I’d like to think 2009 is off to a good start. We have a new president, new hope, and really weird Texas weather.

Things that I am excited about this year:
Ledaswan is still in the beginning stages of the new album. We have most of the drums done. Bass and guitar is done on only 3 songs. We have started vocals for 1 song so far. We should have at least 2 new songs done by SXSW. We will be bringing those with us to hand out to people. We are looking at June for a release date. Ledaswan will be playing during SXSW at a separate festival called Texas Rock Fest. We will be around the whole time trying to catch some of the great acts. Especially some of the day shows.

We just received the brand spanking new mix of “Where Birds Go”. The original version appeared on Local 782 compilation released last year and we had mixed it ourselves. We recut some of the vocals and sent it off to Matt Brown of Trespassers William who remixed and mastered it for us. It is now a whole new beast. The new mix sounds amazing. You will see this version on our new album as well as on a compilation called Staring at the Sun Vol. 6 put together by Terry Anderson. I believe this comes out in March as well. Be on the lookout for that as from what I understand it will have some great SA bands on it. Terry told me who some of them are, but I was drunk and can’t recall for sure.

Our song Closure will also be on a new compilation by Local 782 upcoming this year. We will have more details on that soon.
Airport Goodbye Studios has also been recording SA girl punk band Heather Go Psycho. We cut 4 songs recently and are about to cut another 4. You should be seeing a full length sometime this year. The song Carousel will also be on the upcoming Local 782 compilation. You can preview the song on the girls myspace

So I have been attending and helping out the newly forming San Antonio Music Coalition. We wanted this to be a forum for musicians to be able to get together and work together to help make our music scene better. I as a musician am tired of dealing with promoters, club owners and other bands that don’t come through with their part of the bargain when we fulfill ours. We have never really had a problem with us getting paid (although a lot of bands do). Every band that I have been in (including Ledaswan) works really hard. We do a lot of promotion and try to get as much press as possible for every show we play. We are not ones to just get on a show and post once on Myspace the day of the show. That is not promotion. I don’t even know what you would call that. It’s even less than laziness, and if thats your band, then you pretty much deserve not getting paid and no one coming to see you. I told someone recently, if you are not willing to work at it and give it over 100% , then maybe you should ask yourself is this really what you want to be doing. That means, not only internet promotion, but handing out flyers, putting up posters, putting out CD singles, etc…You will sleep less because of it and it may affect your day job (staying out till 2am when you have to work at 8am). But they call it paying your dues for a reason.

When you first start your band and play your first show all your friends come out and you have this great crowd. But your friends will only be there for the first couple shows and then they will show up sporadically, so you can’t depend on them. If you do, then you will find yourself playing shows with not many people there. This is why promotion is so important. You can have the best music, but people cannot know to come see you if they have never heard of you. When you win over a music fan and they really like your music, the next time they come they are most likely to bring at least one friend and that’s when you start growing your fan base. I like to say that my band has grown our fan base one person at a time. Most of my friends don’t really come out to our shows that often. They come out when they can, they’ve seen us so many times I guess. Usually we are focused on keeping the crowds we do have and gaining at least one more fan each time.

You can now purchase Ledaswan’s new cd “Verse of Truth Trash and Beauty” at the following stores:

Hogwild Records,
1824 N Main Ave
San Antonio, TX 78212
(210) 733-5354

Music Town
4714 Broadway St
San Antonio, TX 78209
(210) 826-2737

Please visit and support these locally owned stores. These are probably the last of the Mom and Pop music stores left in San Antonio. Our album is available there as of tonight for the low price of $7.00