The Drummer

You need a good one.

No, you need a great one.

If you write songs and you’re playing them live with anything less than a great drummer, you’re doing a disservice to the music.

The drummer is the engine, the center, the back bone, the foundation for the whole thing. It all runs through him/her.  If you have a great guitar player but the drummer is weak, everyone sounds terrible.

There’s a tiiiiiiny bit more leeway in the other instruments.  It’s just the way it is.  A decent guitar player sounds ten times better when playing with a great drummer. But not the other way around.

Having a beast sitting back there elevates everyones game.

You. Need. This.

So if you don’t currently have one…then one of two things must happen.  

The drummer must be replaced, or it just became your drummers full time job to get insanely good at the drums. Imagine that. Take private lessons, watch all the drum videos on the internet, buy a practice pad, practice a lot everyday, talk with other drummers.  And repeat for a couple years.

Nothing in the whole world feels better than someone getting up there and laying it down on the drums.

So do you have a great drummer? You’ll know 100% for sure when you have one.  And the knowing is the definition.

p.s. If you’re a band (of equals) the “replace vs. get better” can be a little more difficult. However, if you’re an artist paying players per show, you should have a high level drummer playing for you by the end of the day tomorrow.  

I know I know, you can’t afford a great drummer. 

Not true. That’s small thinking. 

How about only saying yes to gigs where you’re being paid enough (or it makes sense for some other reason) to have great players, in order to put on a great, high level, professional show that FEELS. SO. GOOD.

What BMI Is Getting Right This Time

SXSW is a mad house of bands and arists.  Along with all the music makers, there are an infinite number of companies vying for their attention.  Hoping their brand name makes it to the tip of everyone’s tongue.

For that beloved word of mouth value.

BMI is finally using the ace up their sleeve to strike up a little chatter.  Next Friday (during SXSW), when almost everyone who knows what a PRO is, will be in one place…BMI is cutting paychecks (or direct depositing).

They’ve scheduled their quarterly royalty pay-out for a day, where a highly concentrated part of their target market will be together, and be talking with one another.

What a great way to spark the conversation and getting your people singing the praises of your company!

For the last several years BMI has has had the March pay-out scheduled for the week AFTER.  What a waste.  But alas, they made a great marketing move this time. (I hope this wasn’t just an accident and they’ll keep this great idea happening every year from now on.)

Speaking of marketing…if I was the head of BMI, I would spend the entire years marketing budget on giving EVERYONE (who’s with BMI) bonuses (aka extra profit sharing) on next weeks paycheck.

Then everyone who gets their BMI paycheck with a BONUS wouldn’t be able to contain themselves and would have to tell everyone else who’s not with BMI, to get with BMI. And they would have a lot of people to share this relevant news with.

Making a slight, 1 week, change to their payout will make a significant, positive difference for BMI.  They were sooooooo close the last several years, probably without realizing it.

This is a great reminder to examine the “tiny” details in our routine practices to seek out more ways that benefit everyone.

No Devils In The Birthing Room

The birth of an idea you’ve had, it’s first release into verbal language in front of others, is a vulnerable moment. A moment not fit for the devil nor his advocate.

You need to un-invite the devils advocate to these tender moments. That attitude and outlook is not welcome in the birthing room.

 The devils advocate’s favorite words are “yeah, but…”

Anyone off the street can play the devils advocate, could tell you why something won’t work. Much harder to find people who will imagine why it will work. 

The devils advocate doesn’t have to have sound reasoning, but only to plant doubt by any means necessary.

The devils advocate voices dissent early, but will go along with the idea. That way no matter if the idea works or not, he gets to trumpet victory. 

In this way, the devils advocate is always right but never owns any true responsibility either way.  The best he can feel is luke warm.

The devils advocate doesn’t view it as his job to offer alternatives.

The devils advocate is socially acceptable.  But unacceptable to remarkable people and groups.

The devils advocate is afraid of losing what he has. His goal is the status quo.

The devils advocate uses “I” and “you” while speaking, but rarely “we”.

The devils advocate sees his list of reasonable objections as reasons to stay put and do nothing…not realizing that no valuable idea doesn’t have a list of reasonable objections.

Playing the devils advocate is fear based dialogue.

Saying “I just don’t like the idea” is 100 times better than playing the devils advocate because at least you’re pointing to yourself as the road block and not trying to cover it up by pointing to something else.

Having differing opinions on a team is great. Challenging an idea is vital.

But this will come two or three or four conversations down the line, where the purpose of the conversation will be for everyone to challenge the idea in order to make it stronger…not to passive aggressively dissent.

At this point, it’s not playing the devils advocate, because everyone is united in the goal…the goal is to poke holes and see if this idea can hold up.  And everyone is excited about the outcome, either way.

Completely different conversation.

In 1587 the devils advocate term was coined. It was his job to be a skeptic during the sainthood application process. But the devils advocate had an opponent called….the promoter of the cause.

Let’s start playing Promoter Of The Cause instead.

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…