Hey!

So I just got back from a bit of a “Business Baptism” at my local County Clerk’s office, and I have some news… Train Songz has been blessed, er, registered, as an Official Thing.

What does this mean?

I don’t know, other than it allows me to open up a business checking account, which I desperately need to do to separate Train Songz money from my personal stash of Georges, Thomases, Abes, Alexanders, Andrews, Ulysses, and Benjamins.

I also think it further separates Train Songz from My Actual Name, insofar as being a registered entity federally with the IRS, which I did a few months ago, and my state, which I did today. (Train Songz is not a LLC, it’s a Sole Proprietorship, so my personal assets are still at risk, as I have not limited my liability through the creation of a company. Corporations are people too, remember? Maybe one day we’ll go the LLC route.)

Why are you telling me this?

Honestly, I just got excited after the clerk’s office. What I thought would be a mundane and out-of-the-way errand (which I had been putting off for about a month) turned out to be a bit of a “tidal wave of emotion” when the friendly employees wished me good luck with everything and I left with some very official-looking government documents with “Train Songz” printed on them. Hilarious. But also kinda touching?

I have poured countless hours into this thing over the last year and a half, and rarely do I stop to reflect and be like, “H*ll yeah, we did that,” and this was a second to enjoy that. That’s over. Now, back to the meme-zine monomania…

How’d you get to this point?

• Started @train_songz in July 2023, after seeing Billy play a show in a hickory-striped engineer cap in Bridgeport with Metro North trains passing by the stage

• Had the idea for a post-tour zine in November 2023 because my true love is print media and the meme page had like 2,000 followers so I thought it would be a great launching pad to take the true sickos off the algorithm and into the mailbox

• Made 4 zines of increasing size, complexity, and budget in 2024, thanks to all the money and support that kept rolling in issue after issue

• Launched the subscription model in January 2025, and thanks to 697 subscribers, we have financial certainty we can make the next three issues to close out the year

Where do you go from here?

• Make really good issues 6, 7, and 8 in 2025 with more contributors and better materials

  • We will continue investing the profits back into an increasingly high-quality print zine

• Prioritize our Print Media Dealer volunteer program to get free zines distributed at shows and local businesses when Cirque du Strings rolls through town

• Pay BMFSDB’s web fees with zine profits to ensure a setlist database by fans, for fans, funded by fans

  • Follow ‘em on Instagram

  • More fun updates to come in this department soon

• And then…idk. That’s our focus right now! I don’t want to complicate things too much. We make zines, and I hope you enjoy them and want us to keep making them :)

Anything else?

• The Train Shop will open Friday for merchandise, which is not for sale widely on Instagram. Just here and via the QR code in the zine. I’ll send my next email when the store opens, as well as with more information about finding zines in Asheville for weekend two.

• If you don’t want these emails anymore, I encourage you to unsubscribe! And if not from me, unsubscribe from something else spamming your inbox today. Always a good idea to clean digital house.

• If 2 weeks have passed from your zine order and you still haven’t received it yet, please email me at conductor@trainsongz.net

• [Whispering] I’m putting out into the universe that we’re looking for three GA tickets in Nashville… I have my CoT notifications on! But just in case…

We’ll send an official survey around in a few weeks to gather feedback in a bigger way, but if you have thoughts on the last issue or ideas for the future…I’m all ears.

—The Conductor