Photos by Annie McElhaney

Have an iPhone or iPod Touch?  Get the SMB App FREE! App Features: *MUSIC-stream all SMB songs directly to your phone or ipod.  As “A Single Revolution” singles are released, they will be made available for streaming on the app. *SHOWS- never again forget when/where/what time an SMB show is!  *NEWS- stay current on SMB news.  *MEDIA- photos and videos!  look for updates for more to be added.

Buy the “I’M NOT SCARED” CD and get access to the exclusive web page with the 13 minute FULL VIDEO (made by Sarah Mac and our good friend/webmaster/video editor Jeremy)!

You might be thinking, “What is it? I want to be a cool kid, too!”  Our research team has been feverishly working in the Sarah Mac Band laboratories, and we are ecstatic to unveil our new product, available now to our fans and friends before it’s available to the rest of the general public. Our product has been clinically proven to increase coolness, help you make friends, fill your social calendar with engaging events that will heighten your social status, and give you great, heartwarming memories that will last for years to come!

Sarah Mac Band Seven Steps to Social Success™ Program

Because we’re generally altruistic and believe that everyone should have access to good things (as evidenced by our 2009 Name Your Own Price, Pay What You Can Merchandise Sale) we decided to use our blog and email list to distribute our product to you, our fans, FOR FREE! Here’s all you have to do:

Sarah Mac Band Seven Steps to Social Success™

Step 1: Go to the Sarah Mac Band store and pre-order your copy of the newest single in the Single Revolution, “I’m Not Scared.” Pre-orders are open today for those who purchased the previous single, “Alive Again” and will open for the rest of the public tomorrow, Tuesday, November 10th.

Whether it’s trendy clothing, concert tickets, or Chihuahuas that they use as accessories, cool kids always have the newest, hippest thing.

Step 2: Clear your calendar for this Saturday night, November 14^th. Get a babysitter, blow off game night with the in-laws, ignore whatever football game you were planning on watching…

Cool kids always make the hippest, coolest events their number one priority.

Step 3: Fill up the gas tank in the car and head north across the state line into Georgia (carpool with other cool kids to reduce your carbon footprint!)

Cool kids always know where the party is, even if it’s in a relatively, obscure, small town. Think of the Sundance Film Festival in the early days…

Step 4: Make it to the Submarine in Thomasville, GA to be a part of our CD RELEASE PARTY for the newest single in the Single Revolution, “I’m Not Scared.” We will be joined by special guest, Libby O’Neill. Doors open at 8, show starts at 8:30.

Contrary to what people might think, cool kids are always on time. Punctuality is the new black. Plus, Libby is a cool kid, too.

Step 5: Pay the $5 admission to the show. Unless you have already purchased one of the singles, in which case, admission is free!

Cool kids understand that there is a cost to being cool. Thus, in order to be able to afford the newest fad, they always capitalize on opportunities to get the biggest bang for their buck.

Step 6: Pick up your special surprise gift at the door which will enable you to participate in the audience participation portion of the evening. 

Cool kids relish in opportunities to have an exclusive shared experience with other cool kids. It helps build a collective identity of “cool.”

Step 7: This is the most important step! Invite all of your friends to come.

Having knowledge of exclusive events and the authority to invite people to them greatly increases others perceptions of your social value and elevates you to cool kid status with very little effort on your part.  Of course, we already knew that you were cool because you’re our friend! But you can use this as your chance to spread the good will and pay it forward in the hopes that others might reap the same benefits.

See you there!

What: CD Release Party for “I’m Not Scared” with special guest, Libby O’Neill

When: Saturday, November 14th

Where: The Submarine, 218 W. Jackson Street, Thomasville, GA

Doors at 8:00, Show at 8:30

Since we have two really creative and innovative types in our band (Claire and Charlie), we’re always thinking of new ways to expand our audience and get our music heard. Well, really, it’s more like some of us are always thinking of it, while the other contents herself with reading tabloids and celebrity gossip websites (no shame!).

Today is a surprising turn of events, I was reading something online with some substance. I stumbled upon an article in a semi-reputable magazine that talks about cultural trends towards “freeness.” I thought that it was interesting since we talk about that a lot in our practice room and band business meetings, specifically the trends towards “freeness” with digital downloads of music (whether they‘re legitimately free or illegally pirated downloads). In fact, finding a way to creatively keep up with the trend is one of the main motivators behind our Single Revolution experiment. In talking about “freeness” the article says:

In terms of music, it means that bands might give music away for free (Radiohead!) in hopes of creating new fans and reaching more people who will one day attend a concert or (gasp!) buy an album. It’s about creating a relationship with the audience, tapping into the collaborative spirit of the networked age and recognizing that music (and other cultural work) was never intended to be a commodity that lived primarily in the transactional, economic space between producer and consumer. On the contrary, culture has always been firmly rooted in community and a shared sense of understanding and making meaning together.

So, anyway, I thought that this was cool and I wanted to share.

Every time I explain the Single Revolution from stage, I take far too much time and get all bogged down talking about “touchy-feely” things like relationship and fostering community. Really, I’m not sure that I’m willing to or even need to apologize for that (the touchy-feely part… not the taking too much time talking between songs, because I’m really working on that) because I do think that part of what makes the whole system of musical creator and musical participant function appropriately and efficiently is that both parties do their part. And ultimately, without the musical participant finding meaning in it and buying into the vision cast by song, then the musical creator hasn’t really created anything worthwhile in the first place. We have to find it together. Seriously. I’m not just being “touchy-feely” right now. And, I totally haven’t been drinking… yet.

I guess that’s what the coolest part of the Single Revolution is to me. We make the stuff, but this is the test for us… to see if what we create is really something that resonates with people. Did we make something that people are willing to be a part of? Is it good enough to entice them to suspend their reality and get swept away in the story? Is our piece good enough to hold its own in this cycle? So far it’s worked and people have been incredibly supportive, which is affirming, encouraging and exciting. We have just a few more of the third single in the Revolution left, “Alive Again,” and we’re hoping to have them sold out so that we might release the next one next week weekend at our Warehouse show with the Soft Targets. We’ll see. Again, it’s an interesting experiment… we’ve been pleased so far with our results and hope that through it, we will learn more about the symbiosis between the band and the fans.

And… in other news, I’m going to see Where the Wild Things Are tomorrow and I’m so excited about it, I’m not sure that I’ll be able to sleep tonight!

And… in other news, we added a new member to my nuclear family this week. Sarah Mac Band family, meet Ruby.

Sommelier: Handy Vocabulary for Trivial Pursuit

My housemate has a friend who is a sommelier. What a cool word, eh? For those of you (who like me) can’t afford to go to a fancy restaurant that employs a sommelier, or who haven’t read Ruth Reichl’s books (side note: if you still have my copy of one of her books, please give it back!!) in order to know how important one of those guys is, please use this opportunity to learn and then tuck the knowledge away for future use in Trival Pursuit.

The US Bureau of Labor and Statistics explains that a sommelier “is skilled in the art of matching wine with food to augment the food’s flavor.” Shayn, the 2002 Washington Wine Commission Sommelier of the Year, who is featured in the linked article, says that his job is to “demystify wine.”

That’s a really cool way to look at it—to sort of make wine less haughty-taughty and more accessible. Because really, who in real life knows about wine? I mean, I hang with people who pretend to (because that’s what you do when you’re young , hip, single, and trying to be sophistocated), but they just talk big with the assumption that nobody else really knows enough to know that they’re faking it. And since I know enough (from my Wine for Dummies book that Charlie gave me for Christmas last year) to know that they’re faking it, but not enough to contradict them and make any kind of intelligent argument, I just let it slide.

Recently, I was introduced to the sommelier friend indirectly, when I opened our refrigerator to find four new bottles of wine chilling. I decided that he was my favorite of all of my housemate’s friends as I took advantage of his generosity and poured myself a big ol’ glass of the white with the prettiest label. I later found, much to my surprise, that the wine I chose is also the sommelier’s favorite of all of the bottles that he sent home. Apparently I have good taste in wine… French wine, no less (which undoubtedly make it that much more grown-up and chic)!

Interestingly , my favorite wine is also French wine. Some of you may have been at Chez Pierre on the night that the very attractive bar tender jumped on stage and handed me a glass of the best wine I have ever tasted and then acted like he was going in for a kiss? I didn’t take him up on the kiss because I’ve spent 28 years avoiding herpes…and well, you never know. But, I did take him up on the wine, which was phenomenal. I always look forward to Chez Pierre shows, not just for the beautiful scenery, fun atmosphere and the dancers, but also in anticipation of the taste of that wine that I’ll have afterwards (since we don’t drink when we’re working… except Claire because she’s a rebel).

Lucky for me, we’re booked to play Chez Pierre again this weekend. This time, I might actually switch it up and try the mystery French white with a little added party atmosphere. I’m sure that it will be that much better! We’ll see if I can track down the sommelier friend to find out what it is. The bottle has long since been emptied and sent out to the recycle, so I can’t check the pretty label again.

Come out to Chez Pierre on Saturday night, October 10th. We’ll be providing music and other entertaining hijinks from 7-11, and then I’ll start drinking white wine!

Outside of having the best wine ever, and celebrating the fact that we’re playing at home again after a lot of traveling, we’re trying to finish out the “Alive Again” Single Revolution discs this weekend. The last time we played at Chez Pierre, we sold out of “Something Beautiful,” selling 26 in one night. There are far less than that left of the “Alive Again” singles… not even half that many. If you’re reading this and you suddenly remember that you’d like to have one and have yet to buy it, I would encourage you to do so now form our online store. I’m not totally sure that we have enough to make it to this weekend.

We’re excited to finish “Alive Again” out so that we can get started on production of the next song in the Revolution, “I’m Not Scared.” Kids, believe me, if you have been impressed by what we’ve put out so far in the Revolution, you will certainly not be disappointed in the next one. Keep it on your radar. Keep us on your radar. Come out and see us on Saturday and keep your fingers crossed for great weather!

Until we meet again…. High five!

Sarah Mac Band covers Bob Dylan’s ‘Just Like a Woman’

April 24, 2009
“Bob Night”
American Legion Hall
Tallahassee, FL

Times they are a’changin

Boy are they ever.   I was just reading an online article from Digital Music News and what I read was very sobering from a musician’s standpoint.  Now get this: according to Nielson Soundscan there were 105,000 new full-length cds released in 2008.  You read that right, 105,000! I did some quick math for 2008, remembering of course that there were 366 days in the year because of leap year, and that comes out to almost 287 new full length cd releases per day.  And that is every day including Saturdays, Sundays, holidays, etc, etc.  And this is ‘full-length’ folks. It doesn’t apparently include all the single releases and eps.  Wow! 

I don’t know about you but that is just mind-blowing to me. I can’t even fathom that number on a daily basis and to make matters worse it appears that these are numbers for releases in the US only.  Clearly the business to be in is not music but in Making cds.  No wonder discmakers can afford to flood me with regular glossy advertising catalogues.  They get it.  The real money is in making the cds for all these releases. 

And even more; this article also had stats on bands on myspace.  Apparently there are now over 10 million bands on my space.  Now I understand that anybody can make a band on myspace  but 10 million?  That is unbelievable, and I bet almost every one of them wants to put out a full length cd.  Again, the business to be in is making all these cds. 

So, where does this leave the poor musician who is trying to forge a living in this brave new world?  Well, for the most part, lost in the mass of humanity trying to get noticed.  If you are playing music because you think it is your ticket to fame and fortune, well you might have a better chance playing the lottery.  Yeah some people make it so why not me, right.  Well, some people win the lottery too it is just not a good career plan.  No, you need to be playing music because you love it.  Because a piece of you will die if you don’t play and you will play regardless of the money.  If that is you, then you may have the intestinal fortitude to make a living at this; but you know that you will play even if that does not happen.  But if the only real goal is fame,  then there is a high likelihood you will be very disappointed with music as a career. 

I still can’t get my head around the numbers that these guys are reporting but I can tell you this.  I prefer living and playing music in this time as opposed to the old way. At least now I get to record music and get it out to people.  And while the chances of being heard are not great, well at least I get to play the game and that is cool with me.

As usual I have many more thoughts on this but I think that is enough for now. At least it gives you something to think about. 

Later,

Charlie

Check out our friend Kaitlyn Summerill, Creative Director of Unseen Stories, wearing her SMB Charlie shirt while working to educate Beninese (Benin, W Africa) parents on the dangers of child trafficking. We have pictures of all of you from all over the world in our “Where in the World is Charlie?” series. Kaitlyn is the first to actually get her Charlie pic in a newspaper. Rumor has it that she was also interviewed live on Beninese TV wearing her Charlie shirt last week. She has set the bar very high, folks. Click the link below to read the full article and step up to help stop child trafficking.

"Charlie" featured in the Tallahassee Democrat!

To read the full article, click HERE

NOTE: We have been sold out of Charlie shirts for several months. For those of you who have been asking for one, we are ordering new ones! We’ll let you know when they are in!

Sarah Mac and Justin Barfield (co-writer of “Something Beautiful,” ex-SMB percussionist, and current guitar/mandolin/banjo/egg shaker player for Maida Vale) talking about the formation of the song. To see the FULL edition of the interview along with other exclusive videos, purchase the *LIMITED EDITION* CD and you’ll be granted access to the special website! http://www.sarahmacband.com