The Publicist Problem

I was out getting coffee with an old friend of mine last week and we came upon something worth passing along…

No artist we’ve ever talked to has been pleasantly surprised by their publicist. 

There are nightmare horror stories about publicists, some “they were ok” stories about publicists, some “they’re really nice to work with” stories, and the less than impressive list goes on.

But in years of my own experience and also talking with countless other artists, a publicist has never delivered the wow-factor.

There never seems to be an over-delivery of positive results from the ever important publicist.

Which, if you are a publicist, you should be excited about recognizing this gaping hole in the market and be unwavering in filling it.

Everyone will love you and you will never ever have a shortage of clients and money.

p.s. It’s not to say that there aren’t great publicists who over deliver…it’s just I have never heard any of those stories.


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

Nightcap 14

In my college marketing class there was a contest to see who could come up with the best sales slogan for milk (a mundane, seemingly unmarketable, run of the mill product)… I won…”This Ain’t Your Momma’s Milk”

It’s important to understand whether you’re engaging in a monologue or a dialogue.

Artists spend lots on making a record and almost nothing on making a show.

One good laugh changes the day.

If you make more connections, are more pleasant and write more songs with people, you’ll be fine.

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

Impressive Or Entertaining

Instead of focusing on impressing your audience what would it look like to entertain them?

If you didn’t have to impress your audience, if you didn’t have to focus on impressing, if they were already impressed with you…how would you entertain?

More often than not (in our minds) the word impress is associated with less mistakes, more perfection.

And artists feel they need to impress in order to win the crowd.

Because if an artist feels they impressed the audience with their version of virtuosity, then the artist lets themselves off the hook of actually entertaining.

They played a perfect, impressive show, now it’s up the audience to shower down praise and money. Right?


It’s all about your mindset and where you place priority of your time and actions when building your show.

True, there are people in the world who will pay good money for an impressive show.

But there are millions more who will pay all their money for an entertaining one.

p.s. I know I know, I could be getting lost in semantics here, and perhaps mis-defining some words. I probably am.  

So I hope you’ll choose to absorb the idea more than the words. 

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

Update: No Update

Update: there is no update. 

People appreciate that, because they just wanna hear from you, regardless.

I hadn’t heard back in a week or so from a lady I was going to do some work for…and then she dropped me an email saying it was still up in the air and she didn’t know how she wanted to move forward quite yet.

So even though on the one had it was a completely meaningless email for her to send (information wise)…what she really communicated was that I was on her mind and she cared about us being connected.  

And that, at the root of it, speaks to a very deep part of all humans.

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

Choose Your Tough

The reason I talk about firing people a lot is because artists are always complaining. 

Constantly complaining about people they hired but won’t get rid of.

Every now and again we all need a good flail-on-the-floor complaint session, but you know what I mean.

Why do you keep people on YOUR team who are constantly being bad teammates?  That, in turn, makes you a bad leader.

A good leader makes the expectations clear.  When they are not met, a good leader reiterates them, explaining that if they’re not met, it might be better to part ways.  When they are not met again, there are no surprises, everyone pretty much knows what’s coming next.

So maybe you need to back up and tackle the first part of that equation first (and people in the music business are the WORST at this)…

Make your expectations abundantly clear.  Clearness is kindness.

Letting someone go can be pretty tough.

So you get to choose your method of “tough” in regards to the type of person we’re talking about…

Keep them on board…tough

Let them go…tough

But it’s time to choose…and stop complaining about “tough”.

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

How It Would Have Been

How it would have been. 

You’ll never know. 

If you would have released that single first instead of this one. 

If you wouldn’t have gone on that lousy tour. 

If you would have fired her earlier.

If you would have just stayed in the studio a week longer.

If you would have signed on with that company instead of passing. 

All you have is what’s here.

All you have is what’s going on now.

What are you going to do with it?

How is it? And how do you want it to be? And what needs to change in order to get there?

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