Remain Calm

Artists…

…it’s the end of the year. I know you want to try to squeeze in one last ‘push’ because the changing of the calendar seems like an important milestone.  Don’t worry…when December moves to January it’s no different than June moving to July…things can pick up in 30 days.

…things seem tight.  I know you’re getting desperate.  If someone is offering help it seems right to CLING to them and SQUEEZE because they might LEAVE you!  Clinging and squeezing hurts…that’s why people leave.  If you feel the urge to cling and squeeze…breathe!

…you aren’t sure what to do next?  No prob…no one does!  Best you can do is get a circle of supportive friends, figure out where you want to go next, and find someone who can help you get there.  Maybe it’s an artist who can mentor you, maybe it’s a manager, maybe it’s neither of these…maybe it’s a programmer because you want the coolest interactive music site ever!  You can do ANYTHING next, it all depends on how you want to get there!

This applies to all artists, from me (who records a new song every couple of years) to others (who record an album a year, or maybe play every weekend at a local bar, or produce beats, or have twenty years under their belt…)

People are getting desperate, and getting antsy, and getting irritable, and getting frustrated.  Those are some pretty crappy words!

Let’s turn it around…accept the challenge, take a breath, and realize that nothing has to happen overnight, and when it happens overnight it’s never sturdy enough to last very long.

Remain Calm!!!  It’ll be alright!

Weird Weird World

(ps…somehow my WordPress design got…screwed up! Apologies for the lamelame look, I’ll fix it once I find the time!!)

I was at a meeting yesterday for work (belated apologies for my absence in the blog world this week!) and ended up observing just how strange the music world is.  What do the following have in common?

Can’t guess?  Here’s a clue…both artists were at the same meeting, both artists chatted about music and the industry…both artists exchanged ideas about how to make it in this crazy crazy world.

I can’t figure out what was more strange – the world we were discussing, or the world I was observing.

Music isn’t as cut and dry, black and white, genre specific as we make it out to be.  How else can a pop-songwriter from the late 60s, and a hip hop star from the early 90s who has been working hard on his career for two decades, talk shop?  How else can a festival with Neil Young and Eminem work?  How else can the strange collaborations of the years ever have happened?

We sometimes forget that music is a creative process and not a business, and ironically it took a moment in a meeting ‘about’ business to remind me.  Not that I’ve forgotten…just sometimes it’s the picture in front of you that helps make the gallery clearer.

My picture was of Saukrates and Andy Kim chatting about the future of music.

What moments, pictures, or experiences have shocked you into a clearer idea of the industry you work in?

What’s Gonna Happen: Part 2!

“…spending on CDs by people who had no computer (and were therefore unlikely to download and use BitTorrent) dropped by over 40 percent from 1999 through 2004″ - A 2004 US Consumer Expenditure Survey cited in Ars Technica

In one of my previous blogs I was saying (off the top of my head…without ANY authority mind you) that downloading habits ‘may’ have inspired the pop music…and the amateur celebrity culture…of today.

I find this statement to be incredibly fascinating, especially since we know sales have gone down even further since 2004, but even back then people who had no easy access to the scourge that is P2P had stopped buying CDs

As a counter to my ‘What’s Gonna Happen?‘ blog (good job Roo, counter yourself, you hippity-hopping flip-flopper!) I’d like to note that part of my message (…and the message of MANY blogs before that) ‘was’ positive even if it was lost in my ‘We’re All Gonna Die!’ tone…

…the ‘record’ industry is in the crapper…and how we access, get, purchase, consume, or ‘whatever’ our music is changing…

…but the MUSIC industry is doing just fine!!! Musicians are weeds popping up everywhere, writing music about everything!  Musicians are always going to exist…my fear was more about people making a living off music, and how the downward turn could deter some great musicians from ever getting the chance.

We can be all utopian and say that the TRUE artistes (please pronounce that as ‘are-teests’) will battle through and suffer starvation and misery to pursue their craft.  They will.  And musicians will write songs as a hobby and put it on YouTube, or tour on weekends, or use their day jobs time-off to work on their next album.

Everyone will find a way…

I just think it’s a valuable idea that those interested in music and musicians keep coming up with creative ways to allow artists to live off their craft, and devote time to their creations.

A musician gave a talk at my school about a year ago and said that his time is generally spent 80% on business, and 20% on music, and that was a very liberal guess…it was probably closer to 90% business, 5% music, and 5% crying because he’s so hungry.

Even 80/20 sounds good to me, so long as the 80 isn’t being wasted trying to find revenue streams that people aren’t interested in paying for.

‘Some’ will be able to make a living through touring, merchandise sales, self-marketing on social media and selling their own CDs, physical or digital.

‘Most’ will have to find another way.

I’d just hope that people consider the ‘Most’ instead of the ‘Some’ when they think about the direction a career in music is going.  Not everyone is Radiohead…not everyone has a history and career before they start selling their albums ‘pay what you can.’  Not everyone is k-os, who can do the same with a live show.

The band you haven’t heard of, who wants you to hear them, and would like to make a few bucks off you if you like them…they’re the one’s I’m talking about.

So yah, enough waxing poetic or whatnot…I’m gonna turn my attention to finding those clever ways, talking about actual MUSIC rather than the theory behind making money at it, being upbeat and happy and blissfully dumbdumb, and hopefully entertaining the pants off you all…

…and I do mean that…

…the pants…