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Those Lucky Surprises and Coincidences

50K MM: In last issue of 50K MUSIC MAG you delivered insight into your plan after the SellaBand changes. Could you please give us more details about your "new plan"? Catself: In a way, none of the main things will change. I will make a full album and the budget remains 50 K. I will need these funds to produce a full album and to be able to provide a CD for every part. But what I like about the new model is that it makes it possible to divide the funds according to my needs. Compared to what has been done earlier, I am going to spend a bigger part of the budget on promotion. I would like to do the recording in Morocco - not just because it will be more affordable to use the studio and hire musicians but because I have quite a fanbase there already. I would like to build on this connection and I am hoping for some media interest both in Morocco and in Europe when I record my album there. All believers will get get a 50% revenue share from the CDs and downloads sold through SellaBand and the sites and shops SellaBand has a selling partnership with. Additionally, for believers with 50 parts or more, I will sell their CDs at gigs. The revenue from that will be shared yearly between all these believers according to how many parts they have got. My believers get a detailed account of how I am going to do it by email. I have planned it well to make sure that each believer gets the right share at the same time regardless of when and for how much individual CDs are sold. Apart from the numbered CDs, to show my appreciation for the believers' faith in my music and for their very generous support and their patience while they wait for me to complete my budget, I have planned a special surprise for each believer. I want to keep it a surprise to the end so I will not what it is but it is something rather special that hasn't been done before. Reading believers' thoughts on SellaBand Forum gave me more insight into what is important for them and gave me an idea for one more thing: at least every month, I am going to post a blog about my progress to keep them updated. For more details, please visit my profile! 50K MM: You have played a gig in Morocco in summer this year, a quite unusual venue for European artists, I guess. How come you played there? Please tell us more about that. Catself: A lot of really great things come to me completely as a surprise. I got a message on MySpace one day, from someone I didn't know, so I thought at first it was spam. But it was an invitation to the Sun Festival in Marrakech organised by MarocK'Jeunes Association - the association of Moroccan youths. They were looking for artists to represent Finland at their festival and somehow discovered my music on MySpace. I still don't know how it happened, my MySpace profile was very small then, with just over 100 friends! Of course I accepted the invitation This turned into more of an adventure than I had expected. The flights for me and my crew were supposed to be covered by the Finnish Embassy in Morocco, but then it turned out that my Polish passport was a problem. In the end, we travelled to Morocco by car, the car broke down in southern Spain, so we continued by train and bus and on foot... in the heat of inland Spain in July. But then once we got to Morocco, all was arranged and we could relax again. The festival and our whole stay in Marrakech was an awesome experience. We really felt welcome there. The atmosphere of the festival was very positive and relaxing, so although the whole arena was filled, it didn't feel like that. I felt all the time really close to the audience. I am invited to come back next year and I am hoping to go! 50K MM: You were interviewed by Calle Lindholm for a documentary called "Sköna Människor" ("Beautiful People") broadcast in Finnish National TV this year. Home come they portrayed you? Please tell us some details. Catself: Once again, it was one of these things that started from a coincidence. I went to someone else's gig at a pub one evening. I was very tired and not in the mood at all, but he had just released an album and I thought it would be nice to go and listen to the new songs and do some cheering. A nice man and his wife sat at the same table and somehow we all started talking. He told me he was a music teacher, that he had been to Poland (where I come from), we talked a lot about music and then he asked what I did. I mentioned that I had recently given up my job to concentrate on music. He was very interested in what kind of music I made, so I gave him my self-burnt EP I had with me. He gave me a call a few months later and it turned out that actually he was a TV and radio journalist and would like to make a programme about me. 50K MM: How did you become a member of the TalentCast team? What is your job there? Catself: Johan Jongerius, the founder of TalentCast, was one of my first believers, he came across my profile on my second day on SellaBand. He invited me to join as an artist, so I uploaded my tracks. We started writing messages and quickly became good friends, and he mentioned once that it was a bit hard to get the artists on SellaBand notice the project and encourage them to sign up. I suggested help in inviting them and also help in editing some texts, and Johan invited me to join the crew. I was happy at first, but then when I thought about it, I started worrying that because I am an artist, it would put me in an uncomfortable situation. I joined anyway, mainly to help a friend, but of course as soon as I started, I enjoyed it a lot. We are all a good team and it's great to work on this together. My tasks there are creating accounts, communication with artists and other members and answering questions from anyone interested in TalentCast, handling the MySpace TalentCast mail - which swells with hundreds of messages weekly. Also, I try to get us more partnerships - since I joined, we got two new partners: the web-TV magazine diverCity and MarocK-Jeunes organisation. I was right when I was afraid that being in the crew would bring me problems as an artist. Some people thought that I was doing it for personal exposure, which is very far from the truth - TalentCast sometimes takes up as much time as a full-time job, and of course it takes away the time and energy I could use for my own promotion. It is also a bit awkward to combine two roles. Once I contacted a radio station for TalentCast, asking if they would be interested in our programme. They didn't answer my three emails, and after a while contacted me on MySpace asking for some of my tracks. I felt too uncomfortable about their not answering to contact them back and send them my music. Such situations can be awkward. Still, I don't regret I joined. Thanks to that we can now be also on MySpace, get more music and more listeners. I think the programme and the whole project is getting better all the time, and I am happy if I can contribute to that. 50K MM: And how do you balance all these things you do? Catself: Barely! I spend as much time playing and making new music as possible but quite a lot of time goes into TalentCast, SellaBand also demands everyday activity. I knew it would all take time, and that is why I waited with signing up till the time when I could really concentrate on this - I joined after I had quit my job. During the times when I do get some work (substitute teaching), I sleep three hours a night. It takes time to try to get gigs, find and contact venues, and it's incredible how much time it all takes when you are all alone, without a band or professionals helping you. So, I appreciate it very much that sometimes I get those lucky surprises and coincidences, and that I get invited to gigs - last year to Morocco, now in January I am going to play a gig with a Polish band RANOC and then in Germany - that last gig was arranged by Wildcat, who is also on SellaBand. I am trying to learn to manage things better and have enough time for everything but there is just a limited number of hours in a day. And to create songs I am happy with, I need some time and freedom to clear my head - hiking, skiing, training in the gym - something I do my best to have time for every day. I always knew everything would take work - but sometimes it seems like I should split into two or three Catselves! sellaband.com/projects/agnieszkaholm

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