February 28, 2010

VIDEO: Brian & Summer Walking on Meadowlily Drive

MAKE ‘EM DANCE” NEARS 10,000 HITS ON YOUTUBE!
With the continuance of airplay and a succession of internet, print, and radio interviews, the number of hits on the Make ‘em Dance video suddenly jumped by 2,000 in one night! Sean Kelly phoned me the next morning and was very excited about it and we talked at length about where the video was being viewed, so we began to check it out on the YouTube site. Seems all our hits are coming from Canada and Afghanistan (the troops!)

So we’d like to thank our men and women in uniform serving overseas not only for the great job they’re doing over there for our country (you make us proud) but also for their support on the new song. Secondly we’d like to thank everyone across Canada for rooting for us on this disc. Let’s keep pushing to get the word out, hear it on radio, see it in print, and view it on video channels. 2010 will be the year we work Vagabond Bones until we drop!!!!

RADIO
What a great week! Fans have been emailing/phoning me to say that they’ve heard the song driving down the 401 due to the heavy airplay we’re receiving from KOOL FM in Kitchener. Special thanks to Angie Hill and The Sarge for their support. We’ve also been added to the playlist at The Fox in Fredericton, thanks to Rob Pinnock. We’re also being taken into music meetings for consideration in many markets including BIG JOHN RADIO in St. John, The BULL in Wingham, and 100.3 the Q! in Victoria, among others. There are radio people out there who are cheering for us. We’re viewed as somewhat of the underdog and they’ve been going to bat for us.

People like Sean Crawford of C103 in Moncton, who has been giving us spins, “Crash” Barton of The Fox (whom we did an interview with last time out east) and Doug Elliot of K-Rock in Kingston. Incidentally, we’ll be playing K-Rock’s THE K-ROCK PARTY CRUISE down the St. Lawrence River on June 30th, my birthday. Helix played this gig last year and it was a total blast. This year it plans to be even more fun as the weather will be much warmer (we played in April last year!).

AND MORE PUBLICITY...
Last week Brent, Kaleb, and myself went to KOOL FM in Kitchener for an interview during early morning drive time. From there it was back to London to be filmed playing Vagabond Bones for The London Free Press. The video of us playing was streamed live over the internet and then linked to a lengthly article on the three of us playing an acoustic set for Wellspring London at the London Music Club on February 25th . This week Janice Zolf of The A Channel came to the Wellspring gig and we were once again filmed playing acoustically, except this clip was far longer and ended up on the six o’clock and 11 o’clock news. We got a fantastic profile in the area now. I would argue it’s almost “saturation”. Janice also approached me about coming to Planet Helix and filming the house for a piece on it. We’ll be setting that up next week.
VAGABOND BONES
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Brent, Kaleb & Brian
Helix Warlock Guitar Contest
The Wellspring gig was well attended (they sold 600 tickets). I had Pat and Thane Silliker come out to film. Pat was the lead Canadian photographer on Michael Moore’s movie “Sicko”. Thane is an amateur photographer who put together my two Christmas videos for Youtube. This summer Thane is traveling by motorcycle to Labrador with Derek Aubry of BOB FM and they’re going to film their trip. Thane also brought along a very cool camera that clipped onto the end of Kaleb’s guitar and filmed down the neck.

The acoustic set was a first for us. Now that we’ve done it once we know what we have to do if we decide somewhere down the line that we want to film a DVD or record a CD of this.

NEW GUITAR CONTEST
Over the past six months I’ve run two Helix guitar give-away contests with the help of B.C. RICH guitars. We gave away two autographed B.C. Rich Warlock guitars, the value of each being around $1,000.00. One was given away through the Planet Helix website and the other through Dee Snider’s House of Hair website. The contest was so popular that I’ve decided to run it again. This time there will be two contests...

CONTEST NUMBER ONE: This contest will be ONLY for fans who come out to see us during our Western Canadian Tour. For everyone that comes to the show and buys a Vagabond Bones CD, their name will be entered to win the B.C. Rich WARLOCK Guitar. Anyone who buys a Vagabond Bones CD and a Vagabond Bones T-Shirt is given three chances to win. We’re only playing seven dates on the tour, so if you figure we’ll sell 25 CDs/night, that’s only 175 entries to win the guitar. Pretty good odds, I’d say. Even with the three for one deal (if you buy the shirt as well) chances are still around the one in three hundred. BETTER THAN A KICK IN THE HEAD WITH A CEMENT MUKLUK!!!!!!!

Contest winner to be announced on April 12th , the day after the tour finishes. We will be taking the guitar with us out west so fans can see it. It will be mailed to the winner from out there as well.

CONTEST NUMBER TWO: Will be for anyone who buys a Vagabond Bones CD through either eBay, Planet Helix, or at any of the other dates outside of the Western Canadian Tour. Same three for one deal on buying T-Shirt plus a CD. Contest winner to be announced at the end of the night on the K-Rock Boat Cruise.