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No doubt by now some of you have noticed the 'No Tone Promotions' logo appearing here and there, (such as on Tinqui8s Uk gig posters) and you may be wondering who they are or what its all about.

How many times have you seen a clip on youtube or here on CBN and thought ' Why isnt this guy a household name'?

Its a sad fact that even though we have some truly world class musicians amongst us, we are still very much an underground movement, and making a living playing a CBG is a but a dream for most. Sure, I know Mr Seasick is doing ok, but what about all the other guys? Clearly there is a demand, but it is difficult to get a start as an artist and very few make the transition from bedroom to stage, or, more importantly, from 9 to 5 to full time musician.

For some, the problem may be not knowing where to start, or not having the time to sit by the phone for hours trying to book gigs. Maybe its a lack of funding – a tour of your own country is hard enough, but add in the cost of applying for a visa, a return flight and several days travel and accomodation – well its enough to put anyone off planning their own tour!

Through our work with the Home Grown Music Collective, both Chickenbone John and myself are painfully aware of these issues - this year we have not only booked international artists for Boxstock, but have also arranged complete Uk tours for the guys to make it more viable. This has taken an awful lot of time and personal expense, and we havn't even loaded all their kit into the support car yet!

Which got us to thinking....

Wouldnt it be great to help these guys come and tour the Uk more often? Perhaps if we had a ready made gig circuit for them to travel? What if there was a point of contact in the Uk where any artist could get information and help in planning a tour? Someone who understood the alternative thinking of cigar box guitars? The Uk based guys could make use of the same venues and contacts to get more gigs too.

Initially we thought we could do all of this through the HGMC, but the nature of the work necessitates a full time commitment, and in truth, its just too financially risky to gamble HGMC funds on.

At this point the sensible thing to do would have been to forget all about it....

It is therefore with great pleasure that we announce the official launch of 'No Tone Promotions'.

Named with ones tongue firmly placed in ones cheek, 'No Tone Promotions' is an independent music agency and promotions company catering mainly for the left-field alternative artists, especially those with cigar box leanings. We are particularly keen to champion our own Uk based artists and to help them to tour Europe and beyond, but also to motivate more artists from abroad to come and tour our rainy little island.

We have made an auspicious start, having already signed some of the very best to No Tone.

Blackriver Bluesman & Bad Mood Hudson (Finland) will be touring the Uk for the first time in September 2012, as will Mike Snowden, for whom this will be his first cigar box tour outisde of America. Tinqui8 (France) will be here in May for a short whistlestop tour of the south coast, and Claude Hay (Australia) will be paying us a visit mid September. Of course we are also working with Uk artists such as Hollowbelly, and are talking to several other very exciting artists.

In addition to helping plan tours and itineries, we are also offering a full range of management and publicity services.

So if you are an artist who would like a hand gigging in the Uk, a promoter looking for something a little different, or maybe you can suggest a venue where you would like to see some hardcore CBG action, check out our website at www.notonepromotions.com

All the best

RM