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February 18, 2012 16:08
WHEN ALL (AND I MEAN ALL) ELSE FAILS, GO BACK AND START AGAIN
Right now I’ve just introduced the soon-to-be sensation digital release craze that is gonna make some people way stoked! I am so busy I have no time so please remember this.
TUESDAY TWOSIES for $2.22! Exclusive digital releases via Bandcamp
Twosies: not an A side, nor a B side… just a good time for everyone who enjoys cool stuff and then getting twice the stuff!!!anniehardy.bandcamp.com
xoxoxo
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August 25, 2011 12:03
P.S.
Does anyone know how to make a Giant Drag app? If so, please email and or hit up AnnieHardyParty.com and click on the ask me a question thing!
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August 25, 2011 07:22
Happy Birthday Dad!
And happy quarterly website update to you all! Why are there so many websites to talk at people/to myself on? It really makes it harder to post on this, the official website where people should probably go to hear news, when I can just sign in to the new website to share information and other multi-media treats with people elsewhere and bonus, elsewhere has an app for my iPhone and more bonus it’ll also post it to my Twitter, Facebox, Tumblr, Barfbucket, Snuggletug, PearlJizz, etc. accounts! It sure makes these old fashioned domain name websites that are only for one band (that I always get complaints about not being updated) seem almost boring but I like it. Things are simple yet classy (except for most of my news posts) and old fashioned here at GiantDrag.com. Much like time stood and stands still, while behind the scenes much is being done… Perhaps so much that it actually keeps me from posting News updates? Yes, the answer is yes, it’s hard cuz I can’t even remember how I got here in the first place and I have 20 tabs of other website and 1400+ unread emails going on behind this page, so maybe if you are one of these people who thinks I do nothing I should give you some links!
But first let me say FUDGE!!! THANK YOU EVERYONE WHO HAS BEEN SENDING MY ASS ITEMS FROM MY AMAZON.COM WISHLIST!!! It never ceases to astound, amaze and humble me that people still give a shit about me and my songs enough to keep supporting the making of more! I hope I can succeed to amaze and astound you with GD’s output for years to come. Currently I’m working on building myself a sweet little home studio so I can make songs and give them to you for free while the classic EP’s and LP’s go through the process of being manufactured and prepped for release dates through distribution companies. I plan to bust out a cover song here (well, on a different website, Micah is all smart so I only know how to update the news section) real soon, just for fun and also to show gradual improvement as I master the art of the home recording. I have so many things to tell you and I know it’s impossible so please check out one of these websites, sorry you’ll have to copy and paste:www.AnnieHardyParty.com -my blog that I update pretty often which also goes to my Twitter & every other news now website
www.YouTube.com/AnnieHardy
I just started a new we series called In Bed With Giant Drag, I answer your questions that come in via websites on this show so if you have a question, go to the first link! I figured this would save me some time and unread emails (I was kinda wrong since I had to learn to use iMovie) I also have a contest going to see who can make my favorite video (even if you’re letting people steal my music at least put more than one picture up while the song plays, c’mon!) and then every month I will pick my favorite Giant Drag video and send that person a treat!Amazon.com where you can find the crazy shit I’m wishing for, just enter my email address (annie at giant drag dot com) and you will get a glimpse into my brain and the future.
www.GiantDrag.Posterous.com is slowly willing it’s way to life…it’s got contributors such as Rene, Giant Drag’s new intern (Audrey got all grown up and professional)
Between those websites you can get to every other website that I even think about going to.
I’ll try to post here more often but just incase I don’t, check out the fall finale episode of Pretty Little Liars on ABC Family. It airs in late September & is so exciting it hurts me to think about… seriously, I am in pain right now. I love this show and plan on watching it with Charlie and her 7 kittens draped all over me, it’s going to be a dream come true, just the trifecta of kittens, my favorite show and the prospect of watching TV for an hour without guilt makes my year! I’ll be able to die and then somehow text 4 of my friends as I threaten their lives and well-being!
Until next time
-A -
June 02, 2011 12:48
READ THIS ARTICLE NOW!!!
My previous post was a cause for worry, you should worry about this shit. Yeah I’m skinny, I’m broke cuz my record isn’t out. I eat most days (right before I sleep so I don’t burn calories) thanks to the kindness of others.That will change real soon…
http://thequietus.com/articles/06318-how-the-music-industry-is-killing-music-and-blaming-the-fans
let me say I love my fans, I know a lot of them by name due to their radicalness. But if you think I’d rather be doing this than eating myself to sleep you are the tripping party!
go to www.AnnieHardyParty.com & scroll down past the answered questions for an easier link. & longer explanation.
goodnight,
xo annie
giant drag
the icarus Linse -
May 03, 2011 07:42
What's the hold up? I'll tell you in a late night rant about "the biz" sponsored by insomnia & stress
I know it’s been almost a year since that last post. Here’s what happened:
I had two hard drives crash and one phone die (hence the lack of updates, I lost everything)
we recorded, mixed and mastered our 2nd full length album (finally!) so that’s done & rad…if only that’s all that needed to happen. That was the fun part, we are now in the business phase (i.e. deciding how the record should come out, there are a lot more avenues now that the record labels are dying a slow death and everything is merging with everything while uninformed artists sign 360 deals that take money from merch and publishing which, in my opinion, shouldn’t be touched by anyone except the artist who is on the road selling that merch and at home writing those songs) basically everything is changing every day because the old ways and jobs are no longer that relevant, thanks to the internet and people who don’t buy records because they can buy or steal them off a website a bunch of people have been dropped (like us, we got signed at the beginning of the end and dropped just in time to not put out a super shitty record) from major labels, the people who signed them to that label got fired and heads of record labels are now on American Idol. It’s a new era, if you’re not Lady Gaga, an Eminem, U2 or a No Doubt then you’re probably on an indie label, unsigned or in the same boat as us, or at least a similar boat (probably one with food in it because you have a job and “life skills” like Micah) lucky for us we have really awesome fans and friends who have made it possible to make a record, thee record and not apply for a job at the local strip club… yet. Star Gardens is just around the corner both physically and metaphorically, and you continue to send what you can into the Giant Drag Relief Fund paypal button thing thats located on this website, thank you guys so much- you have no idea how much you have helped not just me but this whole recording process, I really wouldn’t have survived the last few years without your help. Our choices are the following: distro deal where we have a company pay to manufacture the physical record, put it out, pay for a PR company to work the record cycle but no money for living expenses or to pay for touring which makes it difficult to get anywhere that’s not in Californiavan rental & motels for the US, Flights w/extra luggage fee’s for my guitar and Micah’s ($50 minimum overweight fee each way synth/drum hardware case) van rental, driver and/or tour manager & gear (amp’s & drum set) rental for overseasadd expensive gas prices, to both those and we are already in the red and haven’t even packed yet! Or we sign to an indie label who will pay for what the distribution company will, plus some of the touring as they see fit but we may or may not get living expenses and they will take at least some percentage of our masters, the songs I write in my bedroom, bring to Micah to finish and then record for a release.For example our former record label, although somewhat indie with the best of intentions, was still a subsidiary of Universal Music Group/Interscope Records- they own the master recordings of everything we have recorded up until being dropped, so everything except the Swan Song EP & we are legally bound to a contract saying we are not allowed to re-record those songs so if someone wants to license a song our A&R person and her boss no longer work there so they contact some guy & ask to use our song for a certain amount of money-a fee for the owner of the masters (them) and a fee for the publisher aka writer of the song(us). But all this illegal downloading has had an effect on the entire entertainment business and the trickle down effect causes the artist to still get screwed in some hole at some point. Do you enjoy downloading movie’s that are still in theatre’s? Well now those movie’s that wanted to license one of our songs only have the budget to offer us half the amount they would have 5 years ago (deduct half that money that goes to the owner of our master’s and give 15% to our manager and 5% to our lawyer then split that in half and we can both afford a trip to Disneyland, maybe with a park-hopper pass to California Disney if we’re lucky) and these opportunities are rare but they’re still awesome & I welcome them with very open arms. “Selling out” doesn’t exist anymore because there’s not much to sell and even less people willing to buy. Notice how some magazines no longer exist? Even Rolling Stone shrunk to the size of every other magazine? Yeah, thats the trickle. While I’m on the topic, people think when you’re in a magazine you get paid for that but unless you’re a big celebrity telling People Mag about some shit and letting them shoot pictures of your new baby, you get nothing. In fact, you pay a PR person to get your CD in the hands of those people in hopes they will review it so really you paid to make that happen with money and/or your own blood, sweat and tears. This career, any creative entertainment business career is hard fuckin work and amazing too, it’s a one in a million shot that we got. To be clear I’m not talking shit on any major label, I am grateful that we got to be on Interscope for as long as we did, I love our old A&R person & the label she created, it was great but now we have to find somewhere else to go. And the process is slow, in this day and age of instant internet gratification we are lucky to have such patient fans that still care and won’t leave me alone about the new record, I love it. Once we choose how to release our album we have to do artwork, someone else will do the layout then we use that artwork to inspire new merch (we have a t-shirt design coming very soon) then Micah has to re-do this website to match. Once it’s all done there’s a 3 month set-up period where the PR people send the record out for reviews & we play shows to say “hi, we are back (although we never left)! and we are about to put out a new record”
Meanwhile I personally will have no income unless I constantly sell shit on eBay or something similar. Shows make a little money, merch makes money if we have some… it’s a struggle and sometimes I want to give up but I have too many health problems to be a stripper, I’d fall off the pole and hurt myself but just like when I got dropped and didn’t want to play music anymore because of certain words said by a certain producer who The Strokes made a record with and then canned and produced themselves (yeah!) and all the weird shit happening at that time, I had fans and friends who were there to keep me from giving up on myself and my dreams. Joe Cardamone, my best friend (and business partner who I share a studio with now and a record label- notice the Roar Scratch logo on the Swan Song EP- that has no money but we have supportive friends like Mickey Madden who believes in us enough to fill in the gaps cuz donations alone weren’t enough to make the record I wanted that wasn’t major label-y enough at the time) who has been there since day one is always there for me, Micah, my musical life partner & longtime closest friend who has quit & returned to the band twice but always came to every show with every different line up & always been a true friend. My amazing intern turned friend Audrey Marshall who kept me from being homeless by putting up the donation button, Amy Chance, amazing make-up artist/long time best friend and her whole dang family! Her husband Shaun Lopez who produced our “cracking up” cover and the Deftones album w/“Pink Cellphone” that made some people hate me (sorry, I was only joking), her son Dakota who is 16 & is now a member of Giant Drag when he’s legally allowed to be & isn’t busy being a teenager, not to mention her amazing parents- and mine and Micah’s family…That’s a whole lotta loving family that I couldn’t imagine not having in my life, there are other amazing friends & fans (I’ll save it for the thank you section of the album) that cancel out the negative things about this business & help keep me on the right track. If it weren’t for these people I don’t know where I’d be. I hope this album is worth the wait. It’s different but it’s exactly what I wanted from the start & took a lot of obstacles to get past (seriously A LOT of obstacles, hurdles, land mines, epic battles,etc) but I get by with a lot of help from my friends. I don’t get high with a little help from my friends though. So ends my Beatles outro & the longest News post EVER. BTW we are playing a festival in Ventura June 4th & then going to Thailand to play a show later that month.I’m going to go eat a poverty sandwich and love every bite.
XOXO Annie -
May 27, 2010 10:30
Don't go thinkin' we're up to nothing
Yesterday we did a great photo shoot for album cover/press photos. Thanks so much to everyone who helped. Amy Chance & Jay (the owner of Good Form, the sickest salon ever) really did a number on making my hair and face look much better than it did before they got there. Andrew Gura took some sweet shots.
Due to fucked up beyond belief circumstances we are losing a lot of money and having to spend a lot on building a new studio. Remember the old Donation button? I hate to ask for more when you’ve already helped get this album recorded. We are in the middle of mixing and just got reamed. But the album is 3/4 done and will be finished if it kills me, which it might, and I don’t mind.
There are a couple items on eBay for you to peruse. Email any special requests.
http://is.gd/cr27J
Thanks so much for sticking with us. More good news to come. Shows impending.
XOXO Annie
just incase that link was wonky you can copy and paste this http://myworld.ebay.com/giantdragstore
<3 -
March 16, 2010 21:28
Party Out West MusiCares Benefit
We’re playing the MusiCares Benefit with a ton of other bands on March 28th.
Tickets available at Ticketweb
the Standells
the Zeros
Peter Case
Giant Drag
Icarus Line
Pierced Arrows
Lullabye Arkestra
Ty Segall
and many more.