001: What went wrong, and where it goes from here

Hi

We'll start of 2008 with a bit of closet-cleaning at camp Futuro.

2007 was a bit of a washout eh? Not much happened, and I think instead of posting the usual 'its coming soon' teaser posts, I'd give you something a bit more substantial and explain why 2007 played out the way it did.

If i was to sum it up in one short sentence, I think it would be: "We deviated from the plan, and got lost".

For anyone that was watching us go from the beginning of 06, we had this 'DIY ethic' where we done everything ourselves. Recording, Production, Design, Web, Video, Tour Booking, everything. It also worked a bit. Without a complete breakdown of what went on in the first year - we came up with a system and it worked (to an extent). Things were getting 'big' for us, and I think what REALLY happened, was that we panicked a bit. The possibility of being a working artist was becoming a reality and we wanted to make sure we got it right. By doing that, we ended up stalling the whole thing quite badly.

After the Season 1 DVD was released, we got Lights Out ready. It was meant to come out in February on our own new label Retrocausal. What was *supposed* to happen was that another single would be out in April, and a full length album in May. Then we'd tour tour tour tour tour tour and tour some more. We pictured the Season 2 DVD being a few music videos and a massive documentary following us around the uk (and beyond).

The reality? We released Lights Out, put a nice (if i do say so myself) video out for it, and then sat back and done nothing. For a year.

Well thats how it looks anyway. The ACTUAL reality is a bit more complex!

We released Lights Out late, at the end of march/april. It was late because iTunes need 6/8 weeks to get the music onto their stores. Its the same for U2, Radiohead and anyone else. It takes time. So to have a release date where press could talk about, radio could announce it, and we could actually promote it, we had to delay the release. Sorting all this out was a bit problematic though, and we ended up doing nothing but sort all this out. Graemes work schedule was killing us, as were the financial drains.

The release wasn't a flop by any means, and we had more downloads of the track and video than any other futuro release, but we just didn't and couldn't gig enough to get the word out, and that began the loss of momentum.

Anyways, we decided to do things a little differently and put more into the album campaign to 'do it right'. We still wanted to (and still do) self release through Retrocausal, and decided to journey to the big smoke to get a team of pro's working us on press/radio. This is when we discovered why the music industry is so inherently fucked.

In June we went to London Calling, a music industry trade show where you meet with business services, labels, distributors and such like. We also travelled around London meeting similar types to discuss our release plan. The reaction to the music was good, and we got a few big (and expensive) companies interested. What we discovered though, is that it really takes months for any of these people to make a decision, and that they have no problems leading you on and then pulling out at the last minute. We wanted the album out, in August, then October, then January and now it looks like its going to be April or later.

Releasing an album into the big wide world is complicated (if you use traditional distribution and promotional routes) and the amount of time it takes to co-ordinate this is flat out insane. Not only that, but the best laid plans seem to fall apart as people almost whimsically decide not to bother in the end. One company would say 'yeah, i think an October release would work for us' and another would say 'nah, October is too busy for us, how about January' and the other would say 'January is no good for us, how about...' and it all falls apart quickly.

The side effect from all this is that you lose momentum personally too. Its hard enough to hold down a job (Omar and I are both college lecturers in our 'fields' of audio and video/design) as well as co-ordinate an album release, let alone feel creative enough to approach the task as an artist too. As a result, the album still isn't 100% finished as of now.

The main problem creatively, is that its been so long since the last release, that to put out an album with 50% old tracks and 50% new doesn't feel enough now. Its been too long a wait to only put out 6 new tracks, most of which have been heard live in some way now.

So did we miss the boat? Maybe. Its certainly going to be a lot harder now. We built up a massive amount of buzz all on our ownsome, and then it all went tits up when we started to involve other people. A slap on the wrist for us. We're not trying to pass ALL the blame though. Personally I know I've been less creatively active in the last few months than I should be, but then when plans fall apart for 4th or 5th time, you start to get disheartened.

I've rambled enough about the history, so what about the future?

Well, in short, we're not giving up just yet! We have what we feel is a great album almost done. Artwork is nearly complete and a few videos on their way for singles. But aside from that, in a business sense, we're having to look at things a little differently. Radiohead have brought DIY -Music to the attention of mass media now (they aren't the first, but they are the biggest to do it - but is anyone else really disapointed that they used a label for the physical release???), and Saul Williams/NIN tested new ground with a donation based digital download only release (which is quite openly documented, and very interesting).

What I plan to do personally, is document absolutely everything we do in both a creative and business sense. That way, if this simply doesn't work, at least there will be an interesting read about how it all fell apart. With any luck it wont be as cut and dried as that, and we'll get some degree of personal and creative satisfaction out of the whole thing. With a LOT of luck, we'll do something fairly groundbreaking and have an incredible story to tell.

The album cover is the new background image at wearefuturo.com - it represents this struggle quite well we feel.

Lets see what happens eh?

j x