Should you?
Not do you have songs people want to hear…but a show people want to see?
Hopefully you have both.
But before taking the show on the road it would be a good idea to have a show worth taking on the road.
**Here’s a little more.
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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com
Resolve, reasons, timeliness.
I remember watching the TV show Friends way back when and wanting my life to be like that, and wondering why it couldn’t be.
What occurs to me now is perhaps the most subtle, strong, permeating aspects (and perhaps problems) with TV:
In every ‘good’ tv show, things work out. Maybe not the way we want them to, but there are reasons and resolve for the story lines.
There’s no waiting around in TV. And we watch a lot of TV. So TV teaches us a constant need for resolve and reasons in a timely fashion.
We always find out why the guy came back to the girl, what’s wrong with the main characters, why the father left the kids, why the killer killed. All the important unknowns become known within thirty minutes or a few hours. If they don’t become known we complain and call it a bad TV show, or criticize it for not tying it all together.
From the time we are born, every time we turn on the TV we get another dose of resolve and reasons: quickly. Over and over again. It’s been deeeeeeply ingrained in our brains.
We long for it. That sweet resolve. Not only a reason for everything but a KNOWN reason for everything.
I’d argue that’s a huge reason why we like TV to begin with. We want it (life) all to make sense. And we see this fundamental desire beautifully fulfilled on TV.
Every ‘good’ TV story gives this to us.
Most of real life (almost all of it) isn’t like this.
But we have grown to expect the same amout of reasons, resolve and timelines we see on TV. In TV we want it…and we get it. In real life…
We don’t get resolve. We don’t get all the reasons. Certainly not in the time frame we wish for.
And we don’t like it. We think we SHOULD have all the reasons…that’s what makes a good story. And after all that’s what we’ve experienced watching a bazillion hours of humans on television. So that’s the way it’s suppose to be, right?
We associate reasons, resolve and timelines with Good.
And the absence of these things in our lives as Bad…or not-as-good…therefore heightening our levels of dissatisfaction with life…because these ‘good things’ are nearly always absent in real life!
So as our mothers told us…TV is not real life.
We must learn to not get hung up on loose ends of our own lives. To not insist on having all the reasons right now. To not dwell on the unresolved.
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I often wondered when I would be rich enough to afford those really nice paper towels…the Viva ones.
And then one day I decided to buy them. They were about $4 more than the ones that are only ok…but they didn’t make my life only $4 better…they made my life infinitely better. Because for $4 I got to feel like a rich man.
All that wondering and all I really needed to do was decide. And the deciding made me rich!
Same thing is true of your show.
You can keep wondering when you’re going to be an artist with a great show…
Or you can stop wondering and decide to create a great show.
The biggest hurdle to having a great show is deciding that is who you are now and that’s what you’re going to build.
And the deciding is free! Cheaper than those expensive paper towels!
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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com
When The Beatles became The Beatles a lot of others made some assumptions…
We can duplicate this success if we get four decent looking guys up there playing instruments, playing love songs, being kind of funny.
Now looking back we know it wasn’t true…(but how quickly we forget)…
It turns out it matters who’s on stage.
It turns out chemistry matters.
It turns out not all songs are created and consumed equally.
It turns out people have a keen eye for the real thing.
It turns out there was a lot more that went into it than four guys, instruments, love songs and some jokes.
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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com
In the news, on the blogs, on the podcasts, on tv, on the festival flyers, on tour, on everyone’s social media, the list is endless…
So many places to be. So many places to been seen.
I remember a bunch of years ago I decided to check out Fleet Foxes because I’d heard about them from three different people/places in one week…that was enough for me to tell myself “These guys are all over the place! I need to check out this new band.”
When the truth is they weren’t ‘all over the place’…and they very well might have ONLY been three places! But it was the three that I saw!
See, they didn’t need to be all over the place. They only needed to be in some strategic places where a little name repetition would go a long way to someone (like me) who is paying attention to that sort of thing.
Same goes for you. You don’t need to be everywhere. You just need to know where you need to be. And keep showing up there.
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I saw an ad the other day for a Netflix show I’d never heard of, and it looked really good.
And at the end of the ad it said “Stream Season Two beginning next week”.
Which tells us a couple important things…
1. There’s a Season One. An entire season that I can stream right NOW. The show looks good and I can consume a lot of it immediately. That’s exciting.
2. The powers-that-be deemed the show good enough to warrant a Season Two…so Season One must be good! Else there wouldn’t be a Second One. For all the new great TV shows these days, there’s not a lot of mercy for the ones that don’t work.
Those are two pretty good selling points that didn’t exist when the show first started.
The show had to evolve in order to garner those particular advertising strengths.
So keep your eyes open. Your career is in flux. New advantages will come to you as you keep going, and if your eyes are open you can fully capitalize on them.
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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com