Aiming The Lawn Chairs

Earlier this year I was with an artist  at a downtown music series.  A smaller town, where they block off a few streets and pretty much everyone who isn’t completely anti-social comes and brings their lawn chairs and sets up shop for the evening.

There’s a few things going on downtown, some vendors, face painters, a few open tents emerged tailgate style.

Soundcheck and everything was much earlier in the day so I was just walking around watching it all happen until it was back to business.

Here’s the thing…everyone with their lawn chairs, hundreds, maybe thousands of people with lawn chairs…and you know what…they all faced the lawn chairs in the exact  same direction.

Without anyone telling them what to do or handing out directions or barking orders or asking a friend what to do, all the lawn chairs were faced the same way

The stage.

No one told them to face their lawn chairs toward the stage, there was no discussion to collectively figure out the best chair set up…that’s just what everyone did.  And some people got there hours before anything was actually happening on stage, and STILL kept their chairs like that the whole time!

Why?

Because everyone had the same expectation…something, the best thing, the most worthwhile thing of the night would be happening on the stage, so that is where I’ll face my chair.

More than anything, people expect, desire, long for something amazing to happen on the stage.  It’s engrained in people’s brains…more than they even realize.

The mass of lawn chairs has been assembled, aimed at the stage for reasons you now remember…now it’s your turn.

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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com

Before We Knew Better

Before we knew better…

we went on tour in January

we went on tour in January again

used the lawyer the record company recommended to negotiate the record deal 

got a bazillion tshirts screen printed cause we thought the design was cool so they’d sell fast for sure!!

believed artists when they said they could draw x amount of people

thought the manager would quickly catapult us to iconic status

said yes to a gig in Baraga, Michigan ;)

we thought we’d get discovered on 6th St. at SXSW

we left the festival without picking up the check


Hey, we didn’t know any better.  Then afterwards and over time, we did know better and made adjustments to our expectations and vision of reality.

The real problem is its very difficult to learn from other peoples mistakes and missteps.  Our brains just don’t feel the pain and discomfort enough when someone else tells us their stories.  We don’t remember them.  We don’t share and experience the pain.

If I tell you (like I’m about to) it’s a bad idea to go on tour in the middle of winter in a van and trailer…when winter rolls around and your manager or agent or genius drummer wants to hit the road in January, your brain probably won’t recall this paragraph.

But if YOU go on tour in January and experience sliding off an icy road in a van and trailer, cancelled shows due to weather, small crowds do to weather, you will never forget to not go on tour in January.  

It’s experiential.

This is just one blog post in the hundreds of blog posts I’ve written, but I will tell you this is one of the more expensive blog posts I’ve written.  The pain and heartache and monetary expense of ‘not knowing better’ cost me and the people I was with A LOT (and the above list could have been a lot longer too).

I invite you to learn deeply from the people around you.

Before we knew better we would brush off good advice from experienced people because we thought we knew better.

p.s. I’d love to hear from you on this.  Send me a list of “Before we knew better, we…” and down the line I’ll put a bunch of the responses together and send them out on here.

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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com

Can vs. Will

CAN

CAN is all about what could be, what’s possible.  It’s the mechanical, tactical, hypothetical, wide ranging landscape.  What are you able to do?  

You can research cancer and make great tacos and write a song and bag groceries and build dog houses.  You CAN do a lot of things.

You probably can’t play center for the Chicago Bulls, you probably can’t be the first person on the moon, you probably can’t avoid getting your tongue burned by that first sip of coffee.  

But you CAN do a lot of things.

WILL

However, what will you do?

You hear people all the time snarkily say “Oh I can do that” in regards to an invention, an idea, a sports feat, a musical performance, cooking a great meal.  But very rarely, if ever, do people respond with “Oh I WILL do that”.

Saying ‘I can do that’ doesn’t put you on the hook.  Something you merely can do simply falls into the never ending pool of things you can do.  There’s no personal ownership in what you can do.

Only when the CAN leads to WILL.

And what you will do compared to what you can do is very very narrow.

It’s comforting to ramble on about what we can do. We sound so established and successful and important.

The things you will do, that’s your life, that’s what is exciting, that’s what changes the world around you.

Don’t focus on what you can do, there’s too much there, it’s dizzying.

Focus on what you will do.

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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com

Music Is The Rally Point

For a long time artists have enjoyed releasing full albums of new music.

And there’s always been excitement around the album.

The album was the rally point, the element that the rest of the plan was designed around.

But maybe the album wasn’t and isn’t actually the rally point.  Maybe the album, as a platform, was just masquerading as the rally point…when really all along the rally point was simply new music.

That’s what we’re seeing more and more these days.

New music is the rally point.  The most exciting thing artists can point people towards. And it comes in the form of albums, singles, EP’s, video exclusives, made for tv/film songs, the list goes on…

Now artists can and do build plans and seasons of their career around new music, not necessarily a certain number of songs.

If you choose to sell out to the excitement of your new music, and the music is great, people will jump on board.

The album, EP, single, video isn’t the rally point.

New music is the rally point.

p.s. Because of ‘the way it’s always been’, artists can still easily be fixated on reserving their best effort, planning and execution only for the album cycle.  There’s nothing wrong with putting your muscles behind the album, but it’s not your only option anymore.

In case you need a reminder…in the music biz, the way its always been is not the way it is anymore.

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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com

Rapid Fire Questions

There’s something about rapid fire questions.

Don’t think just answer.

Like when the girls from The Office take Michael to the mall food court because he doesn’t know what to do about Jan.  They make a pros/cons list, lots of questions and second guessing…and then Michael gets blind sided with the simple question “What do you want to do about Jan?”…he just blurts out “I want to break up with her”.

So now it’s your turn. Don’t think just answer.



What song do you hate playing the most?



Who probably needs to be fired?



Do you want to be doing this hustle in ten years?



Would you rather be great or famous?



Who do you need to spend more time getting to know?



As an artist, what’s the one single word that best describes you?

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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com

The Response To Your Next Big Post

When another artist sees your post about the awesome gig you landed, you signed with the big company, you wrote with the big star, your sold out show…how do you hope they feel?

I’m gonna guess (but it’s not really a guess) and say you hope they feel genuinely excited for you, that they’ll share in your moment of liberation.  That they’ll have a moment of respect and admiration for all the hard thankless work that went into making this shining moment happen.

You hope they share in the joy of your joyful moment.

And while this is how you hope others respond to your moment…

How do you respond to others’ moments?

In the comparison business….er….I mean in the music business the way many respond to other artists big moments tends to be with skepticism, jealousy, envy, undermining, and contempt.

The exact opposite of how we hope people are responding to us.

Learn to be truly happy for others’ success, as you hope they are learning to be truly happy for yours.

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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com