Random notes

Bass and additional mixing done for "Tonight." Roger has received copy 04.

Steven: "'Tonight' is the kind of song you'd expect about 3/4 of the way into an album. It's kind of a downer. It's a lot like 'Haste,' actually. Very depressing."

"Distance" is now at the top of the list on CNet, but the rest of the EP is still in reverse order.

Confusion

I just realized that I missed an entry, so the last few journal entries may be off by a day. 3/17 should be 3/18, for instance. I don't know if 3/16 is correct as it is.

"Tonight" gets synthesizers

Steven recorded a synth part for "Tonight."

"Take Me Now"

Mark wrote a new song called "Take Me Now" and recorded a demo of it.

For less than a dollar...

Copies 05, 06 and 07 are ready to be shipped. There's still no word on the fate of copy 04, so Steven will ship the CDs with 97 cent postage.

Mark wants to rewrite some of "The Clapping Song" lyrics.

Strangers listening to The Tonics

With every passing day, more people are enjoying the experience of listening to Pop Go The Tonics backwards on CNet (mp3.com). From a total of 76 people on "Thank You," 26 of them reached the bottom of the list. That's actually more than a third, which I guess is good.

Of the 45 people who listened to "Lucy Tricked Me Into Something," all but three moved onto "Lucy." On "Lucy," they seem to be disappointed or too tired to continue. the numbers drop sharply to 30 for "Sad," and 26 for "Distance."

Backwards messages

We got a bunch of plays on mp3.com less on merit and more on the fact that we are the newest band in the alternative category. Unfortunately, they have presented our music in reverse EP order, which means our weakest song is on top and getting all the plays, and "Distance" is at the bottom. And there seems to be no way to fix it. Very disappointing, because only slightly more than half of our listeners continued listening to us after "Thank You". Now, "Thank You" is a perfectly great song, it's just one of those songs that you are supposed to love only after you've listened to it a bunch of times. And it is not a representative Tonics track.

On the bright side, 14 strangers have good enough taste to listen to the whole EP. We also got our first two orders! We are aware, however, that our surge in popularity is an anomaly due to mp3.com's generosity in providing coverage to new entries. There is much work to be done...

Not much happened today

See, we're lazy people. New CDs will not be mailed until Roger confirms that 83 cents is enough postage for our CD (that's 14 cents less than what we spent on postage for copies 01 to 03). Yeah, we're lazy and cheap.

For China Bialos...

Steven started working on copy 05 destined for KUPS in Tacoma, WA.

For Roger Tang...

Copy 04 produced and mailed to WQHS.

Locked out...

Day two of the lockout from popgothetonics.com.

A video?

Ian is doing a video for "Lucy Tricked Me Into Something."

"I'm in an 'Advanced Video-Editing' adjunct class and I think I could make a funny/trippy music-video for our website."

I can't get on popgothetonics.com today, so the upload is postponed.

You can't expect a Tonic to be a Tonic everyday.

Nothing relevant to this journal happened today. Except maybe Arta strumming away at his new acoustic-electric guitar like there's no tomorrow.

A bad sentence in many ways...

"Nothing tangible was achieved today."

Sculpted Static song of the day: "Haste"

Fans' choice for the best song on Sculpted Static's Sunny Ash, "Haste" is about the rooming house at 2316 Haste Street, Berkeley, where Steven lived from August 2002 to March 2003.

The band dislikes the song for its gloomy and meandering music, but there are some lyrical highlights including the following twist on pathetic fallacy:

Early morn the sun is in my room
And never mind that it sheds the light on doom

The chorus melody was actually written by Arta. In fact, most of the music was finished in June 2002, before the Sound Check album. Why the song became a hit is still a mystery to the band these days.

Steven: "It's not a bad song. We'll perform it if we have to."

Yet another batch of questions

(The mass e-mail was sent yesterday.)

"What's the strategy now?" ----College radio stations, and many of them. We really can't lose with our eye-catching CD mailer.

"Are you at the mercy of those radio stations?" ----Considering that more people will want to tune in to them when they start playing The Tonics, college radio stations have more at stake than we do.

"What does the new 'Tonight' sound like?" ----Not nearly as depressing as it should be. More changes necessary.

"Why are you making depressing music? Aren't you supposed to go pop?" ----The Smiths were depressing but they were quite pop.

A great day for consumption

Arta got a new guitar and Steven got 50 cd mailers. The mass e-mail will probably happen today.

What Then?

Celesta recorded on "Tonight."

What Then?

His chosen comrades thought at school
He must grow a famous man;
He thought the same and lived by rule,
All his twenties crammed with toil;
`What then?' sang Plato's ghost. `What then?'

Everything he wrote was read,
After certain years he won
Sufficient money for his need,
Friends that have been friends indeed;
`What then?' sang Plato's ghost. `What then?'

All his happier dreams came true -
A small old house, wife, daughter, son,
Grounds where plum and cabbage grew,
Poets and Wits about him drew;
`What then?' sang Plato's ghost. `What then?'

`The work is done,' grown old he thought,
`According to my boyish plan;
Let the fools rage, I swerved in naught,
Something to perfection brought';
But louder sang that ghost, `What then?'

- W. B. Yeats

Piano for "Tonight"

Steven recorded a piano track for "Tonight." Now it's sounding more like a good song.

Success!

Copies 01 and 02 reached their destinations, proving that $0.97 is enough postage, though $0.83 might work, too. Steven is currently waiting for a shipment of 50 cardboard mailers, because buying them one by one was too expensive.