Gene Burton: New CD

Subject: Gene Burton: New CD
From: Gene Burton
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 12:28 PM

Hello all.

Should anyone be interested, my new CD is now out and available. It's entitled "National Geographic" and can be purchased for £6 inc. p&p, which ain't bad value IMHO.

Track listing is as follows: 1) Dink's Song (trad) 2) If 3) I Will Search Again 4) You Treat Me Like A Child 5) Local Girls 6) Waiting to Cross 7) Irony Has Wounded Me 8) Surnames 9) To Find Myself, Or Lose Myself 10) Hush-a-Bye.

Not sure of the wisdom of putting my contact details on display here...(there's some real odd bods about!) but full details about ordering, payment etc., along with some further background/context on this particular collection can be found HERE

Thanks!

Subject: RE: Gene Burton: New CD
From: Gene Burton
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 12:30 PM

By the way, yes this IS a brazen attempt to use a public forum for the purposes of self-promotion and shifting units- I'm happy to clarify that point!

(Oh, and you need to look under the section entitled "About Gene Burton").

Subject: RE: Gene Burton: New CD
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 01:15 PM

I listened to all the recordings this morning. I prefer a heavier mix of traditional stuff, but I enjoyed your work. Best of luck to you, Gene.
It's good to promote your work, but remember that the majority of people here are musicians, not fans. As you know from experience, (click), they can tend to react rather strongly to an overdose of self-promotion. Still, you're a good singer and guitarist and I think I'd enjoy singing with you.

-Joe-


By the way, I'm not in a mood to tolerate the nastiness that went on in the previous thread. If Mudcatters wish to be critical, please be constructive and civil in your criticism.

Subject: RE: Gene Burton: New CD
From: Gene Burton
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 01:25 PM

Thanks, Joe! From my dealings with you thus far, you seem a very nice and fair-minded man.

I'm not unduly affected by the kind of sledging that goes on here from time to time...as I've said elsewhere, if you put yourself on a stage or your recordings into cyberspace, you expose yourself to all that, and I'm man enough to take it on the chin...in fact if anything it fires me up, helps me to work.

Subject: RE: Gene Burton: New CD
From: Leadbelly
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 01:41 PM

Good luck, Gene. Cannnot see anything wrong in your action. Nobody is compelled to purchase your new cd or to make a comment.

Manfred

Subject: RE: Gene Burton: New CD
From: Gene Burton
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 01:58 PM

Thanks Manfred! All the best to you.

Subject: RE: Gene Burton: New CD
From: Peace
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 02:08 PM

Gene, would you just message me? My Space confuses me.

I think it's great you have a new CD out. Congratulations and best of luck with it and the sales side of things, too.

Subject: RE: Gene Burton: New CD
From: Peace
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 02:41 PM

BTW, you have a beautiful voice.

Subject: RE: Gene Burton: New CD
From: Gene Burton
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 03:22 PM

You're a kind man, Bruce. :)

Subject: RE: Gene Burton: New CD
From: Gene Burton
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 06:45 PM

In response to one or two enquiries, I should say I've not yet figured out a system to enable me to accept payments (for the CDs) from across the pond. I will make enquiries of those in the know and then hopefully have a system in place in the next 2-3 days. With the benefit of hindsight, I probably should have done this BEFORE starting the thread, but then every day's a school day, as they say...bear with me.

Subject: RE: Gene Burton: New CD
From: GUEST,Jeff
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 12:08 AM

I think that when one purchases something
'across the pond' w/a credit/debit card system it automatically converts it to the monetary system of the 'home' country. That was my experience when travelling in the UK/Ireland a few years ago. Just make sure you've got a 'lock down' anti-info theft service, because it can get pretty dicey if you don't. I'm in the same process myself and would like to have some of the same questions answered...from YOUR side. BTW, Gene I'm a fan of yours and will forward you my myspace info asa I get my CD done and all that stuff. You may want to hook up w/http://www.waterbug.com as they are a well established 'indie' label/distributor in Chicago. Andrew Calhoun is the guiding force along w/his wife Kat Eggelston(a fine singer-songwriter herself). WFMT-FM Chicago has a show called the 'Midnight Special' which plays anything from Flanders and Swan to the Cowboy Junkies and bits from the 'Two Ronnies'. Very eclectic. And I'll pass your name along to a friend of mine who runs a radio show at WNUR-FM(Northwestern University, Evanston,IL) to give your myspace songs a listen. And CD-Baby.com will take small amounts of your product(as few as 20) and will pay you via Paypal. I think you'll do fine here in the States. House concerts, etc are relatively plentiful over here. Sorry, to have unloaded so much at one time, so just sift through it and utilize what's here when you can. Respectfully, Jeffrey C. Jones

Subject: RE: Gene Burton: New CD
From: katlaughing
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 12:13 AM

Sounds great, Gene, thanks for sharing. Great voice!

Subject: RE: Gene Burton: New CD
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 02:09 AM

Gene, you might want to explore PayPal.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Gene Burton: New CD
From: Gene Burton
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 05:32 AM

Jeff, thanks ever so much for your support- I really look forward to hearing your music.

I googled paypal the other night. Was poised to begin setting up an account, then chickened out on the grounds it'd involve handing my bank details over to an organisation I know very little about. That said, I'll proably do it if there's no other alternative...my first port of call will be to ask the folks at my local bank branch tomorrow whether I can simply deposit cheques written in dollars and get them automatically converted to sterling...I daresay there'll be a catch, but I'll keep y'all posted.

Subject: RE: Gene Burton: New CD
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 05:47 AM

Check some out the "Paypalsucks" websites. There are quite a few people who think Paypal stole their money.

Good luck with the CD. Not to my taste, but good luck anyway.

Subject: RE: Gene Burton: New CD
From: Gene Burton
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 05:54 AM

"Check some out the "Paypalsucks" websites."

I saw these on google, too. Certainly food for thought!

Subject: RE: Gene Burton: New CD
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 07:59 AM

Yes, I've seen Paypalsucks too, but what's the alternative?
I use Nochex for UK online sales, and Paypal for sales overseas (not many, but the option is there).
That happens to be convenient, as the majority of sales go through Nochex who are cheaper, and I can have a two-tier system of prices: postage free for UK/Nochex, postage added for Paypal/abroad.

Anahata

Subject: RE: Gene Burton: New CD
From: Gene Burton
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 09:16 AM

Hi Anahata. Nice to see you on here. Really must catch you and Mary live again in the near future; I've not heard you for a couple of years now.

A general question (probably a dumb one, but here goes): it occurs to me, is there any obvious reason why people can't just send me dollar bills through the post; then I can get the money changed or banked myself? Or is sending actual currency against the law there? Obviously I'd adjust the price downwards to take people's postage costs into account.

Subject: RE: Gene Burton: New CD
From: treewind
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 10:09 AM

It's not illegal (I think) but it's insecure and frowned on by the UK post office. It's arguably less secure than PayPal!

Before I set up Paypal, I did get one or two people abroad to send me money, in fact one of them got his money changed to notes in sterling and sent them.

You could ask them to send you a £10 note, for example. You'll lose most of the extra £2 in postage and packing anyway and it's still a reasonable price.

Anahata

Subject: RE: Gene Burton: New CD
From: Ernest
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 10:41 AM

Really nice stuff, Gene!

And more rooted in the tradition than Lennon, so I`d count you as a folksinger ;0)

Best
Ernest

Subject: RE: Gene Burton: New CD
From: Gene Burton
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 10:49 AM

I'm not sure if it's fair to expect potential customers to go to the extra trouble to change currencies on my behalf; but I'm thinking I could get them to send me the rough equivalent of £6 in dollars, plus whatever extra it's likely to cost me in postage (UK p&p is factored into the original price of £6- it's a fiver to anybody who happens to see me live), minus a bit for their own postage costs. Then I can change everybody's dollars together and thus minimise the proportion the bank'll take in handling fees.

I'm increasingly minded that this is the more practical approach given we're only talking about a handful of orders at this stage...I'll get working on setting prices for US and Canadian dollars. Obviously, sending coins by mail is unfeasible, so I need to know: (pardon my ignorance) what are the smallest denominations of currency available in note form in the US and Canada respectively?

Many thanks to everybody for suffering my ignorance and incompetence, BTW...thanks for your input thus far.

Subject: RE: Gene Burton: New CD
From: Gene Burton
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 10:54 AM

...and thank you for stopping by, Ernest...there are very few more rooted in the tradition than Lennon, so I'll take that as high praise indeed! (LOL)

Subject: RE: Gene Burton: New CD
From: treewind
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 11:10 AM

Here's another thought - get Dick Greenhaus at Camsco to stock a few He specialises in folk music and rare recordings and I don't think he'll want to hold huge stocks or take a big profit. PM Dick (if that link doesn't work, it's just a PM to"dick greenhaus" on Mudcat) any profits made are to support the Mudcat anyway...

Anahata

Subject: RE: Gene Burton: New CD
From: Giant Folk Eyeball (inactive)
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 11:11 AM

This is fantastic. We get to watch Gene thinking out aloud about the practicalities of how to sell his CD. Very entertaining on a Sunday afternoon...

Seriously, good luck with it, Gene. I'll definitely be buying a copy. Despite your funny ideas about folk... (only joking!)

Cheers

Nigel

Subject: RE: Gene Burton: New CD
From: Gene Burton
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 03:22 PM

OK, having extensively researched exchange rates and denominations (well, all right, I typed a couple of sentences into google), I've found out there's a shade under two US dollars to the pound, so I can set a price of $12 inc p&p per CD for any US customers. Please send the money in note (bill) form to the postal address Here...go on, its reasonably good value ...and don't forget to include YOUR address...if you're happy to trust the postal system, so am I.

Exchange rate for Canada is apparently almost identical, but pricing is complicated by the removal of the one and two dollar notes from circulation back in the late '80s (thank you, wikipedia); so I'd have to charge either $10 or $15, neither of which is ideal...so I'll have a think about that and maybe come up with a better solution.

Subject: RE: Gene Burton: New CD
From: GUEST,Jeff
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 11:04 PM

Ahh, good on ya Gene. Am re-recording some songs, but I'll send you the one my wife dug up and said, "This is good you need to release this." Well, some of the songs have publishing clearances needed, so I was going to do another CD w/replacement songs out of the trad book. Also, an all original CD, too. Anyway, having your postal address I'll send you the original 'warts 'n all. There's a few 'clams' on it and some notes I wish I had back, but overall it's not bad for a home recording. I'll post it to you later in the week. I'll include a money order for 15.00US to cover postage.

Subject: RE: Gene Burton: New CD
From: GUEST,Gene's computer's buggered!!
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 06:25 AM

Jeff, I appreciate that- really curious to hear what you sound like now!

Just called in at my local bank, and I'm informed that cheques in foreign currency can apparently be deposited there & converted automatically into sterling. So we'll say a cheque for $12 for any Canadian customers, if that sounds good.

I'm going to be largely offline for a while until my internet connection's fixed, BTW, just so's people know- hopefully won't be too long...

Subject: RE: Gene Burton: New CD
From: Gene Burton
Date: 19 Feb 08 - 06:45 AM

...Now I'm back again.

Subject: RE: Gene Burton: New CD
From: Peace
Date: 19 Feb 08 - 10:16 AM

GOOD!

Subject: RE: Gene Burton: New CD
From: Peace
Date: 19 Feb 08 - 09:02 PM

Back up for those who missed this thread.

Subject: RE: Gene Burton: New CD
From: Gene Burton
Date: 19 Feb 08 - 09:10 PM

...I won't argue with that! Give all those (ahem) Acoustic Rock fans another chance to hear the music they love best (v. heavy irony).

Subject: RE: Gene Burton: New CD
From: Peace
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 02:28 PM

Gene,

Do you have any updates regarding the CD?