Whatever

My friend Jeff Howlett and I were on WIZN talking to their music director Mike Luoma about the Good Citizen Soundtrack CD that came out May 4. Mike said that he got really excited when he saw the second issue of Good Citizen hit the streets because that meant that we were serious and it really would keep coming. Hard to believe it myself. I have to admit, but here we are with our third issue. And it’s getting bigger and better. If you haven't noticed, we’ve gone from 40 pages to 56 pages, and we’ve expanded our circulation to 8000 free copies. That’s a lot of magazines. 

We had one hell of a great party on May 4 and 5 in Burlington, We celebrated the release of out first compact disc collection of Vermont artists with about a thousand of our closest friends. I met a lot of new people and I made a lot of new friends. We’ve got a lot of people to thank, and you’re at the top if the list, And you’re closely followed by the great folks at Magic Hat Brewery, Speeder and Earls, WIZN, Advance Music, Gourmet Food Exchange, Manhattan Pizza & Pub, Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Shop on Cherry Street, Kinko’s, Lizzy’s Kitchen, Eclipse Studio, Low Tech Studio, Club Toast, ASCAP, Club Metronome, 242 Main, Cheese outlet City Market, Duckworth T-shirts and Cheese Trades. All of those businesses donated food or services to help us out with the release party. We’d appreciate it if you'd help us thank them when you get a chance. And we had great help from local media: WCAX (Channel 3) and WVNY (Channel 22) both did stories on the ‘zine and CD release (what happened to WPTZ?) and Vox and the Burlington Free Press both ran stories. And we actually made the cover of the Vermont Collegian! Thanks, Tom. 

Cool things are happening, The response we’ve had from people all over the state is very cool. And the response we’re getting from the music industry is also very cool. The “real world” finds it very hard to believe that a group of people can get together and do this kind of thing in a cooperative spirit, I guess we’re supposed to waste all our time fighting and competing. Diane Snyder from ASCAP was here to check out all the bands at the release party and she mentioned that the people she worked with would have  a hard time believing how cooperative everybody was up here, Believe it, folks. There’s a lot of strength in numbers, and we’re not fools. 

We’ve been sending the Good Citizen Soundtrack Volume One  all over the country. We’ve got national distribution in the states through Dutch East India Trading Company. In Canada were distributed by Cargo. These are major distribution companies who carefully select the product they carry and recommend to their customers. They like what we’re doing. We’re honored. The CD has been well received so far, we’re happy to say. We’re tracking radio station response and we’re pushing these stations to play the bands on the disc and report the airplay to the national music trades. 

What Else Are We Doing? We’re going to help Bobby Hackney with his new Vermont/New England Music Conference, a weekend seminar coinciding with the Second Annual Vermont Jam, August 18 and 19, 1995. Patterned after several other successful regional music forums, VNEMC will encompass a three day concert on the waterfront for the general public and a conference at the Radisson for music industry professionals, musicians, press people, etc. Negotiations are underway with major national music industry professionals to open the conference as keynote speaker. A very exciting networking opportunity for the New England music industry, and yet another chance to trumpet the horn of Vermont music in general. For more information, write PO Box 23, Underhill, Vermont 05489 or call 802-86-FLYNN. Good Citizen will be sponsoring an alternative music showcase at Contois Auditorium sometime over that weekend.  

Finally, whenever people ask me how often Good Citizen  comes out, I usually answer “We’re quarterly, but we’ve got weird quarters.” Because of the great response we’ve had, we’re publishing five issues a year instead of four. We’re trying to come out every two months with a longer break over Christmas and an extended summer sojourn, So, we’ll see you again on September 1 with issue #4. If you want to write, do it. Our address is PO Box 5373, Burlington Vermont 05402. We’ve already published quite a few articles that just showed up in the mail. And you don’t have to be a professional writer. Most of our writers are music fans. We aim to include anyone who wants to be included, 

Thanks for your help. Thanks for buying the CD. Thanks for calling you favorite radio station and requesting Vermont made music.

Be a Good Citizen.