video killed the radio star

I shot this photo from a bridge in Boston a few years ago...

a few years ago... when Harrelson Trumpets was still in it's infancy... operating out of a kitchen office, a two car garage, a basement milling shop/trim kit finishing room and from time to time, a bathroom photo studio... there was something we were hearing a lot about... social media and youtube. i used myspace at that time in conjunction with my etsy.com artist's profile/shop to promote my paintings and my art shows. i was making a lot of contacts quickly and easily and i thought it was something that could easily translate to the trumpet music business. at that time we really didn't have the resources time-wise to shoot video and post it where people could see it. we were busy assembling, packing and shipping trumpets and sometimes... if we were lucky... getting through all of the phone calls and emails that were coming in. we were seriously a small business with growing pains. we haven't stopped growing... not once... since we sold our first trumpet. we also have done very little in the way of advertising. my position has shifted repeatedly over the years... to fit the needs of this ever-changing company. one amazing thing about operating with such a small staff... staff meetings can be quite short, concise and productive... sometimes as easy as... "do you think that makes sense... yes, me too, ok... good... now do it... ok... talk to you later..."  well, currently... a normal day could find me updating the webstore, designing fliers for a new campaign, shooting photos for an upcoming sale, editing video, tracking clients gigs... conducting an interview... or, like today... organizing our hundreds of youtube videos into some sort of cohesive playlist set. our models often evolve, as does our shooting technique... after going through the videos today i realized we've really come a long way... just in the last few years. the thing i love best about my job is watching this thing we've built grow into it's own monster. we now have clients all over the globe... and yet, our advertising still consists almost 100% of client word of mouth... or song of mouth... our horns speak for themselves... and then our clients shout their praises also. from where i sit it is overwhelmingly obvious... but i suppose not all of you know that. trust me... i design the advertising... which we usually throw on facebook or our website... we have only ever advertising in one publication... and yet we have hundreds of clients in every genre on continents and stages all over the world. it's extremely exciting. 

well, now for show and tell... here's the youtube channel we started not that long ago... and hopefully now the option of selecting particular models in organized playlists will make it easier for you to navigate.


I realized today when working on this that we've had over 111, 600 views on our youtube channel... that's almost 1000 more than we had yesterday. i just wanted to say thank you to everyone that has taken the time to listen to the music we are trying to make here every day. we really do put our hearts into it. and have done nothing but that since the day we began. 

which brings me to one of my favorite quotes of all time... something i live by... not just at work... but in everything i do:

“Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard, and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.” — Conan O’Brien