News of The Crayon (06.02.14)

Welcome to June. June has remained one of my favorite months of the year, going back to when I was a tiny tot. My birthday is this month, along with the long-past joy of school getting out for summer. So, it's fitting that some of the activities going on with They Stole My Crayon are really ramping up here at the beginning of this most excellent month.

What the hell is up with that album preview sampler on SoundCloud?
This is a question we started asking ourselves immediately on the morning of Friday May 30. Kat called me and asked if I'd looked recently at our 3-song album preview sampler that we'd put up on SoundCloud. I said I hadn't, and recalled that about 200 people had played the file. She told me to look again... and the number had jumped to 1,200 overnight. Throughout the day it kept growing, and we knew something was mighty weird. I mean, we're good, but the numbers didn't add up. We're not trying to promote the little preview sampler in any way; we only put it out so some of our friends could get an idea of the types of music we're working on.

So, as the numbers continued to climb to 2,000... 3,000... 4,000... 5,000 plays, it could be safely said that both our curiosity and skepticism grew as the weekend went on. Finally, we got in touch with SoundCloud. They were unable to confirm anything with certainty, but for reasons that are still unbeknownst to us, it would seem that the numbers are coming from a service that promotes plays. Why? We have no idea. This could be based on some mistake they made, whoever they are (they seem to be based in South Korea, but the location is irrelevant). They probably meant to promote some other band, and accidentally picked us. Anyway, as weird as it is, it actually inspired us to put the pedal to the metal on some Crayon-related work we'd been meaning to do. It's good to be inspired. Thanks, random Korean promoters!

On Thursday May 29, this album preview had 191 plays. As of the writing of this post on June 2, it has over 7,500. Legit or not (and we know it's not), we're perfectly okay with it.

The Crayon on Facebook, and elsewhere
Per above, we decided to go ahead and launch a Facebook page for The Crayon. We actually now have Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and SoundCloud pages in addition to our web site. It's almost (but not quite) like we're an actual band at this stage. Much of this is semi-pointless for now; we won't have music to sell for months yet, and we're certainly not planning any tours or the like. But I suppose it's cool building a community of people who might enjoy our tunes, when we finally get around to finishing and releasing them.

Massive song productivity
Even before our SoundCloud numbers started making us look like the most popular new band on the planet, we'd already decided that it was time to devote some real effort toward finishing the songwriting and demo recording aspect of this album. I'm glad that we found ourselves inspired to do some much-needed work on our tunes. While these titles will be meaningless to most of you, we did some additions and new mixes on "Take The Ride" and "Some Things I Can't Say", and then did some recording and a new mix on "Blew The Dust Away". We did all that on Saturday, and on Sunday still found time to start refining "Box By The Cliff". At the moment, the as-yet-untitled Crayon album has the following tracks for sure:

Longing On
Take The Ride
Things Under Trees
Perfectly Calm
Some Things I Can’t Say
Box By The Cliff
Vendetta
Better Reasons
Blew The Dust Away

There are several others that may or may not make the cut, but I'd say the songs above are pretty safe in appearing on the album. It's getting closer, in any case.

Heading back to JTree
Joshua Tree, that is. This coming Friday, Christina, Bunny, and I are heading back to one of our favorite places on Earth. Once again, we're getting a cabin at the Desert Lily Inn, and we have great plans for the weekend that involve food, nature, and music (three things we all enjoy greatly). But moreover, we'll have some time to rest, relax, and explore some ideas with our music and plans for wrapping up the album. Can't wait!