Having The Best Album Of All Time

If you just finished making the best album of all time and you could somehow verify that it was indeed the best of all time…that means you would have arguably the best tool possible to get a lot of people to listen and buy all your stuff and make you super famous.

But the thing is, even if you really truly had the best album to release to the world…”Check out our album, it’s the best thing you’ll ever hear” is a horrible marketing strategy.

Consider these…

“My company can build you a brand new house in 4 days”

“We have the best steak you’ll ever eat and it only costs seventy-five cents”

“We’ll replace your transmission in 3 minutes and have you on your way”

Even if these statements are true (which would be great), we don’t want to believe them so we don’t.

They might be true, but nobody believes you.

I don’t want my house built in four days. I want my favorite steak ever to cost a lot of money. And I want you to wait at least a few hours before you tell me my car is ready to be picked up, because that new transmission was expensive.

If those companies can do those things that fast and at that level of quality, great!! And ultimately it might be to my benefit.  But they would have to be discovered, not advertised.

The truth is you probably don’t have the best album in the history of music, so you wouldn’t advertise as such, but you have a really good album…and too often the advertising is a version of “Listen to our album, it’s REALLY good”.

(or even more annoying, ambiguous and not-captivating “Listen to our album, we’re REALLY PROUD of it”)

That might be true, but I don’t care that you’re telling me it’s really good. Just like I wouldn’t even care if you told me it was the best of all time.

I want to DISCOVER that it’s a really amazing record (or the best in the world) via you telling me a story that doesn’t have anything to do with how great it is.

It might be true that it’s really great, but is that a useful thing to say?

True and useful can be two different tools in telling a story about your music and career.

So if you had the best album of all time up your sleeve…what are you going to say about it?

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

Paying For Your Show

Why are people paying to come to your show? 

I want to see Dave Grohl head bang.

I want to see Paul McCartney play the Hofner.

I want to see the Backstreet Boys dance in unison.

I want to see Lady Gaga do weird stuff.

Those THINGS are only important because of the feeling that they cause. i.e. The feeling I’m paying for (even though most people would say they’re simply paying for Dave Grohl’s head banging).

So what is it for you?  Even if you don’t know the physical representation yet, what is the feeling?

Envision the people at your last show, or your next show. Why did they pay money to see you?

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

A More Balanced Approach

As an artist you don’t need a more balanced approach.

You need more imbalance towards things that will get a reaction, things that will make you great, noticeable, memorable, remarkable.

Sharpening the edges rather than rounding them.

Stop running away from and down playing the thing you’re best at.

We aren’t best at the thing your best at. We need you to be. 

It’s the imbalance, the sharp edges that open all the doors. (The door keepers might try and tell you otherwise)

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

The Reason Everything Gets Easier

The Reason Everything Gets Easier

It was hard to live without caffeine and now it’s easier.

Moving to a new city where garbage pick up is Tuesday and not Wednesday used to be really hard to remember, but now it’s easier.

Writing every day used to be nearly impossible, and then it got easier.

The reason why things get easier and easy is because they get normal…and normal is easy…or at least has an ease to normal.

So that’s part of the task, changing your definition of normal…while understanding that the change you seek will be painful, annoying, inconvenient, unpopular, especially at first…and then it will get easier.

p.s. The Reason (Almost) Everything Gets Easier

If a champion marathon runner went what I go through every time I run one mile, there’s no way they would commit themselves to a life of running.  It’s awful and demoralizing for me, because I don’t do it often enough.  But for them, mile one got a lot easier over time. 

However, mile 26 is always suppose to be difficult, that’s the whole point…that’s why you get into marathon running in the first place is BECAUSE the 26th mile is the type of pain you like.  The pain of the 26th mile is not meant to grow into ease. So if you hate the pain of the 26th mile you shouldn’t try to be a champion marathon runner. 



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

Being Known For A Song

Where The Streets Have No Name- U2

Rehab- Amy Winehouse

Hello- Adele

Piano Man- Billy Joel

Every artist wants to be known for a song. A calling card. A song where when the first few micro seconds of the intro begin, everyone instantly knows it and freaks out.

Being known for a song is a good. It’ll keep cashflow happening and if you have a good manager you can really build a good living for being known for a song.

But for all the fame that ‘being known for a song’ can bring…what about ‘being known through a song’.

At the heart of every artist is a desire to ‘be known through’ more than ‘be known for’.

Being known through a song is the truly romantic, personal, painful, thankless, vulnerable part of being an artist.

Artists may write and track some lowest-common-denominator stuff, and thats fine…but that’s simply the part that wants to be known for and is afraid of being known through (or at least side-stepping being known through).

I hope you have both. I hope your smash is the song that you always wanted to be known for and also a song that you can be known through.

The idea of being known through a song is scary because if the song doesn’t become a hit, then you never get the pats on the back and the cashflow for putting yourself out there.  You just put yourself out there for the sake of putting yourself out there.  No accolades.  Are you willing to do that?

Being known for is great for your career.

Being known through is great for your artist heart, soul, and life.

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

Music City Memes

Skip the rest of this blog post, get on Instagram and check out MusicCityMemes.

I’m about two months late to the party on this, but I just spent the last forty-five minutes going through every single post (there’s currently 247) and laughing out loud here on my couch.

A writer from Big Yellow Dog started it and it’s all the inside jokes you want to make about songwriting and sessions and cowriters but never had the audience to appreciate your sarcasm.

It’s so good.

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