Bob,

A friend of mine turned me on to you blog. I have to say that i look forward to reading every update. Your views on the music industry are right on! I have been thinking and feeling the same thing for a while now, it is refreshing to actually read it and know that there are other people out there that actually get it. Your recent blog "From My Side of The Screen" really hit home. I have been writing songs for a few years now and have had some success as well as countless days thinking…..why am i doing this……… The reason is not to sell records, or become famous, but to do something that i truly love to do. It took me a long time to realize that loving what you do is way more important than anything else. Especially in this day and age when the record labels struggle to make a profit in a market that is, let’s face it, evolving to a point that will be better for everyone involved. It’s really not so much about the music anymore. It’s about how willing you are to market you band/product by putting the time and effort into it to it. Connecting with fans. Creating a community that will keep coming back because your constantly updating your content. Basically everything you have said in your blogs.

Thanks and keep can’t wait for your next post.

Sincerely,

Wil Deynes
www.myspace.com/wildeynes

My response:

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How does the cliche go, you catch more fish with honey?

No, that’s not right, fish don’t eat honey… I think it’s flies. Whatever, you get the point… Did I listen to this guy’s music because he was kissing my butt? I’m wondering that. But I don’t think so… There were two elements that captured me. The lack of desperation and his point about having already had some success. Not knowing the cat’s name, I figured maybe he was a behind the scenes songwriter, looking to get famous as a player under his own name… Whatever, I fired up his MySpace page.

And was stunned. From the very first instant, I knew this guy was not a wannabe, he had TALENT!

He had a good voice, the changes immediately enraptured me, I was drawn in. This is hit music. At least ten or twenty years ago. Today?

I kept listening. The subsequent tracks weren’t quite as good. But, the second time through, I liked the other tracks more than "Super Wonderful".

Don’t e-mail me and tell me you’re a punk fan, or a metalhead. I’m just telling you if you want mainstream success, you’ve got to sound like this guy, be talented like this guy, Wil Deynes.

He’s still too talented for me to fully believe he’s completely unsigned. God, it’s so easy to lie online, to appear indie.

Or maybe the bio is true, that he’s a Mac tech by day. Maybe that’s how he made a recording so good. That he’s giving away for free on his site:

Stay EP – Wil Deynes

you can download it as MP3 or m4a, your choice. And I think you should. Because this guy has got something.

His Website has not been updated enough recently, check the blog, the last post was July 30, 2007. But there’s a plethora of action on his MySpace page, he’s got 16 posts from fans already today, Saturday. Are the play counts accurate? Has "Super Wonderful" really been played 375,000 times? Who knows? Quite possibly, because it’s good.

I mean if John Mayer can make it, so can this guy.

Or maybe the powers-that-be can’t handle a guy who looks like this, who doesn’t have matinee, suburban good looks.

Point is, if despite his NPR break THIS guy can’t break through, if he’s not a household word, what are YOUR chances.

But it doesn’t matter that he’s not a household word to his fans. They own him now.

This guy is doing it right. Unless I’ve been snookered here. Which could be the case. But that doesn’t change the fact that this guy is GOOD!