Your Remodel

There are a lot of older houses in my neighborhood in Nashville.  Good houses, quality houses, they’ve just been around for a long time so there’s 60 or 70 years worth of wear and tear.

Today at an exhibit near by there was an Old House Remodel fair.  All different vendors who were there to help you overhaul part of your house.  You still keep your same house, you don’t have to completely start over, you just need HVAC work, flooring work, bathroom work, new cabinets, a chimney sweep…all catered to the uniqueness of old homes.

What would it look like for you as a band or artist to overhaul part of your team? To do a remodel? What significant change needs to take place? Maybe it’s long over due?

Not just changing out the lightbulbs and buying better toilet paper, but a real change, a remodel of the way it is.

You most likely don’t need to knock it all down and start over, but there’s probably areas that really need your attention, that have been neglected for too long.

Maybe you need to commit to writing every day?

Maybe you need to fire your booking agent and commit to get good at hiring the next one?

Maybe you need to decide if the goal is to have your fans stream your music or purchase it and implement that choice into the strategy once and for all?

Maybe you need to get back on the road?

Maybe the road is a crutch and you need to take a break?

What would it look like for you to do a remodel for you and your team?

Transparency In Streaming

One play equals one play, for that one song, for you as a band or artist. It doesn’t matter who the person is listening to it. All the plays are the same. 

If the head of a label, president Obama or Michael Jordan want to listen to your song, you get one play. And you get paid for it. You get paid for their ACTUAL interest.

It used to be you manufactured a thousand or a million records, the got shipped various places, sold, given away, returned, listened to, never listened to, only certain songs listened to, forgotten, cherished. Anything and everything.

That lead to lots of questions. How many records were actually sold? How many were given away/returned/promo copies? How many people actually listened to it? 

Now you know for certain that generally speaking the further down the track list you go, the less those songs get played. You know exactly how many times someone checked out a song.  You get paid (and further validated) every time someone is interested as opposed to being paid only on a single impulse (to buy a song/album).

There’s less of an ability to hide.  

And that’s what most people do (hide) when talking about sales from an album/song. There’s a long answer, with too many details, with too many layers, with too many excuses. 

Streaming gives better transparency, which leads to either more fear or more freedom. 

Would it be such a horrible thing if everyone could find out EXACTLY how many people cared about your band?

It’s probably not really that important for people to know, but why does the thought of it conjure up such fear and insecurity?

You can live with a constant, subtle fear that someone is going to pull back the curtain on you. Or you can pull it back yourself and let people come and go as they please. 

Kickstarter Is Not Always Boring

When one member of the clan succeeds, we all succeed.

Kickstarter projects are usually boring and lame. Not that the actual mission and intent behind the actual work isn’t fantastic, but I think we’re all a little tired of the same ol’ campaigns.

But an old college friend of mine, Mike Butera who I haven’t seen in a couple years, has created something very unique, usable, cutting edge, generous and awesome for all musicians and studio people.  And he’s releasing it on Kickstarter.

It’s calle an Artiphon.  It plugs into your iPhone or iPad or whatever, works with your samples and MIDI sounds and becomes whatever instrument you need it to be, and you play it like whatever instrument you want it to be.

If you are a musician, own a studio, or are going into the studio, you need to get one of these.  It’s a beautiful, creative piece of technology.

But for now I want you to get off of my blog and go check this thing out. After only two days it has well surpassed it’s goal of $75,000 and currently sits at $220,000+. 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/artiphon/introducing-the-artiphon-instrument-1

Gonna get some cold cuts today…

Worth Talking About

For the people who listen to songs, you have to make a song worth talking about.

For the people who go to shows, you have to make a show worth talking about.

For the people who do business with you, you need to make a business culture worth talking about.

For the people who want to love your band, you need to make a community worth talking about.

For people who listen to or read interviews, you have to give an interview worth talking about.

This probably sounds like a lot of work, and it is. But the exciting part is that you don’t have to wait on someone else to get started.  

One of the beauties and beasts of the music business is there are not very many bosses.  At least not ones saying you can’t make any of the above areas worth talking about.

Stop waiting, stop meeting, stop worrying, stop hoping, and just DO it.

p.s. Obviously this post covers the middle part of the “Why. What. How” situation. But you can stretch these thoughts to talk about the “why” and the “how” too.  It’s up to you.

Taking and Dodging

There are two kinds of people. People who take responsibility and those who dodge it.

Those who dodge it are replaceable and those who take responsibility, become indispensable.

See the following example:

A pest control man shows up at my house this morning to spray for bugs.  If he knocked first, I didn’t hear it.  Eventually I see a white pick-up truck with Ameri Care Services written on it sitting in the driveway so I head outside to see what’s going on.

When I open the front door the man is folding up a piece of paper to put in the storm door. Turns out it’s a bill, for spraying, and he’d like to spray our basement too (how generous). I told him, politely, I wouldn’t be paying the bill.

I told him, truthfully, I’ve never heard of his company, never signed up for his company and that I didn’t want anything to do with his company.  I told him the companies policies were bad and sneaky at best. Showing up at peoples homes and leaving them with a bill. Yeah, really respectful of the customer.

He told me I could call the number on the paper and tell his boss about the bad policies.  I told him I would, and told him he should probably talk to his boss too.

His reply, “I can’t do that. I work for the guy. I want to keep my job.”

The truth is, if he doesn’t tell his boss, he’ll eventually lose his job anyway.  Sad but true.  For one of two reasons. The first is that the policies will stay in place, they’ll develop a horrible reputation and lose all their customers.  Or, the second is that the boss will find someone else who will follow the rules and practices, only at a cheaper wage.  And this guy will get fired.  The cheapest cog gets the job…when the job requires cogs.

People need you to the level you’re willing to take responsibility and do things in your unique, thoughtful, artistic, and hard working way.

The Sadness

Music is just so hard.

Every artist is burning it, trying to write a few good tunes so that when he walks into his local coffee shop he gets some looks.  But secretly trying to change the world too.

Every artist in their 20’s, 30’s, 40’s and beyond is simply chasing that feeling they had when they heard Hey Jude for the first time when they were 9 years old.  

At it’s core, it’s truly such an amazing, and innocent quest.  Grown men and women riding the highs and lows of life for those few moments per year, per 5 years, per career where it all comes together.

Bands and artists try so hard. And try again, and then again.  Every day is considered a comeback.  They give it all up. They lose friends, use time, take chances, and roll the dice every single day.

There is a sadness in the back of the eyes of every artist.  Part innocence, part desperation, part longing, part reality check, part scared, part bold, part vulnerable, part yearning, part honest, part lying.  It’s really a thing of beauty.

And yet somehow bands and artists find a way to stumble back up to the plate and believe this time they’re going to be the hero.  Because they believe in the hero, and they believe they can be the hero. If only for a moment.

The sadness does not leave when you sell some albums or play some arenas.  It does not leave when you get on a private jet. It was there when you got your first guitar and it’ll be there till you strum your last.  

The reason why moments of victory, whether consuming them or providing them, are so special is because for a few seconds in a row you rise above the waves.  The waves don’t disappear, you just levitate above them in a brief, life giving, life fulfilling moment.