Short and sweet

No, that’s not the name of a new ep. Although it could be but that would make me sweet. Which I ain’t generally.

Kia ora, it’s Billy here making honest attempts at more regularity. A quick update as to general goings on with us Teacaddies.

We’re gearing up for our two shows at Downstage Theatre in Wellington, New Zealand. You can read all about it here and book tickets etc. The dates are 28 and 29 of October 2011. We’re looking at making this quite a special presentation of our latest album All Mountains Are Men. The idea being to play the album in it’s entirety with some special guests along for the ride – filling in the cracks and filling out the sonic. If you saw our release gigs in July then this is a step up from that and if you caught our BATS show last year then this is the conclusive grown up version of that. Alas, you may not see us in our dressing gowns this time around.

Betty has been doing some writing, swift and decisive experiments in simplicity. Whilst I have been deep in the digital, tunnelling ones and zeros and causing all sorts of complications. The clash of all this is yet to be determined! But we’re hoping to sneak some time together soon in a secret new location so we can thrash it out.

As always, we’re happy to hear from you. Keen on your thoughts about the latest album especially.

Hope you’re doin’ goodly. Spring is on it’s way!

Correspondence

From the complaints department.

We don’t get many complaints, well, not many we can’t ignore. But this one made me feel bad. I’ve changed the name of the complainant in the interest of privacy and included my reply. Whaddaya do huh? Interestingly I’ve had no response, which has me wondering if what I wrote was well received or not.

And no, by posting this I’m not ‘laughing’ at this person, or any of our fans, I’m genuinely hoping that Jane is satisfied with the outcome of her letter of complaint.

Billy.

To: earlgreyrecords@yahoo.co.nz
Sent: Saturday, 13 August 2011 3:26 PM
Subject: About ”All Moutains Are Men” by Rosy Tin Teacaddy

Hello,
In a first time, I would like to apologize for the grammar mistake that I might write as English is not my first language. I had had the pleasure to see performing the group call Rosy Tin Teacaddy. I bought their first album and I was looking to get the second one which I bought this afternoon.
I am writting about the price retailled for the album ”All Moutains Are Men”: 37$NZ at ”JB Hifive”. I was a bite resilient to get it at first sight because I found it a bite expensive. My friend from Greymouth game me 35$ to get the cd for her as well, but as you can see it won’t work. Would it be possible to know the reason behind such pricy price? I do admit that the ”book case” has a lot of work on it, but people wanting to support musical talent pay to go to see them performing, keen to pay a little bite more for their cd…but 37$, are you laughing at us?!?! To get a cd is something else more than to watch a cd booklet as a ”musical therapy”!
What are other option proposed by you to get their second album at a more reasonnable price? I paid 20$NZ for their first one somewhere early May 2011; I am surprised by the gaps between both price album.
I am looking to hear from you, because I would like to be able to get one for my friend in Greymouth as well to keep this actual one in my hand for myself.
Thanks Rosy Tin Teacaddy for your music, pleasure to listen it!
Jane.
FROM:
TO:
Jane
Sunday, 14 August 2011 5:36 PM
Hi Jane,
Thanks for your email. I understand your thoughts concerning the price of our latest CD. I’ll try to explain.
There are several reasons why the album costs what it does.
- The version on CD with the booklet is a Limited Edition. There are only 500 copies in existence, once they have all sold there will be no more.
- The overheads (that’s the cost to us) to produce this album were huge. You’re right, the booklet was a very expensive thing to make.
- Our distributor (that’s the people we give the CD’s to to post out to the retail shops) didn’t want an option on a cheaper version. We also don’t make any profit per unit from the copies bought from shops. We do from ones we sell ourselves.
We have a cheaper version available, it’s only $20 and the CD comes in a very simple cardboard sleeve, however it is only available directly from us via mail order or at our live shows. We also have a digital download available for $15.
Jane, we love what we do and we wanted to make a version of our new album that would feel really special to own. That cost a lot of money to produce, our money, money that we have to make back so that we can make more albums. Unfortunately this version doesn’t suit everyone and I’m sorry if you feel that we are being greedy, or ‘laughing at you’ – I assure you we are not laughing and we are not being greedy.
It’s difficult being an independent music group with no backing from a label or corporate sponsor. We do it all ourselves, it’s hard work and not very rewarding. We are simply hoping to carry on doing what we do – and that takes the support of our fans.

To make it up to you I would like to offer you something. Below I will write 2 codes and instructions on how to use them to get download versions of the new album – for free. You could send one to your friend in Greymouth and perhaps the other to another friend?

Your friends will need to go to this web page:

http://rosytinteacaddy.bandcamp.com/yum

On this page is a box where you need to write the code into (it’s easy to copy and paste it). Then just click the button that says ‘gimme’. You’ll then be redirected to the download page.

Here are the two codes:

XXXXXXX

XXXXXXX

If this doesn’t suit you then I could send you the cheaper CD.

Thanks for taking the time to get in touch with us,
Kind regards,

Billy Earl