FINAL THOUGHTS ON 2008
- SHARE:
2008 started with such un-suredness for By Blood Alone, but ended with things looking quite bright. Obviously Cruella’s cancer battle was the major player in this, and while in Jan she was doing quite well and finishing up her treatments, the future of the band seemed less clear. No, we were not planning on breaking up or anything like that, but we had been under the radar for so long and were not sure how our new material would be received. We hadn’t debuted that much new material since our very first show back in 2004. Plus, we weren’t sure what our next moves would be, since there’s only so far one can go in the Portland music scene. (a great scene, but Portland and Maine are just not all that large population-wise). Plus, it’s not like we play music that’s easily consumed by the masses. Seas of Blood was released in Oct 2007, so by early 2008 reviews were beginning to trickle in. After an initial burst of negativity (obviously reviewers who just spun it once and bashed out an opinion) there was a surprising amount of positivity from literally all over the world. Critics commented on our distinctive and original sound, and referred to us as promising. In the spring, we actually hired a publicist to work our disc in the UK and Europe. Nicky did a great job and we look forward to him handling our next disc as well. On the live front, our first post cancer hiatus show went over great, as did the material. The rest of the summer had us gigging steadily, some shows went great, some not, but on the whole it was great fun, and good for our perspective. We wrapped the live schedule up with some gigs for WCYY at xmas time. Considering how un-radiofriendly we are, the folks at WCYY have been really good to us and given us some great opportunities. There are a lot of people who have been a huge help to the band over the past year: friends and family, uber-fans, critics, radio people, club promoters and staff – just too many to list. Some of you we’ve had the chance to thank in person, others unfortunately not. But please know that we realize we could not do what we do without you, and you efforts are very much appreciated. So, i’ve come up with a new analogy as to where By Blood Alone fits (or maybe wants to fit) in the grand scheme of musical things – I call it the Dream Theater analogy: Dream Theater is the biggest name in Progressive Rock even though they are not the biggest band in their hometown of Long Island NY. While Dream Theater is not personal fave of mine, I feel this mode of thinking fits. Because of the sort of music we play, there’s only so far we can go in the local music scene. It would be nice to locally be as big as (local biggies) Twisted Roots or Dead Season, but there are just not that many prog rock fans here in maine (or in any local scene for that matter.) But now that we’ve made some noise in the international prog community, I can see where we fit and where our appeal lies. Now it’s on to 2009.