It’s that time of year again. Thousands of bands making their way to Austin in search of…something…different for everyone.
(This is a funny article about how SXSW has evolved.)
I wrote a short guide on some things you can do regarding SXSW to have a valuable time. It’s been helpful to a lot of bands and artists, so maybe it will be helpful for you or someone you know too.
Here’s the conclusion of the guide. Read it all here.
CONCLUSION:
SXSW is a place where I hope you expect things to happen. I hope you expect that because you are planning on being the one who is going to dive in and make sure that things do in fact happen for you and your band
There will be thousands of interesting, quality, innovative people walking around Austin with you.
Be willing to be the first to say hello. Be willing to walk through a door. Be willing to help someone else’s dreams come true. Be willing to learn. Be willing to share.
That you have something, anything that resembles a monthly budget.
But considering you do…add these:
One massage a month- go to the mall…in the carpeted expanse between the bedazzling station and brown sugar encrusted assorted nuts kiosk, there are some massage chairs. Pay the man $25 and he will massage you for 30 minutes. Tip him, because he did a good job and you’ll be coming back…monthly.
One vocal lesson a month- it’ll run you $75 or $100, but it will help you, a lot…as oppose to the $200 per month you spend on alcohol and caffeine, which is not good for your voice.
A counseling session- musicians are certified nuts, it’s important to at least get to the point where you can admit this and have a clue as to what type of crazy you are. How do you find a good counselor? Ask one of your sane friends…that’s how they got to be that way. Do you really want the cheapest counselor you can find? Be willing to spend $100ish
Make your bed in the morning- this is totally free. Also, this is now your mother speaking. Do this for a month and get back to me on how you feel. It’s been a very helpful habit for me and a lot of people I have a lot of respect for.
Don’t just pick one or two…do all of them.
Or don’t.
p.s. I almost forgot, a basic gear insurance policy will run you $12 per month. For all the things you should add to your budget immediately, you’re an idiot if you don’t add this one.
Artist A writes with writer/prodcuer B. A few days later producer B, instead of sending the artist just an acoustic guitar and vocal demo, sends artist A a fully produced demo. Sending artist A a fully produced demo makes the artist happy and more likely to actually release the song on a record.
Artist A then gets signed to a label and the label wants the artist to work with big huge successful writer/producer C.
The artist is excited and they bring all their demos to show producer C.
Producer C loves the song that artist A wrote with producer B.
Not only does producer C love the song, he also loves the “demo” rhythm guitar track, the main synth line, the kick drum and most of the bgvs.
So producer C calls up producer B and asks if he’ll send over the individual demo tracks to use as a reference as artist A and producer C are re-recording the song.
Now here’s the thing…It turns out producer C doesn’t just use those demo tracks for reference…Producer C actually uses some of those tracks (melodies, hooks and sounds that producer B created) on the NEW recording of the song.
The RIGHT thing would be this: Give producer B assistant production credit AND pay him for what are now master tracks and/or give him back-end percentage points.
But what usually happens is this: Producer B gets no credit whatsoever. Producer B gets little to no compensation up front for the master/recording side, and no back-end percentage points.
When I lay it out like that it’s easy to see that what usually happens isn’t what SHOULD happen.
You know in your gut what the right thing to do is. And it’s probably easy to say to yourself, yeah I would do the right thing if I were involved in a situation like that.
And you probably would…until it got difficult to do the right thing.
At some point doing the right thing in a situation like this is going to be painful.
Painful to your finances, painful to your ego, painful to your convenience.
It’s such a long slog up the mountain that once you’re there it’s common to want to finally “get mine” rather than “keep giving”.
Producer B gets screwed a lot right now, and has a legit reason to be upset.
But one day producer B is going to be big huge successful writer/producer C.
So start doing it the right way now. Get some practice with it. Set a precedent for you and the world in which you participate that you, when given the opportunity, will generously give credit, you will fairly compensate and be honest and heads up about who wrote the song and whose tracks are being used on the song.
The writer/producer world desperately needs this. Be considerate, be fair, be generous…and don’t forget to be, even what it’s hard.
…and I have a strange feeling that that will play a key role in anyone looking to move from producer B to wildly sought-after producer C status.
p.s. If you’re at producer B level right now and you’ve got the short end of the stick too many times to count…keep going. Keep collaborating. Keep showing up and doing great work no matter who you’re working with.
Your audience is looking for a reason to call you show worth while…Because they value and take pride in their own time and what they spend it on.
They want to walk away thinking, believing (even if they have to stretch the truth a liiiiiitle bit) it was their time well spent.
What’s more, your audience is looking for something they can tell their friends that make their friends wish they had spent their time as wisely as your fan.
You may or may not think parts of the audience is giving you the benefit of the doubt, and you might be right in thinking not everyone is with you.
But everyone longs for “time well spent”. It validates peoples’ thoughts, decisions and value system. Time well spent says “you were right”.
And we all love being right.
You have the power to cause people to be right.
That’s powerful.
p.s. I put out a free eBook last year about people who like vs. love your band…it’s along similar lines as this post. You can read for free here, or right click and save as a PDF.
