Scandinavian Cyber-Posten
Welcome to the Scandinavian Cyber-Posten!
The Scandinavian Cyber-Posten is my blog for the band. Ever since I started reading The Machine's Pump on the Brave Combo website I've wanted my own blog. After all, I'm a creative and intelligent person and I have thoughts on a lot of things. Here's a place where you can read what I think about a variety of topics. I hope you enjoy what you read. If you have any feedback on what I've written, email me at toby@smilinscandinavians.com
The Scandinavian Cyber-Posten is my blog for the band. Ever since I started reading The Machine's Pump on the Brave Combo website I've wanted my own blog. After all, I'm a creative and intelligent person and I have thoughts on a lot of things. Here's a place where you can read what I think about a variety of topics. I hope you enjoy what you read. If you have any feedback on what I've written, email me at toby@smilinscandinavians.com
Monday, September 18
Prost!
Greetings, Scandinavian fans!
Oktoberfest has just kicked off and we're off to a rousing start. Our performance at the Deutschesfest in Odessa, WA went over very well. The first set was tricky because there were no monitors provided. The second set, which was inside the Community Center, went very well. The sound on stage was excellent which made it possible to play well. Good monitors make for a very good performance. The trip over and back went smoothly as well. I always like it when we're able to travel distances to gigs and have it go well. That's not always the case.
When we made our trip to Idaho over Labor Day Weekend there was an accident on I-90 eastbound just west of Cheney. The freeway was shut down for quite some time and we were stuck in the backup. We missed half the gig as a result. Those kinds of gigs always stress me out and make me very frustrated.
Enough about Idaho. Odessa had another first for the band: someone saw our profile on MySpace and came to the gig. Yes, friends, the Smilin' Scandinavians have a MySpace profile. I discovered last month while we were stranded in Montana that bands are using MySpace as a promotional and networking tool. I asked my lovely wife, who already spends a lot of time on her own profile, to make one for the band. You can view our profile at http://www.myspace.com/smilinscandinavians. It's very nice. It's also quite effective. A fan came from Cheney where she is attending Eastern Washington University. I was amazed the reach of MySpace and also the speed with which MySpace has penetrated new areas where we never would have had access to the market. College students don't randomly look up polka band websites except on MySpace.
We haven't made any headway with iTunes yet. Hopefully when we head to Portland this week for a private engagement we'll be able to pay a business call on the record distributor which has access to iTunes. We'll see how that all pans out.
One last detail: we just added the Tulalip Oktoberfest at the Tulalip Amphitheater up in Snohomish County for October 21st & 22nd. That will be a good weekend of gigs. I'm looking forward to it.
That's all from me. I hope to see you at one of our upcoming performances!
--------------------
Greetings, Scandinavian fans!
Oktoberfest has just kicked off and we're off to a rousing start. Our performance at the Deutschesfest in Odessa, WA went over very well. The first set was tricky because there were no monitors provided. The second set, which was inside the Community Center, went very well. The sound on stage was excellent which made it possible to play well. Good monitors make for a very good performance. The trip over and back went smoothly as well. I always like it when we're able to travel distances to gigs and have it go well. That's not always the case.
When we made our trip to Idaho over Labor Day Weekend there was an accident on I-90 eastbound just west of Cheney. The freeway was shut down for quite some time and we were stuck in the backup. We missed half the gig as a result. Those kinds of gigs always stress me out and make me very frustrated.
Enough about Idaho. Odessa had another first for the band: someone saw our profile on MySpace and came to the gig. Yes, friends, the Smilin' Scandinavians have a MySpace profile. I discovered last month while we were stranded in Montana that bands are using MySpace as a promotional and networking tool. I asked my lovely wife, who already spends a lot of time on her own profile, to make one for the band. You can view our profile at http://www.myspace.com/smilinscandinavians. It's very nice. It's also quite effective. A fan came from Cheney where she is attending Eastern Washington University. I was amazed the reach of MySpace and also the speed with which MySpace has penetrated new areas where we never would have had access to the market. College students don't randomly look up polka band websites except on MySpace.
We haven't made any headway with iTunes yet. Hopefully when we head to Portland this week for a private engagement we'll be able to pay a business call on the record distributor which has access to iTunes. We'll see how that all pans out.
One last detail: we just added the Tulalip Oktoberfest at the Tulalip Amphitheater up in Snohomish County for October 21st & 22nd. That will be a good weekend of gigs. I'm looking forward to it.
That's all from me. I hope to see you at one of our upcoming performances!
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