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UK Tour '98
Volume 2, Issue 2 - September '98
Dean Friedman Live! In Concert
UK/IRELAND TOUR '98
It's booked. Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales. Beginning October 21st in Waterford, Ireland and finishing up December 6th in Southampton, UK, I'll be performing 32 solo concerts in all, throughout the UK and Ireland,
…doing whatever it is I do, night after night, in beautiful old theatres, in small intimate clubs, driving from gig to gig and from radio interview to radio interview. Getting up there on stage and singing these strange, peculiar songs about friends and family, thousands of miles from where those stories were born. And always a little surprised - but grateful - that anyone in these parts gives two hoots (owl slang) about an indoor waterfall in Paramus, NJ or if I saw Lisa, or what the coffee cup had to say, or if that cute little waitress behind the counter is quite as innocent as she appears to be (not any more apparently).
Anyway, I came to the UK to play, and that's what I plan to do. I hope you'll come and listen. (And I really hope you'll bring lots of friends)
[note: For those of you outside the UK/IRELAND, suffering from a lack of frequent flyer miles, I do expect to do some US dates in the spring of '99. I'll keep you posted. But just because you can't come to the UK/IRELAND gigs doesn't mean you have to stop reading this email. Who know's? I might have something to ask of you towards the end of this rant. (hint, hint)]
The new album has been out a few months. And, while it hasn't raced to the
top of the charts, selling millions of copies, it's something I'm very proud of.
And the consistent feedback I've gotten from people like yourselves is
that I did a good job. (Actually, according to your email, you think it's
terrific, amazing, a masterpiece, my best work yet, etc… Hey, I'm not
arguing.)
So, all the waiting, all the work, all the crazy shit I've had to deal with to get this record made… it's been worth it. It's not over though. There's one more little thing I need to accomplish before I head back home to America.
I'd like to sell these concerts out. (C'mon, Dean, be serious.)
I am being serious. I can't do it without your help, though. I don't have a
huge promotion budget. I don't get airplay on most of the commercial FM
stations. I'm considered too uncool for most national TV spots. (Imagine that!
And here I thought I was the epitome of sheer coolness.) The point is, at this
stage of the game, the most potent weapon in my marketing arsenal is YOU! That's
right. Now, don't get all fidgety and nervous. It's true, though. There are
about 1,000 names on my email list, another 4,000 on my snailmail list,
together, you represent my core audience. As I'm sure is obvious, this list
means a lot to me because, at the end of the day, it's the one and only
guaranteed way I have of communicating directly with my listening audience.
That's why you've kept getting these strange meanderings through the years. As
long as I can reach you directly I don't have to rely solely on some record
company or radio station or TV producer or magazine editor or reviewer or agent
or promoter or manager
to decide whether or not I'm allowed to be a musician.
There's only one problem. 5,000 people might sound like a lot of people -
well, actually it is a lot of people if they were all standing around in my
living room at the same time, nibbling cocktail franks - what I mean is, in
order to
make this whole exercise viable, so that I can tour again next year, and so that
I don't have to wait another 17 years before recording the next album… I need
to expand the mailing list. Make sense?
So, here's the plan:
Invite your friends.
That's it. That's the plan. Clever, huh? Succinct too. I bet you wish you'd thought of it yourself. Hey, what can I say? That's why I get the big bucks. (Yeah, right.) No, really. That's the plan. Just invite your friends. All of them. Call 'em up on the phone. Email them.
Hey wait a minute? Wait just a gosh darned minute. (sorry, I slip into my
Paramus, NJ vernacular when I get excited) I just may have something there. O.K.
What do you think of this? Tell me if it sounds too crazy. Here
goes:
There are close to 1,000 of you reading this right now. If each of you sent a
simple cover letter to your own email lists, mentioning how you feel about the
music, especially the new album "Songs for Grownups", and mentioning
the upcoming UK tour then adding a link to my website, I figure it might help to
promote the tour and expand the mailing list.
It might go something like this… Dear "So and So", I don't normally do this kind of thing but I'm sending this email to tell you about a new album by one of my favorite artists whose songs are pretty good and his singing is not half bad, and he's about to embark on a 32 city UK/IRELAND tour in the fall and I don't know how but he convinced me to send this email to all my friends and now I'm wondering whether it was really such a good idea in the first place, but just in case you're curious here's the link to his website http://deanfriedman.com etc…
Anyway, something along those lines. Sort of a Deano-Email-Chain-Letter. Well, maybe this is a stupid idea, and it won't work at all, but I thought I'd run it by you to see what you think.
Of course, what if you don't have friends? Well, then just go out and make some! That's right, just walk up to the next person you seen in the street and ask them something innocuous, like, "Hey, do you know where the nearest tube station is, and by the way, did you know that Dean Friedman is playing LIVE! In Concert next week at the local Arts Centre? Wanna go?"
You get the idea.
So, anyway, that's my plan. I hope you like it. I thought it would be a lot more interesting than running lots of boring full page ads in the nationals. (cheaper too.)
Well, that's all for now. I've only got 30 days to learn the words to new songs like Sandy and Hob-Nobbin' and to remember the words to the early stuff like Lydia and Ariel and what's that song about that girl Lisa always stumbling off a cliff?
Take care everybody. As always, thanks for listening.
See you at the gigs!
Dean
dean@deanfriedman.com
http://www.deanfriedman.com
Concerts, Inc. Present
Dean Friedman - Live! In Concert 1998
[NOTE: PAST DATES This is an old itinerary from 1998]
OCTOBER
21 Waterford Garter Lane 051 855038
23 Dublin Vicar St. 01454 6656
24 Castlebar The Traveller's Friend 049 23111
25 Belfast The Waterfront 01232 334455
26 Galway Roisin Dubh 091 586540
27 Cork The Lobby 021 311113
NOVEMBER
02 Liverpool Neptune Theatre 0151 709 7844
04 Stoke Riddle's Music Bar 01782 844438
06 Aylesbury Civic Centre 01296 585527
07 Leeds City Varieties Music Hall 0113 243 0808
08 Bath The Pump Room 01225 463362
09 Chester Telfords Warehouse 01244 390090
10 Cambridge The Boat Race 01223 508533
11 Croydon Ashcroft Theatre 0181 688 9291
12 Cleethorpes Winter Gardens 01472 349222
13 Glasgow Mitchell Theatre 0141 287 5511
14 Newark Palace Theatre 01636 671156
15 Edinburgh Queens Hall 0131 667 7776
17 Margate Theatre Royal 01843 293877
18 Falmouth Arts Centre 01326 212300
19 Barnstable N. Devon College New Theatre 01271 388120
21 Ryde, IoW Ryde Theatre 01983 568099
22 Christchurch The Regent Centre 01202 499148
23 Holmfirth The Picturedrome 01484 688552
24 Manchester Royal North.College of Music 0161 907 5278
25 Leicester The Guildhall 0116 253 2569
26 Birmingham Alexandra Theatre 0121 643 1231
27 Brighton Pavilion Theatre 01273 709709
28 Bridgend Recreation Centre 01656 657491
29 London Camden Dingwalls 0181 387 9239
DECEMBER
02 St. Albans The Horn Reborn 01727 844627
03 Guisborough Arc Arts Centre 01642 611625
04 South Shields The Cellar 0191-454-4415
06 Southampton The Brook 01703 555366
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