We chat about the upcoming summer tour for The Solid State Siren and the all new Beautiful Sounds.
Roger CortonSo I see you have the tour dates posted. Excited?
JCHSure.
RCAnd so far all goes well?
JCHLike a well-oiled machine.
RCYou mean like the broken link to buy tickets?
JCHOh, you noticed that? Details, details. Yeah, that was slightly embarrassing. But it’s fixed. Thank God for fans who put up with this stuff.
RCAmen. And yes, I did notice. That’s part of the job. So, why do you think people put up with that?
JCHWell, we’ve been meaning to do some deep ‘marketing’ rants but the theory in a nutshell is that this is a niche deal and people are a lot more forgiving of niche deals. And that also allows me to get by with some pretty eccentric marketing schemes. A very nice man at a show once tried to compliment me on something called ‘using scarcity to build sales’.
RCSo it’s all part of your diabolically clever plan.
JCHOh yeah. Or there could’ve been five or six single malt conversation enhancers involved. I seem to recall that guy was quite a connoisseur of An Uisce Bheatha.
RCWhatever that is. So let’s run down why people are going to be wowed.
JCH‘Water Of Life’. Whiskey. It’s one of the few words in English that come directly from Irish. Anyhoo, we’re going to do the complete Solid State Siren. And there will also be a performance of Beautiful Sounds V2.
RCWhich I’ve been listening to–thanks for giving me an advance copy. It really is like a new piece–it’s a lot longer! I can’t get over how much I like it.
JCHThe unsaid bit is that voice in my head saying “Why didn’t you do it right the first time!”
RCI didn’t say that.
JCHNo, but it’s hard for me to not like to think that. We’re gonna have to talk about that at some point.
RCOK, but now back to the tour. So July, right?
JCHJust the time you want to be in the Deep South, right? (laughs).
RCAll part of the master plan, I assume.
JCHOh yeah, it’s a plan all right. You want hot music? Well, you’re gonna get it this time!
RCYou should call it the Hotter Than July Tour!
JCHMan, I shouldn’t even call it a ‘tour’. It’s more like ‘road trip!’
RCLet’s stick with ‘tour’. We should mention how this all works for ‘noobs’. We tally up all the ‘Come To My Town’ requests. Then we message everyone to pre-sell tickets at a discount. When we get enough responses to cover the basic costs, in enough roughly contiguous locations, we have a tour. Finally, we offer seats to these dates for everyone else and that’s where we’re at now.
JCHWow, you really make it sound like a plan.
RCThat’s marketing.
JCHIt’s still a bit of a Rube Goldberg. I have to have separate accounts for each venue. So I can’t just have a single automated credit card webform like a mensch. We have to do everything via e-mail still, which I know makes some people feel weird.
RCI’m sure you’ll figure it out. Before you’re ready for social security (laughs). I assume you’re practicing, right?
JCHI sure am. I got roughly a month and as per usual, I’ll need every day I can get!
RCAs you like to say, ‘Back to work!’ And send me a snippet from Beautiful Sounds V2 so I can post it here. I think you should have A/B links to show how much it’s NEW AND IMPROVED!
JCHYou’re like the Don Draper of prog.
