Entire Swath catalog (finally) now available on iTunes and other online stores

FINALLY….

Along with being available in CD format, our new album, “Confluence”, is now available via download at iTunes (U.S. and Canada), Amazon, Napster and Rhapsody.

Our first album, “A Bygone Era” and our first one-song demo, “True Position”, are available, too.

Like every other tune at the stores, pricing should be $0.99 per song (though we hope you’ll download the full albums rather than just single songs since we wrote, recorded and released the tunes a certain way to create a certain whole effect).

It was a lot more of a hassle than we thought to get these up (see Tunecore Trouble post 1 and post 2) but hopefully, having downloads available will be a lot easier for people who want to listen to their favorite Swath right away.

However, if you’re like me and still like the old-fashioned-ness of holding an actual CD with cover art in your hands, please contact us at bijoydatta@yahoo.com to place an order.

Update On TuneCore Troubles (after one of their founders responds to this blog)

As I noted at the end of the last post about our TuneCore troubles, TuneCore puts a great deal of effort into scouring the web to see where they might have customer service or other reputation issues.

That point was proven when, within 14 hours of me posting this critique, I received a personal email from one of TuneCore’s founders, Peter Wells, apologizing for our bad experience with his company.

I appreciate Peter taking responsibility, offering his apology and committing to get it fixed (though I’m still disappointed that it took making our complaints searchable on the web for them to react. That’s kind of like a politician introducing legislation after something bad happens.)

So far, “Confluence” still is not up on iTunes USA – but it’s only been around 30 hours since Peter emailed.

We’ll keep this blog updated with news on how things work out….

TuneCore Review: Don’t Use TuneCore

Along with the release of “Confluence” on CD in late January, we were really excited to also be releasing our entire catalog on iTunes and other online stores for the first time.

To get the new album, as well as our first album, “A Bygone Era”, and our demo, “True Position”, online, we decided to use an online vendor called TuneCore.

We uploaded all the necessary files and paid them up-front back on January 9, 2009, with an agreement to get the music up on iTunes USA, iTunes Canada, Amazon.com, Napster.com and Rhapsody.com.

TuneCore‘s website says that it takes 4-6 weeks for the music to go live. That’s awhile to process but understandable enough.

We were happily surprised to see our disography go live within a few days. Almost.

The one thing that hasn’t gone live is “Confluence” on iTunes USA. The most important album for us on the most popular online download site.

Boo, TuneCore.

Since TuneCore did say it would take 4-6 weeks, we gave them the benefit of the doubt and waited until their drop deadline of February 21. Still nothing.

So we emailed them. Within 48 hours, they responded and said they’d look into it and get back to us. But then we heard……..nothing.

A week later we emailed again. They didn’t even bother responding this time.

Another week later. No response again.

So here we sit two months after they happily took our money – and the new album isn’t up on iTunes and TuneCore don’t respond to customer support requests.

Our advice to all musicians out there looking to get your music online: Don’t use TuneCore.

(One other sidenote: TuneCore seems to do well trolling the web to get on message boards that are asking about their services to make sure they look good. I just wish they put as much effort into actually serving paying customers….)

Reporting Back After Last Week’s CD Release

We finally released our new album, “Confluence”, at last Saturday night’s show at Fitzie’s Irish Pub in Binghamton.

Thanks to everyone who came out and double-thanks to the 20 or so of you who bought CDs.

The night got off to a late start with The Jigawatts not going on until around 10:45 PM. They brought the energy and the old-school punk pretty well though. And they did a great cover of Black Flag’s “Wasted” so that always scores points with us.

Dance-A-Tron (Kevin’s other band) went on around 11:20 PM and delivered, as usual, a brutally fast and furious set. Their new album is out now, too. Contact them to get a copy.

Call For Backup followed next, and then we finally got to roll into our set after 1 AM. I hate to sound old and cranky, but that’s pretty late for us old fogies these days.

That being said, we had  a great time tearing through our intentionally short set…only to get called back up to play two additional songs (we went with “True Position” and “Kinetic Momentum”).

We appreciate all the support and hope anyone reading this will help us out, too, by picking up our new CD at future shows or by emailing bijoydatta@yahoo.com.

New CDs Have Arrived

I got home from work last night and was happy to find that our new CDs have actually arrived. I was starting to get unnecessarily worried that they wouldn’t get here in time for the Album Release Show on Saturday at Fitzie’s Irish Pub in Binghamton.

Boxes and boxes of "Confluence" make me happy....

We’ll be selling the new album, “Confluence”, for $5 at shows (with the option of a special deal to get the new CD plus our first CD, “A Bygone Era”, for just $7 total).

Mail orders can be placed for $6 for “Confluence” or $8.50 for both CDs by emailing bijoydatta@yahoo.com.

New Album Coming Out This Month

We’re happy to finally announce that our new album, “Confluence”, will be released later this month.

The six song, 40-minute CD will first be available to buy at our show on Saturday, January 31, at Fitzie’s Irish Pub in Binghamton, NY (show starts at 9 PM and the Jigawatts and one TBD band will also be playing).

We started recording work on “Confluence” way back in March 2008 so, after almost a year of toiling away at it, we’re anxious to finally get it out for people to hear.

We hope you’ll come to the show or contact us ahead of time to pre-order it. To pre-order, please email Bijoy at bijoydatta@yahoo.com.

If you want to check out what the record will sound like, please visit our Myspace page, where you can download a few live demo versions of tracks on “Confluence”.