Poltergeist Zeit

For those who still remember, we had a gig in Sofia some weeks ago and it was a blast. The audience interactions and reactions really kept the mood up. We couldn't ask for more. As much as we'd like to believe it was all about us, we know we have quite a few people to thank. Starting from Mono & Stereos for the great warm-up and collegial attitude backstage. (Still waiting on Mono to pass by the rehearsal room to check out the semi-hollow Gibsons collection) Then our House of ALI honorary members, i.e. Stefo for the sound, Mitko and his team for the stage and light design (but also so much more - hard to list), and our dear Deni, Moni and the Projector Plus crew for taking the administrative and PR load off of our shoulders once again. One special mention to Kalo who came to see ALI play live for the first time as an audience member and for sharing honest, hugely useful and actionable feedback that we have read and re-read multiple times, treating it as a scarce piece of a precious thought mineral.

Speaking of Moni - she's off to Berkley end of summer. We're hugely proud of her achievement and being able to contribute to making it happen! We'll squeeze what we can from her talent while she's still available and before she comes back all important.

A poltergeist has settled in at the Red Room, our rehearsal space. It jumps from one piece of equipment to the next. It's the only logical explanation for what's been happening - amps playing at low volumes, crackles in cables, strange software glitches, missing drum pieces. (S)he's a friendly and playful poltergeist as ultimately all problems get fixed with a few minutes of clueless investigation. We'll settle for that. Makes life interesting and unexpected. No need for exorcism yet, thanks for asking. Good news from the Red Room is that Milenski finally got his expression pedal delivered. We're suspecting a camouflaged speedboat made it through Hormuz for Milenski's pleasure. Shout out to the anonymous boat captain!

We've got gigs lined up. Sofia, Burgas, Varna, Plovdiv. From July 2nd to 17th. We were close to squeezing in a recording session at a very special location, but Finland got involved. We'll tell that story some other time. You can check out exact dates and locations for each gig on our social media or BandsInTown. The plan is to get to top shape for the PhilGood Festival opening show in peak summer heat. We'd love to see you there, but would understand if you choose to prioritize your health instead...

After the gig and the follow-up, we refocused on new material. Two new songs we had early-early demos for and tried a few playthroughs recently. Working titles are Running Man & Top of Hell. Since it's been almost a month, a lot of development steps have happened and there's some chance we'll be performing one or both live in July. Apart from the main workstream, there's some piano jams being thrown about with unclear goal or direction. Which I, at least, find refreshing, like a wildcard or a lottery ticket biding its time.

In through build-in-the-open spirit of the blog, here's what we can share about the gig finances in Sofia. We raised ticket prices (all prices went up in Bulgaria since the euro was introduced). We had approximately 200 people in attendance, of which 150 bought tickets. After paying the hall rental, the staff, the support band, the commissions, the advertising and other gig-related expenses - we made around 500EUR total. We pay for almost everything at lower than market rates because people understand and support the band with favors. The bright spot was the merch where it's difficult to say what the pure income was, but we broke the revenue record (old prices) by selling merch for over 800EUR. One thing that helped was the limited series of almost 30 t-shirts all but two were sold out. The others we gave away (as you may be aware). Takeaways - money is not why independent bands do what they do and merch helps. We hope this inside information helps you understand how highly appreciated every bit of support from you can be. We don't mean the money for tickets, merch and music. We mean the showing up and showing support in any shape or form. We thank you and see this as a common endeavor!

With some delay, we'd like to recognize once again our lead vocalist become one year less young a week or so ago. We'll love and cherish him even when he's fat, bold, and wrinkled. We keep our fingers crossed for the benefit of all music lovers that his voice and talent stay with him until his last breath (which I'm sure will be a high note or a stupid joke).

In other news, we're not giving up on pushing options for playing abroad. The plan is still on and some steps have been made. Very early stage still, but again - a wildcard keeping options open on all fronts. 

In Bulgarian music news, we cannot ignore the Bangaranga effect. The way DARA handled, both on stage and off, this whole still unwinding road to world-class stardom. Not an overstatement - her song hit global number #1 on iTunes several days ago. That's above Michael Jackson, Beyonce, The Chemical Brothers, etc. We're especially inspired by her standing up not just for herself, but using her platform to stand up for the much needed lifting of the entire nation's spirit. A model for others to follow, we hope. Also, on a whole different local music plane, we invite you to check out Scarlet (our producer Gogo's latest work), a group of teenagers with a representative, honest sound of today's youth. We don't often get access to their mindset and creativity, which is a shame. Here's the link.