Manager

You need one. You need a good one.

You need the best person who also believes in you the most.

Your friend believes in you a lot, but can’t grease the wheels.

The big shot manager invented ‘grease’ but doesn’t give a rip about you.

Everyone on the team has their duties…the booking agent books, the marketing team markets, the engineer engineers…but the manager is your business thread through the whole thing.  They are the key (other than you the artist).

The manager takes responsibility for the things that fall in between…the things that aren’t anybodies job.

If you have one of these, thank them.

If you need a better one, fire the one you have and ask more and better questions next time.  Because now you probably know what to ask :)

If you don’t have one…who DO you have? Who is taking responsibility? Who picks up your phone calls? Answers your emails? Who do you learn from? Connects you? Offers up good ideas? Likes when you’re around? 

You’re on the right track.

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

Blindfolded Toe Tappers

Are you willing to tap your toes…with a blind fold on?

Are you willing to tap your toes when you have no idea if others are tapping their toes?

Most everyone in this business is waiting and looking around…seeing who else is tapping as they consider maybe tapping too.

But don’t we all love the blind folded toe tappers? The ones who are willing to go first and be the ones that the others take cues from.

The people willing to believe first. Those are rare people…and it’s not that everyone needs to be that way, but we could sure use more of them.

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

Write Bad Songs

Instead of making the decision to not write today, make a decision to write a bad song.

And next time you don’t want to write, write a bad song instead of not writing.

Then after a while on a day that you don’t want to write, you’ll write a song that isn’t terrible and the next time a little better song and then a good one and then maybe even a great one…and that was a day that you didn’t even want to write! 

So if you grow to the point where you’re writing good songs on days that you don’t even want to write…

Imagine what you’ll do on a day that you do want to write.

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

There Is Stage For A Reason

People want someone to be on it. 

For at least these two reasons…1. For the artist on stage to be relatable since commonality connects people but also  2. to be at least slightly not-relatable because the artist is the type of person who gets on the stage, not the audience. 

If they think the artist is already exactly like themselves, there’s not as much hope for the audience.  The audience needs to believe (and they usually do) that the artist is at least a little bit different than they are…which illuminates the audiences’ own longing to be something a little bit different.

The difference the artist represents, represents hope for something better or different. 

The conscious/subconscious, spoken/unspoken message from the artist to audience of “I’m just like you up here” works best when the artist understands that it’s not completely true.

(The audience cheers at this message because they want to believe it, not because they actually believe it.)

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

The Perfect Pass

The quarterback throws the ‘perfect pass’ because the receiver times it and goes exactly where the ball is thrown…it’s the quick, minor (or major) adjustment that makes it look like the perfect pass.

So what looks like perfect is actually neither perfect nor imperfect…it’s simply what happened when some people got really good at what they do and then adjust accordingly…to the benefit of the team.

Perfect.

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

The Relative Hit

There were lots of bands around Nashville when I was in college.  Lots of shows, lots of show posters, lots of nasty vans, sharing gear, sharing food, all on the journey.

None of the bands were famous, no one had hits…except that everyone had their HIT…their best song, the song that really stuck out, their relative hit…the song that everyone knew was their best song, usually played at the end of the set list.

No one had hits but everyone had their hit. We could tell, they could tell, everyone could tell.

The problem was no one knew how to build on it.  How to emphasize it. How to build the band/brand identity around the song that everyone loved most.  How to build the set list around it.  How to build and write new songs around it.

It would have been a good idea. And it still is :) Building a career around the best of what you have.

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