Your Beautiful Studios With Expensive Rates Are Safe

Here in Nashville, and I’m sure LA and some other places, there’s always chit chatter about some studio closing down, getting sold, being converted into a micro chip manufacturing plant

And every once and a while it turns out to be true.

But nice studios, the legendary rooms, will never die.

Why?

I’ve learned to make a pretty legit steak here at my house.  I also have developed the skills to make an old fashioned that rivals any swanky bar in Nashville.  

Both of these things I make at home, I have everything I need at home.  And the end result is delicious and I thoroughly enjoy the process of getting there.

BUT…I’d rather go to Kane Prime or Patterson House or Old Glory for the same food and drink and sit in a dimly lit, leather backed booth with a candle in the middle and a menu that doesn’t list the prices for things because you know its just all expensive.

That’s where I WANT to be.  It’s special.  It makes me feel different than eating and drinking at my kitchen table, even though I like my kitchen table too and it absolutely serves the purpose.


You’re beautiful studios with “expensive” rates are safe.

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

Writing Songs Is Not A Linear Process

When you build a model airplane and you’re about half way through, the plane looks about half way complete.  You did half the work and have half the result to show for it. 

You keep progressing down the path to the finish line.  60%, 70%, 80%, 90% done…and the plane looks 90% done.

Now, at 90% its obviously almost done.  It’s almost the masterpiece you set out to complete.  And then it’s completely done and you stand back proud of your diligent work and the fact that you made it.  You took it from 0 to 100.

Songwriting is not like that.

In songwriting, like in model airplanes, you start with nothing, at 0. 

But instead of a steady climb to 100 and a corresponding ‘thing’ to show all along the way, its more like this in the songwriting process…

It goes from 0 to 25 to 26 to 4 to 65 to -33 to 0 to -40 to 15 to 100!!!!!

Half way through doesn’t correspond to half way to 100.  Half way through in no way corresponds to having 50% to show.

That’s the sweet frustration of it all.  A perfect, complete 100 may be right around the corner or far far far away.  You’ll just have to keep going to find out.

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

Pumps

Pumps came out when I was a kid.  They were marketed as the cool shoe to buy.  Commercials with basketball players pressing the pump (the pump even looked like a basketball) before going out onto the court meant that if I bought those shows then I could press the pump before I went out onto the court too!

I am like them, they are like me. I think they are cool, others will think I am cool.

Then pumps went out of style.

Then, recently, pumps came back.

Only this time with a different message.  Now you buy pumps because they help you and you care about your health and wellness, and you are a smart person.  That’s the story now. Same technology, different story.

Pumps are sold as ‘if you really care about your feet, body, overall well-being, these are probably a good idea’.

The product, the story, the culture, the timing.

And it all comes and goes in waves.

Songs with banjos. Songs with no drums. Boy bands. Bad girls. Power chords. Reverb. Sampling. Synths. Your style of music.

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

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