I was reminded of something recently by my American friend Zoe Mulford, compadre here in the UK and one of two bandmates for my upcoming official showcase at In The City, “the biggest city based music festival in Europe” (and, whoa, did I read that right on the url for ITC?) Marketing yourself is best done in waves. Kind of like waving your hand. You don’t flick the thing once and expect people to remember you. You ‘wave’ it until you catch the attention of your chosen individual/s. You ’splash’ them with a good first impression, a very good first impression…then bowl them over with your (hopefully) overwhelming splendor.
Hmmm. Frankly, as I write this at 3:04 a.m., I’m reminded of how much I’d love to be back in Jeddah, doing a campout at the Red Sea, listening to the waves lap the bottom of my cot as the crabs scuttle underneath, heat soaking my skin and moon turning the mountains blue, Saudis in the distance, cooking, laughing, eating, settled down after tearing up the dunes to the ridiculous “Come on Barbie, let’s go party”. Oh, honestly. My life has done a 180 since moving from Saudi Arabia more than a year ago.
Well, life rarely comes to a grinding halt, and certainly not for this drama/expressive arts teacher + master’s degree students of arts & cultural marketing + and oh-so-human “jill-of-all-trades” in indie music making. Living in the Middle East taught me something about pulling all nighters. And, in order to stay on task and prepare for album launch, my goal now is to grab the attention of Mancunians and those I can reach in the Northwest of the UK in waves and go after the audience for one gig with an aim to secure an next audience for the next, and so on.
At a critical juncture this week, I learned to ask for extensions wherever possible. (People are good, I tell you. I’ve been granted some degree of understanding that I simply cannot function in the real world. Kidding.) But with a cold coming on, and several all-nighters starting to “do me head in”, it was better to ask for time, and time is relatively free.
So, now that I have a little bit more of it to properly take care of my business, I fill up any free minutes and hours writing press releases, new bios, one-sheet, thank you notes, and also designing flyers and posters. I’m throwing caution to the wind, because my designers are busy and I cannot afford them for everything. Finding the lovely tools hidden in the Pages software of the Apple MacBook Pro I own, I’ve been able to do my first flyer of 2008.
And today I took it (above placed) to the local Iraqi printer who did not give me ANY guff, unlike printing.com which refused to take a JPEG or PDF file, and he immediately plugged my USB drive into his computer without any fear I might transport a virus. Two A5 sheets were printed off in high quality color, and VOILA!!! Instant bliss. One more thing checked off my list. I pick up the flyers and posters tomorrow. The bill for 50 A4 posters in full color and 200 A5 flyers…you don’t want to know and I don’t want to tell. It was reasonable. I hope.
I have two giggish gigs to play this weekend, both for peace. I look forward to them. As Stephen Fearing told me some time last year, before I started in earnest, “Remember, they don’t call it ‘playing’ for nothing.” It was my rehearsal with Zoe for In the City that lifted my spirit this week. So, touche.
