Clockwork Wolf & Co - In The Sunshine (Formerly Rob Chapman Band)

bingefeller

Philly_Q said:

digitalscream said:

Philly_Q said:

Musicman20 said:

digitalscream said:

I can't bring myself to watch it - bluesy stuff bores me to tears, quite honestly - but it's interesting to note that despite all of the deficiencies pointed out in this thread...it's still top of the Amazon blues charts

I didn't even know such a 'chart' existed to be honest.

I keep reading about Rob Chapman's bands being top of various charts on Amazon - I've never seen them - and I genuinely don't understand it.  How are these charts compiled?

I don't say this out of mean-spiritedness (or - yawn - "jealousy"), but surely he's not popular enough to be number 1 in any kind of chart?  I've never heard or seen any reference  to him or his music outside of the world of guitar forums and YouTube. 

Just search for them, it's pretty trivial. There's no complicated algorithm - they do it for all of their product categories, it's simply the best-selling stuff in of a given type.

It remains a mystery then.  Who are all these Rob Chapman fans?

Mostly teenagers, guys in their early 20s and older guys like Randall who like heavy rock and metal with shredding guitar solos. 

Philly_Q

digitalscream said:

How on earth is it still a mystery???? The fact that you can't be bothered to put "amazon blues chart" in Google doesn't make it a mystery, and if you did you'd see that it says "Best-selling <something>, updated hourly" at the top. Go on, have a look

Substituting "itunes" for "amazon" in that search query shows that his EP's dropped to #40 on the global iTunes chart though, which might cheer up a few people in this thread...

You misunderstand me.  It's not that I can't be bothered to verify that he's top of the Amazon blues chart.  I believe you.  Although you're right that I can't be bothered and will continue to not bother.

The mystery - to me - is who's buying it.  As I said, I've never heard or seen any reference  to him outside of this forum or YouTube.  I get endless emails from Amazon listing "rock and metal new releases" or "blues and rock bestsellers" and there's never been any mention of Rob Chapman or Dorje.  No posters, no popup ads, no press mentions, no interviews, no word of mouth, no nothing.  Maybe I'm always in the wrong place at the wrong time.

timmysoft

digitalscream said:

I can't bring myself to watch it - bluesy stuff bores me to tears, quite honestly - but it's interesting to note that despite all of the deficiencies pointed out in this thread...it's still top of the Amazon blues charts

Evidence that blues fans use other outlets to buy music! 

I’m with you on bluesy stuff being boring, for me it’s where guitarists go when they think they need to grow up and play unimaginative music. 

I dont always need to be challenged by music but the mainstream bluesy rock stuff is just not exciting, doesn’t matter if you’re wearing a hat, it’s still shit.

digitalscream

Philly_Q said:

digitalscream said:

How on earth is it still a mystery???? The fact that you can't be bothered to put "amazon blues chart" in Google doesn't make it a mystery, and if you did you'd see that it says "Best-selling <something>, updated hourly" at the top. Go on, have a look

Substituting "itunes" for "amazon" in that search query shows that his EP's dropped to #40 on the global iTunes chart though, which might cheer up a few people in this thread...

You misunderstand me.  It's not that I can't be bothered to verify that he's top of the Amazon blues chart.  I believe you.  Although you're right that I can't be bothered and will continue to not bother.

The mystery - to me - is who's buying it.  As I said, I've never heard or seen any reference  to him outside of this forum or YouTube.  I get endless emails from Amazon listing "rock and metal new releases" or "blues and rock bestsellers" and there's never been any mention of Rob Chapman or Dorje.  No posters, no popup ads, no press mentions, no interviews, no word of mouth, no nothing.  Maybe I'm always in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Ah, OK.

In that case, I wonder if you're underestimating the power of YouTube? These days, there doesn't need to be any mention outside of YouTube (well, other than the usual social media outlets - particularly Facebook and Instagram) for an artist to be successful.

Limehouse_Blues

I don’t like to knock because I think Chapman gets a lot of unfair stick but the song and video in the OP are truly awful. Both so cheesy that I couldn’t quite figure out if it was a pi55 take or not. if this is the best of contemporary blues then lord save us. While it’s not my cuppa the Dorje stuff is far better than this dross.

horse

The vocals are odd in my view - start off sounding 'okay' in a kind of post grunge bluesy homage, but then how he pronounces "it's enough to drive you mad" for example stands out to me as sounding odd / not keeping up the act.

Seems surprising given the investment in production that it isn't slicker in that regard (to me anyway)

Lebarque

Dreadful

CloudNine

Every aspect of it made me cringe horribly. Seeing this has ruined my evening. May even have ruined xmas, will see how I feel in a few days.

RandallFlagg

I reckon this whole 'Americana' vibe is designed to promote Chapman Guitars in the US, he's just launched a new Guitar Center exclusive model ML3 semi hollow, the one he uses in the 2nd video and he just did a clinic tour across several Guitar Center outlets.

I think with his strong and growing Youtube presence the Americans will lap this up in droves and he'll do well from guitar sales over there. There's not many Youtuber guitar reviewers that are also putting out commercial recordings, videos, tours and manufacture thier own guitars in the US with a strong Youtube following along so he's kind of breaking new ground from a marketing perspective.

Regardless of our view of the quality of songs and singing I reckon he's in a unique place commercially. With the traditional 'record company' contract model looking jaded, unappealing and unnessesary to many bands, social media self promotion and self production is much more viable.

Not unlike the post punk New Wave and beyond indie scene back in the day.

Also, Rob Chapman isn't afraid to change up and drop things if they don't work, this Clockwork Wolf thing was formerly The Rob Chapman Band with different members but that died quickly for some reason, so he'll move quickly and keep reinventing as the fickle tastes of the Youtube masses change. He's also announced several initiatives in the past that have never materialised to date, such as a range of pedals. I thougt he had a Mythos signature model coming out as well.

With nearly 700,000 Youtube subscribers he doesn't really need our armchair critique to be successful. If just 10% of those subscribers buy his stuff he'll be laughing.

RandallFlagg

CloudNine said:

Every aspect of it made me cringe horribly. Seeing this has ruined my evening. May even have ruined xmas, will see how I feel in a few days.

So you're no longer on cloud nine then?

digitalscream

RandallFlagg said:

With nearly 700,000 Youtube subscribers he doesn't really need our armchair critique to be successful. If just 10% of those subscribers buy his stuff he'll be laughing.

That's the interesting thing about Rob - 700k subscribers is not really enough to create a good income. He's pretty much unique amongst YouTubers for having based his career on it since he had about 60k, and he's managed to build everything around that to be self-sufficient such that he doesn't need to hold down a job at the same time.

You'll notice that he doesn't actually release videos on his channel that often either any more. Love or hate his music...he's put the graft in over the last 15 years, and basically he's living the life that most musicians want. That deserves a certain amount of respect, I think.

RandallFlagg

digitalscream said:

RandallFlagg said:

With nearly 700,000 Youtube subscribers he doesn't really need our armchair critique to be successful. If just 10% of those subscribers buy his stuff he'll be laughing.

That's the interesting thing about Rob - 700k subscribers is not really enough to create a good income. He's pretty much unique amongst YouTubers for having based his career on it since he had about 60k, and he's managed to build everything around that to be self-sufficient such that he doesn't need to hold down a job at the same time.

You'll notice that he doesn't actually release videos on his channel that often either any more. Love or hate his music...he's put the graft in over the last 15 years, and basically he's living the life that most musicians want. That deserves a certain amount of respect, I think.

Not from Youtube alone, but it's a hell of a captive audience to promote his music, guitars and other ventures to.

digitalscream

RandallFlagg said:

digitalscream said:

RandallFlagg said:

With nearly 700,000 Youtube subscribers he doesn't really need our armchair critique to be successful. If just 10% of those subscribers buy his stuff he'll be laughing.

That's the interesting thing about Rob - 700k subscribers is not really enough to create a good income. He's pretty much unique amongst YouTubers for having based his career on it since he had about 60k, and he's managed to build everything around that to be self-sufficient such that he doesn't need to hold down a job at the same time.

You'll notice that he doesn't actually release videos on his channel that often either any more. Love or hate his music...he's put the graft in over the last 15 years, and basically he's living the life that most musicians want. That deserves a certain amount of respect, I think.

Not from Youtube alone, but it's a hell of a captive audience to promote his music, guitars and other ventures to.

That's precisely it. Instead of "being big on YouTube", which is the goal that many people who start channels have, he used it as the first step in a series of goals. To be honest, his bands probably make bugger-all money and are more along the lines of fun projects that cover their costs. Still, having an originals band that covers its costs is way beyond the reach of most of us

CloudNine

RandallFlagg said:

CloudNine said:

Every aspect of it made me cringe horribly. Seeing this has ruined my evening. May even have ruined xmas, will see how I feel in a few days.

So you're no longer on cloud nine then?

Felt a touch better this morning, but one day at a time and all that. Hopefully I will be able to enjoy music again at some point.

DrJazzTap

The blues music thing isn't my thing at all. Mr Chapman is doing the thing i would love to do, so fair play to him. 

mixolyd

timmysoft said:

Rob has no rhythm or sway with his vocals, there’s nothing memorable about the melody. He has a good tone to his voice but his technique is extremely forced and unnatural. It’s the same in Dorje, the vocal is the weakest part

“Forced and unnatural”: I feel the same way about his guitar playing.

There’s this thing he often does at the start of a video where he plays this long bent note and unbends it while doing a full “blues face” - it makes my skin crawl.  I’d never have thought that it was possible to pack a fathomless lack of musical taste and decency into the act of unbending a note but somehow he has honed this technique to a rarefied level.

Good on him for his various business projects though - I wouldn’t touch his boggin’ guitars with a bargepole but it’s no mean feat to build a series of successful businesses and he’s made jobs for a bunch of people along the way.

gringopig

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