The closest they got to Madison was Chicago, so I made the 3+ hour trek. The way the show there was run it seemed as much like a rehearsal as a promotional endeavor. I don't mean by the way the band played, because they were really tight. I had gone down to the Steamboat in Austin during the dry runs, and there was a huge difference in the quality of the shows. The band was quite accessible, and I had no problem getting a chance to talk to David, Will, Darwin and Bukka.

There  was definitely no focus on the marketing opportunity. There wasn't any sort of Baerwald memorabilia being hawked, no cds for sale or promos being handed out, and there was no announced opportunity to meet the band. Abra Moore played with the NFU that night and she at least sold some discs and signed people up for an email list.

The single Compassion was out at that time, and probably getting as much air time as anything on the whole disc ever did, and there was zero effort to capitalize on the momentum.

I don't know what Lost Highway's commitment was to what I thought was simply a tune-up before a big tour... wait, yes I do. It had to be nothing. Read the reviews - there were shows happening that weren't advertised and gigs where Baerwald's name was misspelled on the marquee. This lack of focus was made even more obvious after the launch of HCTNFU, where they spent money producing a bunch of promotional cds and putting up a website which had probably the single lamest effort at a message board I've ever seen. Let me just expound on that a bit. Here on this site we have a pretty decent board, and it's already frequented by his most fervant fans (at least those that haven't been frightened off by anything one of us has said). So rather than just linking to this spot, they try to replicate it. What kind of fool attempts to diffuse or dilute their strongest base of support?

Then of course there was this ridiculous "street team" they were plugging on the site. What the fuck was that? Those words were nearly as hollow as "compassionate conservative". All talk, no action. I emailed those sorry asses, spent about an hour drafting up a plan to meet their alleged approach to getting the word out, then didn't hear a peep. Wrote back asking them what up and the dork Phil Cordhead (or something like that) asks for the same damn thing again. I forwarded my original message again, and still nothing. Way to treat people volunteering to spend their time trying to pay your salary!

And now I still read about those LH jack-offs stroking themselves and bragging about how they go out on a limb for original artists and they encourage blah blah blah blech.