8 May 2014
Lucky White Heather Club must have thrown me out without telling me or there’s someone out there with a Fish voodoo doll and a penchant for pin sticking!
So there I was extricating myself from the wreckage of the tour with my mind programmed into gigging and suddenly I had to come to terms with more of the “day job”. Saturday and Sunday I was a zombie and couldn’t focus on things that needed done. Monday I edged back into the game and as the tour dates were rescheduled other concerns became apparent.
The pallet of Deluxe editions that were delivered at the beginning of the year came into play and had been moved into the mail room. An innocuous e mail arrived with a complaint from someone who had received 2 DVD’s in their recently received deluxe version. Alarm bells could be heard from the office and we opened up a few random boxes from the batch to check. Sure enough both the discs were printed from the DVD template. I checked the discs and discovered that although one was the CD and the other the DVD the CD had been printed up with the wrong template and quite a few had already been dispatched. My heart sank deeper. It turns out that 2500 deluxe editions have wrongly printed CD discs! I was straight onto the manufacturer and they have agreed to pick up the faulty batch, replace the discs , re shrink wrap and deliver them back to us at their cost. A result in one way but I was just about to initiate a massive Facebook ad campaign having lost all the profile from the rescheduled tour. It has now had to be postponed until I can discover the date when we get the repackaged units back. I have a few of the old batch left to fulfill orders but I have been hamstrung by this turn of events just as I was about to launch the German mail order service!
To anyone who has received the wrongly printed discs and wants a “properly” printed CD send the CD back to us and we will replace at our cost. It’s yet another tale in a storybook surrounding the deluxe version that confounds me!
To add to that another message on FB on the same day told me that the label on side 4 of the vinyl edition has the wrong track order. rather than “Perfume River”, “Feast” and “Blind” it has the listing as “Feast” , “All Loved Up” and “Blind”!! The actual vinyl has the recordings as is printed on the gatefold sleeve and the inner sleeves but for some reason Mark set out the wrong track listing and we both missed it at proof reading stage! Obviously this is far less of an issue than the Deluxe version and with 2000 printed I am not doing a recall for a minor fault. Mark and I are both embarrassed we missed it and he doesn’t even know why he did it as “All Loved Up” was not in consideration for inclusion as one of the live tracks from Karlsruhe ! Best way is to treat it as a limited edition and it will be corrected on the next print run!
The loss of the tour also meant a loss of revenue from merch and although I am covered by insurance and all the session musicians and crew get paid with canceled hotel bookings and bus hire etc covered I personally receive nothing. I still have the near 10k of 3 painstaking weeks of rehearsals to sit on until the festivals kick in and we break back into touring in September.It’s a hit I have to take.
I’d hoped to move the remainder of the 2013 UK shirts at heavily discounted prices on the merch stall as well as sell the new “Feast” vinyl editions to fans who wanted to avoid the postage costs but now I have to rethink. The T shirts will be reduced on the fishheadsclub.com website in order to try and recapture losses and I just have to work hard at trying to fill the profile gap created by the absent dates in May through other means to raise funds.
Steve Vantsis has been putting together the live downloads from the 2013 European tour and hopefully they will be up in the next week or so together with some film that was shot from out front with mixing desk sound added to at least give you something to react to.
Losing the tour has created a huge hole in the promotion of the single and with no support on the horizon either from national radio or press it’s going to be very tough to get a chart position this week. I can only hope that regional media gives me back up !
It’s been slightly depressing being sent hugely positive articles in regional papers by my PR team with the shows now rescheduled. I try and stay positive knowing that I can do the rounds again later in the year but I needed the momentum now to boost both the album and the single.
The main European promo won’t kick in until later in the Summer so I am trying to concentrate on that in the coming weeks as at the moment 90% of the sales of “Feast” have been in the UK. There is a whole new ball game out there waiting to be played and it looks like that’s where I have to concentrate as the album still has so much more potential.
On the subject of ball games the Hibs results in recent weeks have not added to my mood. A draw at the weekend and the defeat Tuesday night with other matches not going in our favour leaves us now in 11th position with a must win match on Saturday to avoid the relegation play offs. I don’t know if I could handle going to Easter Road on Saturday to see the decider as a defeat might be too much to handle!
It is as they say up here “a sair fecht” just now added to by a Volvo with engine warning lights and a serious problem to be diagnosed next week, an electrical problem in the kitchen that has blown out all the overhead working surface bulbs for the third time since they were put in in a county where electricians are fewer than astronauts on the moon, a leaking central heating system, never ending legal issues that should have been signed off 2 years ago, corporates that never return mails on important decisions that have to be made to advance other issues, rampaging slugs in a garden that needs some serious tending and loving care and a lot of personal stuff that is contributing to a slight sense of being overwhelmed just now!
I know it will all work out and I will get through it somehow but for now I am sitting here in the studio and missing my lady. With recent developments I would have flown to the balcony this weekend but there is far too much to deal with and I need to be here in the turret directing fire! The next 3 weeks until I see her is agonising and these nights are getting longer!
Tonight is another solo experience in the studio with some wine, steak and chips and 2 nonplussed cats. Not too bad I suppose and there are people out there far worse off than me. It’s a phase I just have to ride through and keep positive on. It will turn and I know what is happening now only makes me stronger and I firmly believe, despite all,that this has all happened for a reason. I don’t know what yet but there is definitely a reason! 🙂
The gym and the garden call me and maybe some righteous physical labours can help get me back in a frame of mind to deal with all of this. I need to get back diving again this Summer if just to return to that womb like feeling and a true sense of escape from the everyday problems of this thing called Life!
I’m not dead yet 🙂