#1

Last night I went over to James Pergollati's house (he's the singer in Down to Earth) because he and I were going to be interviewed, live on the air, by DJ Hardcore Jeff of JAAP Radio. They are and independent, internet based radio station and are syndicated in some other markets around the country.

At 9 pm last night we called in to the radio station and were interviewed. The interview went great. Basic questions like how did the band start? How did you start playing music/guitar? Who are your influences? What are your goals? Etc. etc. etc. Somewhere in the middle of all the questions the DJ let a little piece of news slip that neither James nor I were aware of. We did, obviously, know the station had been playing our song, 20 Shades of Grey, in heavy rotation. We also have been posting bulletins on My Space asking folks to call the station to request us.

What we didn't know, until DJ Jeff told us, was that 20 Shades is currently the number one requested song on JAAP Radio!

I'm going to let that sink in a bit.....

Down to Earth.... my band.... the one that I play guitar for.... has the #1 most requested song on JAAP Radio.

Now I know this is a small independent station. I know this is a relatively small market even if it is a syndicated station. I know that this doesn't really mean that much in the big picture of things. I know this is only one step of many. Doesn't matter! Think about it like this... this is only one station, syndicated in 4 or 5 other markets. If the song, as well as any proceeding songs, does well, other stations are likely to pick up the song(s). The more markets the song gets to the better the chance of it doing well. Obviously, things could go the other way and tank completely. For now, with one song doing so well I'm looking to the positive. The band just needs to keep working hard and keep doing what we are doing.

One cool thing is that with a song--and more to come--on the air... the band gets royalty checks every quarter. The more markets we can get into... the bigger the checks. It's just a small start for now. Hey, this band is only 6 months old. Not bad!

Ciao,
Mark.