As pointed out in my 1st Blog post, 2013 has been one crazy kind of year for me. Now that the year is over and 2014 is here, it’s a good time to reflect on what has happened and what has been accomplished. In that 1st post, I started with the final Quarter of 2013 because that’s when all the action that had been pending, was finally unleashed. But it was the previous 9 months that set the stage.
2012 had ended on a good note, with DownTown Mystic in the studio finishing the new recording and releasing the digital Read The Signs EP on the Winter Solstice. The 7 song instrumental-only EP would be digitally released in Europe in late January 2013 by my German Label, AGR, who I signed a Licensing Agreement with in 2011. AGR had released the Standing Still cd just before Thanksgiving in 2011, with European Distribution via Sony Music, and it received much critical acclaim from the European Press. With the Read The Signs EP release, there would only be 1 more release left on the Agreement with AGR.
Since I had originally released Standing Still in June 2010 in the US, it was now going on 3 years without any new music from DownTown Mystic. While Standing Still received enough radio play to make the AMA Chart, it was in Europe on the Euro/Americana shows that DownTown Mystic finally found a place. It was quite a surprise to see DownTown Mystic on the Top 25 Euro/Americana Chart! From that point on, I wanted to get over to Europe to tour. 7 months later I met with a legendary A&R man named Juergen Kramar at Midem in Cannes. He was now an independent A&R scout for Universal in Germany and it would be on his recommendation that I would get the deal with AGR Television Records.
For me, the sole reason to sign with AGR was if they were willing to bring me over to tour. The very 1st conversation with AGR sold me. They told me they would only consider signing me if I was willing to come over to Europe and tour. The reason being—AGR is probably the only full Country Label in Europe and there is no national Country Radio or TV station in Germany…so the only way to promote an unknown Artist from America, would have to be live shows there. AGR has signed some known American Country Artists like Charlie Daniels, Joe Diffie and Sammy Kershaw. But DownTown Mystic was their 1st Americana signing. Unfortunately, the Germans at large don’t really know about Americana because Country is way down on their list of music genres. So the most important way to sell DownTown Mystic would be good word of mouth from live shows.
I went into the AGR deal with eyes wide open because it had the potential to be very good for both sides. But the long & short for me, was that AGR would set me up with a good promoter and fund a tour. It took AGR 6 months after the deal was signed to release Standing Still, but the reviews were great and continued that way for a few more months. The original marketing plan was that I would be brought over for a week of promotional shows. With all the great press for Standing Still, it seemed like perfect timing to have me come over and play. But for whatever reasons, AGR did not bring me over to help promote the cd. Now euro for euro, AGR had only about 20% invested compared to me, so I brought a good deal more to the table and not being met even half way!
Ok, so that’s the setup for 2013. 13 months after the release of Standing Still, in early 2013, I just finished recording and mixing the new DownTown Mystic project. I know I owe AGR 1 more release and I don’t want to give it to them. I already know that AGR won’t fund a tour and I will not fund a Tour that they had agreed to pay for. This is a “no brainer” for me. I don’t want to wait around another year with a new release being held up. It makes more sense for both parties to go their separate ways.
So I call and tell AGR that I have a new release ready to go and right off the bat, they start in with how they need to rethink if they should release a new cd if there’s no tour with it. I tell them I’m always ready to tour but since they won’t fund a tour, don’t release the cd because I certainly will not fund a European Tour. I tell AGR that it would be best for us to terminate the Licensing Agreement.
When I told them that I didn’t want to keep going back and forth with this, AGR finally agreed with me to terminate the Agreement by not picking up the option on the final release. But nothing is ever easy. Needless to say, it would take me another 3 months to finally terminate the Agreement, but I managed to do it. When June rolled around, my deal with AGR was finally over.
While this had been going on, I was thinking about how I would release this next project, and had decided that I couldn’t just print up a cd and release it as in the past. I had built legitimacy for my music, not so much by being played on radio or appearing on some chart, but by Sync Licensing my music for TV and Film. A very cool indie Licensing company in NYC called Jingle Punks had been licensing my music for a few years, and when I heard it on shows like The Voice and American Pickers, I knew my music had arrived, along with the royalty checks! 
I needed a better way to build to the release of a cd and get my music heard. Having the ability to release my music worldwide via The Orchard by having them digitally distribute it, was a big asset. The best way for me to use that asset was by creating and releasing product. From what I had been reading on the Net, you were better off as an Artist to release music more often than in one shot like a cd. This was giving rise to the notion of the cd and album, as an art form, being dead. Whatever…
Releasing singles made sense to me, particularly, digital singles. No need for hard copy, but for some reason, that becomes a problem with Radio. So I decided to release digital singles to radio stations worldwide that accepted digital media. There are certainly enough of radio stations out there on the internet or otherwise…over 30,000 stations worldwide! If you got airplay on 100 stations in the US, that would be a big deal. How about 1000 worldwide? I thought it was worth a shot.
As it turned out, it was definitely worth the shot. By the time I had released my 3rd single, Way To Know in August, DownTown Mystic was being heard on 8000 radio stations worldwide! Also, I found out via The Orchard that iTunes allowed a Digital Single Release to have up to 4 songs on it. So I would have 3 songs on my Digital Singles, which exposed songs that would be on the cd, to have a chance to be heard prior to the cd release. Now I felt confident that I could release the album I wanted on cd and take it to Radio in the US.
This is where my 1st blog post picks up from. The releasing of the singles, building to the release of the full DownTown Mystic CD proved to be very successful. It set the stage for a successful 9 week run on the US Americana Charts, making 2013 a great year for me and looking forward to 2014.
No Exceptions