the product continues at pace.
the media whoring shall soon begin (luckily for me, this will mostly involve sitting behind a computer, website making and email sending - ’tis massey that will have to do all the people work).
our VAT number has arrived (revenue.ie seems awful intimidating, i think a crash course in accountancy is on the books - soz, but you should know by now that i can’t resist a bad pun).
the cds are at the pressing plant (they could even be ready at this stage), and the mp3s are in the iTunes (and others) pipeline.
cash money has been spent
and there’s no turning back now.

release date: 1st of August 2008 - note that in your diary people! i know i have
…although that’s coz that’s when i get to go see tom waits which is much more important.

Nothing to report on the record company front (coz the stupid online banking thingy is crap and wont let us pay for the cds yet).
So eh, instead here’s some pics up on my Flickr.

I really should be in a beer garden right about now, and not reading about UPC codes and legalities of digital music sales. But then this is just part of the path I’ve chosen.
So yeah, I said I’d explain about my new adventures in (chancing my arm with) the music industry. So here goes.
Many years ago, in a simpler time and simpler place, two of Tipperary’s rival gangster rappers put aside their east & west coast feud and formed an alliance to create what is now known as ‘Tipp Hop’ with their soon to be No.1 hit single ‘Boobies’ as the prime example of the genre.
Meanwhile back in reality, two of my brothers wrote a song and then recorded it - on cassette, using the inbuilt mic on a stereo, with the default pattern from ReBirth as the music for it. Despite that, anyone who heard that original version still thought it was deadly and kept telling them they should release it.
Eventually the idea to record it properly came up and I stepped in on producer duties. The resulting version was still a little rough around the edges, but an improvement on the original anyway. The calls to release it continued.
Around this time Colin/Master Massey’s burgeoning stand up career was giving him ideas. After seeing David O’Doherty’s attempt at releasing a single, it was clear that it would actually be quite doable.
So after some discussion between myself & himself, we decided to go slightly bigger and do a full-manufacture CD, released on a real record label. Hence Shyhhy Records was born.
That was back last August. Since then we have: re-recorded the vocals and mixed & mastered the track properly; had another recording session of b-sides & bonus tracks; made a video; got a website (www.shyhhy.ie); prepared some promotional material; opened a company bank account; filed our first tax return; and most recently, held a meeting with our cd pressing people (who said we should be thinking about how we’ll perform the track ‘live’ on saturday morning kid’s TV(!!!)).
So yeah, there’s been a couple of odd moments so far, and I’m guess there’ll be many more to come as the promo/publicity begins.
Which will be soon.
This week, barring any last minute panics, we’ll be putting down 2000 euro for the CD manufacture. After that, there’s no turning back - we’ll have to at least _try_ and make some of that back. It’ll also be going up online in iTunes n stuff (hence the reading up on UPC codes there), so yeah - you’ll have plenty of options when you go out to buy it. Which you all will, right?

back from prague.
bunch of cool photos to upload here sometime soon*

neubauten were deadly, the city is still deadly to look at, but still lacking in alternative/punk clubs - but hey, cheap beer and absinthe _and_ smoking in bars, what else wouldya want?
speaking of which, i brought back 400 cigarettes & 2 bottles of the green genie (one with a pic of van gogh on the bottle, which gives off a great message really…) so eh, if i die soon that’ll probably be why.
but don’t worry, i don’t actually plan on dying soon - too much work on the record label to be doing right now.

…but nothing to do for it now (at least, nothing that i’m going to do - pub is much more important at this stage), except of course to add to this journal of how things are really going with the label (in contrast to the corporate stylings of the shyyhy.ie site, and the piss taking stylings of massey and his writings on the subject)
some day i’ll post the proper story-so-far up here - but that wont be today.

* a bunch from rome too - but i better not put them up together or people may think i’m mad into the religious iconography n stuff - which i’m not

right, i kept for getting to check this in work, but if anyone reading this is using windows and has IE (6 or 7) could you take a look at this:
shyhhy.ie
and let me know if it’s still aligned left, and not centered like it is on real browsers?
cheers.

so yeh, to follow on from my mention of pop in the previous post, the site linked above is for a brilliant new record label - i’d advise y’all to bookmark that site (and of course go out and buy the single upon its release), for pretty soon there shall be amazing things the likes of which have never been seen nor heard by human or eyes or ears before.

well maybe not. but i’m involved, so it is gonna be be great, right?

ps: if anyone does point out issues with the site above, don’t expect a response until monday, at the earliest, for i am of to Praha to see Neubauten. woo!