I’ll never forget. My sincerest gratitude to Garry and Max for truly making a dream come true. Now if I’d only taken some photos. 🙂