2011-07-22 Redesign and the Road Ahead
I've been thinking about redesigning the site for a while now, mainly to let me change structure and make things easier to find. I loved the old design (which was really me taking an idea from the brilliant Sarah Caseberry, who did our first non-crappy MySpace design back when we first hopped on that dinosaur, and running with it the best I could figure out), but it wasn't going to let me have more navigation or make it easy to have quick links/info on every page...And then a wise person pointed out that it looked just a bit too polished to match our sound...So, I decided to take advantage of being between day jobs to redecorate this place. (It wasn't just about having time to work, because even when I've got a full-time day job, I put in as much time for the band as the job. But I tend to sort of disappear and lose track of time when I'm building web pages, and it's easier to make up for staying up until 06:00 coding when I have the luxury of sleeping until the afternoon the next day.) Anyway, new site. Hopefully, you're finding it easier to find your way around. And you can see that we've got some new things in mind, some new pages and areas to make room for what we want to do...
So, what are we planning to do? We've got a list. Of course, we'll keep doing regular shows and working on new songs. That's a given, cos we're a band and we really, really love to make and play music. But we want to make it a little easier for you to see and hear us, especially because we know a goodly number of you aren't local. We're chuffed at the love we get from people who've not even had the chance to come to a show and hear a whole set. We're hoping to make it easier to find our videos, and to get more videos up. To get a new song up now and again from a gig until there's new material all nicely recorded. (The stuff from gigs will tend to be audio from my crummy video camera, so it's definitely about sharing the love and not about impressing you with our slick production skills.) We want to blog a little, to share what people are saying about us now that we're being heard by more people, to get some pics that are nicer than just us in action on stage. All that jazz. We're feeling ambitious! (Now is also the perfect time to drop us a note and request a feature...No promises we'll make it happen, but we can't even try if we don't know what you want. We're not psychic. Yet.)
As far as shows go, we're about to play a lunch time show for the cool campers at the Rain City Rock Camp for Girls. We're pretty excited to do that. We think encouraging younger humans in music (and, because I'm a girl, it doesn't hurt that this camp is about the girls) is a good thing. Plus, we hear we'll be doing a Q&A after, which will be good practise for all those interviews in the future, right? (We'd also like to encourage you to support things like this. When we support people in making art, in developing themselves as artists, we are part of making sure there's good art for years to come. And, as you can guess, we are particularly fans of making sure music has a good future.)
Also in support of the camp, I'm working with Margo from the band STROPPY to finally put together a project I've been wanting to do for years now. We're going to have a show to benefit the camp that is a bunch of girl-fronted rock bands. We've been really pleased at how willing (and excited) bands are to get involved. When Varnish did an interview at NWCZ Radio a couple weeks ago, the band that interviewed before us was still around. And even though they hadn't met us before that moment (and, therefore, weren't on the list of bands I'd approached), they immediately offered any help they could give. Right now, we are just sorting out a venue. I'm sure you'll be hearing more about it.
Now, back to work. When you're trying to make it in music, there's always something to do. Hope you're all happy and moving forward in your lives.
xxx
Amber