But I Loved The Documentary

I’ve heard it a hundred times, “I don’t really like their music, but I loved the documentary”.

And now that we love the documentary are we more likely or less likely to like the music? More.

You might not have the budget and production staff to make a full documentary but you certainly have all the tools you need to make videos about your songs. Docu-minis. Tell us about the song. Show us the room where you wrote it. Let us hear the scratch demo. What restaurant did you eat at right after you recorded it? Let us in. It’ll be fun.

Even if we don’t love your music, maybe you can show us your compelling-ness another way, which can only help us in one day loving your music.

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Drop me an email: gabe@gabethebassplayer.com

Coming Up With A Promise

Most artists don’t have the problem of over promising and under delivering.

The problem is there’s often no promise at all.

This isn’t to say you need to go on social media and declare a promise to your fans.

But rather it’s an internal promise within the team which then is experienced by the fans.

The promise comes from your answer to: What are we here for? And who are we here for?

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Drop me an email: gabe@gabethebassplayer.com

Stuff Like This And Maybe This Too

A few weeks ago I wrote about the magical and powerful phrase ‘people like us do stuff like this’.

Had a handful of questions roll in on this one so I want to add this…

You know what you want ‘stuff like this’ to be. You want it to be your thing. Listening, subscribing, sharing, spending money and time on your music, etc.

So then it’s tempting to want to invent the other part of the equation, the ‘people like us’ part. What group can I put together to complete the circle?

But you don’t have to invent it out of thin air. I want to offer up an easier way of getting the process started:

People like us do this AND maybe this too.

Where your thing is at the end:

People like us listen to Triple A radio and go see new bands in small clubs.

People like us own a Bruno Mars hat and aren’t afraid of adding something sassy to the collection.

People like us go out to dance clubs downtown and need a new fun song to dance to.


It’s easier to see the groups that are already have some definition and start piecing your picture together that way.

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Drop me an email: gabe@gabethebassplayer.com

So What Else Do You Have?

In connection with the short post from yesterday…

You’ve finally got THE song. You know it’s great. This gets affirmed, as people at labels, publishers, mgmt companies and agents and everyone else want to meet with you.

You take the meetings…and what’s the first question…”So what else do you have?”

You’re stunned. What else?! What do you mean what else?! This song blew your mind, pure magic, isn’t that enough?!

Here’s why they always ask what else you have: They want to hear these three things:

Consist Quality- Can you deliver like a professional?

Identity- Who are you as an artist and how does it fit into my world?

Surprise- You caught lightning in a bottle once, can you do it again?

Maybe you just got lucky once with that first song. And it is indeed a great song but in order to go to work together it’s going to take more than that. That’s why they ask.


»» The other reason they might be asking is because they’re afraid and are looking for a reason to say no. They took the meeting because meetings are what they do to look busy but have no intention of working together. So asking to hear more songs is their out.

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Drop me an email: gabe@gabethebassplayer.com

Maybe There’s More

New Hum Love playlist up on Spotify and Apple

If you’ve been following along for a while there’s some familiar names on this list.

Because I’m the same way as you.

If an artist has one song I like, maybe there’s more. Turns out sometimes there are.


Send suggestions for next time.

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Drop me an email: gabe@gabethebassplayer.com

Every Song Works

Every song works, it just has to have the right context.

If the songs is great, it can overcome a less favorable context.

If the song is just decent, it needs a more favorable context and set up in order to connect.

You probably have both types of songs and everywhere in between. So whether you’re putting an album sequence together or a live show…

What is the song and what context does it need to connect?

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Drop me an email: gabe@gabethebassplayer.com