Regular Listening Repertoire

Is your audience the type of audience that incorporates one new song every six months to their regular listening repertoire?

Is your audience the type of audience that incorporates twenty new songs every six months to their regular listening repertoire?

Both audiences would say “I just wait till I hear a song that I love and then make it one of the regulars”…but the way it plays out is very different.

Are you vying for one slot or one of many slots?

The answer as it applies to you changes how you approach the interaction.

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Drop me an email: gabe@gabethebassplayer.com

Great Shows Are Mostly Forgettable

A great show, whether a live show, tv show, movie, is captivating and entertaining from start to finish. The great ones design it that way and see it through.

U2, Lady Gaga, Oprah, Jerry Seinfeld, Steve Jobs, Madonna, Tom Hanks. Start to finish, elite performers.

But while great shows are entertaining from start to finish, they’re not remembered start to finish.

We don’t remember all of it.

In fact we don’t remember most of it.

We remember the feeling so strongly, we remember the memorable moments but we lose most of the in between.

Every part of the show needs to serve a purpose. Every great show has forgettable (while still entertaining) moments. They help the memorable ones stick with us forever.

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Drop me an email: gabe@gabethebassplayer.com

Don’t Give Heartbreak So Much Credit

Sure, great songs come from heartbreak.

They come from crisis and hard times.

They come from desperation and loneliness and longing and celebration.

But those things aren’t the songs.

Great songs come from sitting down and writing them. The writing. That’s the real key.

Don’t give the heartbreak and difficulty so much credit. Because you can certainly have the hard times and not have a great song as a result.

It’s not the crisis that brings you your best stuff.

You simply need to show up and write, crisis or not.

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Drop me an email: gabe@gabethebassplayer.com

Time To Move

There’s no need to wait to move forward.

When the landscape shifts, the definition and process of moving forward simply change (sometimes in complex ways).

You can wait for the landscape to move back to the way it was in hopes of moving forward with your plan as planned…but you might be waiting a long time.

Now is not the time to wait. Now is the time to move.


Along similar lines…

I talked with a band last week that makes a lot of money from monetizing their videos. And that process hasn’t stopped in recent weeks. Perhaps not surprisingly, it has grown. So for the last month they’ve been inundated with phone calls from other artists and their teams of ‘how do we do what you’re doing’.

The short answer is: Start monetizing videos ten years ago and commit to making it part of what we do around here along with touring, merch, publishing, etc, etc.

They started shifting when the landscape started shifting.

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Drop me an email: gabe@gabethebassplayer.com

Simple Equation

Figure out what you want to say.

Say it in a way that people (ie. your people) want to hear it over and over again.


It’s easy to think ‘easier said than done’ and just move on.

But the first part is too often overlooked. And the process of figuring it out gets rushed and then  commitment is low and the message comes off thin.

It’s easier to commit to what you have to say if you actually believe in what you’re saying. And from belief and commitment comes the perceived consistency that will build reliability.

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Drop me an email: gabe@gabethebassplayer.com

Worthwhile Releases

Not every song is meant to be a hit.

It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t release it.

You just need to have a reason (and a plan) for why you’re releasing what you’re releasing.

Not every song gets the same marketing push.

Maybe you’re releasing a song so your fans will know you better.

Maybe you’re releasing a song so your fans will feel cool about telling their friends.

Maybe you’re releasing a song so the gatekeepers will open their gates.

Maybe you’re releasing a song to reinvent or steer the public perception of you.

Maybe you’re releasing a song so your world thinks you’re smart, talented, rebellious, clever, hip, thoughtful, understated.

It could be anything. You decide. Beforehand.

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Drop me an email: gabe@gabethebassplayer.com