At the beginning of the year I posed some pretty gawdy goals on this blog. The thing about goals is that they shift as situations change.

Let’s check in and see how we’re doing:

1. Obtain $10,000 in revenue for all three bands

The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad has been in the studio almost exclusively. We’ve managed to play 2 shows so far this year. These shows were both stellar (I don’t just say this about every show). We made $160 from both shows combined. These shows turned into promotional parties and we spent at least that amount of money to put them on (we give away and buy alot of shit for our fans, at this point I wouldn’t have it any other way.) So in ACTUAL revenue we gained nothing.

Wild Bonerz has managed to lock down $1500 in gigs so far. We’re super proud of this progression and have really worked out a really sweet 90 minute(+) set. We’ve revamped our description from “Bluegrass covers of pop songs” to “Old-timey cover barons.” The brand shift from bluegrass to old-timey is much more apt  Our(sub)goal for Wild Bonerz is to lock down a venue or an area of town as a recurring gig.

The Hilltop Hightops is on a brief hiatus. You can still buy our AWESOME album though. Super Galactic Space Banana will teach your kids a number of things about space, history, science, and math. But probably the best lesson it teaches is how to ROCK!(!!!!!!!!!!)

2. Finish and release The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad’s Bone Slinky!

As I mentioned, we’ve been in the studio a whole lot recently. It has taken alot of time away from the usual fucking around that we do on a daily basis. The results have been, well how can I put it, XAN-tastic! (scroll all the way down for the reference).

3. Create 30 posts specific to goal-setting for bands on this site

We are well on our way to achieving this with two minor tweaks:

a.) This site will be updated every Tuesday NO MATTER WHAT! On my calculator, that reads to be at least 52 posts a year. Periodically there will/should be additional posts, but the Tuesday post is one that you can set your watch to.

b.) Posts won’t be limited to goal-setting. I realized I don’t want to be obligated to talk about goal-setting all the time and that there are better and more helpful uses for this blog.

4. Obtain an official endorsement from Party City

This was my “wild card” goal for the year. I really don’t know how I am going to go about achieving this but I will try and see where it gets me.  It’s fun to try random shit sometimes. For example, we recently asked everyone from Benny Mardones to Tay Zonday to sing on our upcoming album (with hilarious results.)

I have made no progress on the Party City endorsement as of this point, but it seems like a good time to get to work on it.

5. Significantly build our mailing list

Sometime in January I realized that it was more rewarding, effective, and reasonable to believe that building our Facebook fan page was a better step than focusing on email marketing. It just makes sense for us to be able to interact WITH you, not just blast our bullshit AT you.

If you dig our music or blog, I’d love to get in touch with you via email. We will start to increasingly interact with our email community, but for now we are all over Facebook like sweat on a 7-11 hotdog.

This full-length album (called Izland of Crooked Houses) is a genre we like to call “Country Weirdstern.” 13 songs that fans of Ween, The Supersuckers, Johnny Cash, and Frank Zappa will thoroughly enjoy.

So here’s how it works:

1. Spend $5 on The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad’s Die Humpin!

2. Stop on over to our Facebook page, and write a one-line review of the album.

3. I’ll contact you and send you Izland of Crooked Houses for FREE.

No strings attached. If you’ve already bought Die Humpin! this applies to you as well.

Write the review and get the full album for nothing. How’s that for incentive? 

**Please Note: This will be a digital release that will be available in March of 2010.