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 Blue Rodeo |
Having sold more than 3 million records, Blue Rodeo's Jim Cuddy knows new records like Small Miracles, which goes on sale Tuesday, don't sell themselves.
So tomorrow at 8 a.m., Cuddy and bandmates Greg Keelor, Bazil Donovan, Glenn Milchem and Bob Egan, along with new keyboard player Bob Packwood, will play a live set of four new tunes when Canada AM broadcasts live from the Byward Market.
"It's one of our earliest times we've ever played," Cuddy says from his home in Toronto. "We just have to get ourselves out there and let the fans know that we have a new record."
For the next year, Blue Rodeo will follow a gruelling schedule of media interviews and record store appearances, anything to help the album survive.
In Toronto, the band is planning a series of free street gigs, including serenading subway commuters in front of Union Station.
While not exactly thankless, promoting records is not as much fun as it used to be when Blue Rodeo released their first album, Outskirts, in 1987.
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"We were playing Murphy's Pub in Calgary when our manager booked us to do five shows at Calaway Park. We didn't know that it is a Flintstones theme park and that we were playing on a stage modelled on (the prehistoric town of) Bedrock.
"It looked like Stonehenge. We played to about a dozen mothers and their children, who didn't want to listen to us, but wanted to play with the cartoon characters. It was our Spinal Tap moment.
"I miss those days when you would do something crazy and fun to get noticed. Unfortunately, no one pulls those extravagant promotional stunts anymore because the days of a record selling $20 million are gone."
While Cuddy admits he's not wildly enthusiastic about all those early morning radio and TV gigs, any excuse to play live still turns on the 52-year old workhorse.
"It keeps you where the fans can see you," he says.
Over the past year, Cuddy has been hard to miss. He released his second solo record, The Light That Guides You Home, with a national tour, was a panelist on CBC radio's Canada Reads series and made no fewer than six appearances in the capital. And he's already talking about their next visit, when the band plays Scotiabank Place on Valentine's Day.