9/15/99
RADIO |
| September 15th is the big day for the Sturgeon General Warning CD. It is
the date of the official "release party" at Rubbles in Mt. Pleasant, MI. The
release "bash" is to begin at 10:00 PM. |
| .91.5 Modern Rock is the Central Michigan University student radio
station that has played the "Fish Song" on and off for several months. The
group GifTvS has a following in Mt. Pleasant because of this play and because of previous
gigs at the very popular downtown "watering hole" called Rubbles. |
| When the station heard that the release party would be at Rubbles, they
scheduled a live interview with the band for 6:00 PM on the same day. It was to be a
half-hour interview with the guys and with playing cuts of the CD or even having the band
perform live on the air. |
| Bob Dennis was to take initial CD stock to Warehouse Records in Mt.
Pleasant before the evening party. He could get the stock there by as late as 8:30
PM. He was pulling off the freeway at 6:25 PM and tuned in the radio station catch
the last few minutes of the interview. |
| The station wound up extending the interview to almost a full hour.
The guys sounded great. The station manager would up coming to the release
party, seeing the show, and reporting what happened at the show over the air the next day. |
|
| GOALS |
The goal was to do an interview that would draw people
to the release party gig. It was the first interview where Kevin, the bass player,
was assigned to be the :"spokesperson" for the group. |
CONCLUSIONS |
The interview came off well. The goal was met and
exceeded. Since the interview was extended to one hour, the station was happy.
Kevin did fine, jumping in every time there was any lull in the interview.
The station manager was equally impressed with the live Rubbles gig and started
talking about regular heavy rotation of the Fish Song on the station. |
9/15/99
PARTY |
Playing live in an area you are trying to sell records in is part of your
promotional and marketing activities. Appearences sell records and the records sold
through stores promote gigs.
| The Rubbles release party was a gig. It was typical GifTvS with a
fantastic show set followed by an acoustic set and finishing off with a jam set. Traffic
though the club was steady and in good numbers all throughout the evening. |
|
GOALS |
To have a successful release party. |
CONCLUSIONS |
We definitely accomplished the goal. Radio
reaction to the gig was great and sealed the station's cooperation in promoting the
release and getting regular airplay. The band was booked for a another date at the
club (November 5th) and this time on a Friday night. |
9/15/99
RETAIL |
Retail stores started getting stock with the central Harmony House office
shipping 9/9/99. I arranged to ship at least one copy to each of the 37 Harmony
House stores and contacted two key stores in the "home" area of the band
suggesting that they increase stock to 5 units. The stores did not make the request in
time and most stores got one copy by Friday 9/10/99. By Monday 9/13/99 all stores
had their copy. In addition we covered two other key retail stores (Warehouse
Records in Mt. Pleasant on 9/15/99 and Wyatt Erp Records in Flint the morning of 9/16/99).
So retail was set up to support airplay on the product by the release party date.
Warehouse records sold 4 copies of the ten we put in within a couple of days.
Not bad initial reaction at retail. |
GOALS |
To have CDs available at retail to support airplay and
live appearances. |
CONCLUSIONS |
We did it well. |
