Songwriting

Enough of the business already.  I can get caught up in "building a career" pretty easily, which always sends me on a downward spiral mentally.

Writing and performing music is what I do all this for, and I think it's important now to talk about how I do it.

Every song is different, but I've always thought of writing a song more along the lines of building a cabinet than waiting for something to fall out of the sky ready to go.  While I've had those moments, they're very few and far between.

Songwriting is a craft.  It's more a skill that needs to be honed than a talent that can be picked up naturally.  I'm not saying natural talent doesn't play a role, but it's much less than people think.

Booking

I feel like something has happened.  Booking a show has never been easy by any means, but lately it's been all but impossible.

Thankfully, we have something on the horizon.  I booked a show at the Soda Bar in December and I have to say Peter is one of the most friendly people I've worked with around town.  We're going back there this month to play a show on the 27th, and I hope I can keep the relationship going.

Everywhere else I've turned, though, has been a dead end which is surprising to me.  I don't think I've changed anything I do to try and get a show.  We have the same amount of average plays on Myspace and the same amount fans as my last band did.  Really, no one has a lot of plays on Myspace anymore and I don't think most promoters even looked at that.  Something is off, though.

Is it hard to book a two piece?  This band doesn't have 4 people to help increase the draw, but we still do pretty well, relatively.  I feel like we brought out more people out to the past couple shows than the other four or five piece bands did, but I suppose a promoter wouldn't know that.

Most venues in San Diego have live music 6 or 7 nights a week.  That's a lot of talent a promoter needs to book, so it's hard to think that they could have any sort of discrimination.  It most be something else.  Something, something, something...

Let's think.  I'm leaning towards the fact we're a two piece, but isn't that in now?  Aren't two pieces the hip new thing?  Maybe it's the way I word my emails, but I really haven't changed that in years.  I try and be friendly and cordial, and I can't believe friendly is bad.  Maybe it is. 

Am I worried?  Not yet -- not really.  I have a show booked and promoting for that usually takes up most of my effort and worry.  But, I would really like to have something set up for the end of April, at least.  Can I ask Soda Bar to set up a show before we even play the one we have scheduled?  Mmmm, I don't think that would be a good idea.

So what should a guy do?  The scientist in me says figure out what the issue is and fix it, and the right brain side of me says, SEND MORE EMAILS.  TALK TO PEOPLE!  That last one interests me the most and the least at the same time.  I need to go to the Ruby Room soon and see what I can find out.  Or maybe the 710 club.  Or the Ken Club.  Or Winstons.  I've never been one to like striking up conversations with strangers, but since I do like playing live, I suppose that's what I need to do. 

At least all of these places serve alcohol.

Merchandise

I think I've always over looked merch in all of my last bands.  It's either been too expensive or too hard to coordinate.  Thankfully, I've never perused making a billion Jupiter Sound Clash T Shirts.  That band lasted a whole five months and while it would have been fun to try and sling pink tank tops to the drunk girls who would take up the whole space in front of the stage, it really would have been a waste.  And, there were really no drunk girls that I remember.  There was a drunk guy once, he was funny.  He wouldn't have bought a shirt though.

I always wanted stickers, but again I'm happy I never bought into the various sticker promotions online.  $100 for 100 stickers?  No way would I pay for that!  And my inner Banksy would probably disappear as soon as I went to put them on the dumpsters and street posts in my neighborhood.  I could see myself posting two and then getting caught and jailed for vandalism. 

But that was the old me!  The new me is embarrassing merchandise like I never have before, and I'm finding out that I won't need to remortgage my apartment to afford any of these things.  Well, sort of.

I recently bought a T Shirt Screen printing press.  The idea in theory was great.  I could get a new hobby, print my own shirts for friends and at least start selling merch without too much of an investment.  I thought it would either be a wild success or a miserable failure, and I would be happy with either.  If it failed, I could tell myself, "at least I tried."

That was 3 months and probably about $500.00 ago.  I have to say, I like this hobby.  This expensive, expensive hobby.  I'm not sure if it will pan out completely as a way to make money, but it's fun.  I personally have about 10 Get Down Automatic shirts, some better than others, one or two I can actually feel good about wearing in public.  These things take time.

I've also learned how to make stickers on the cheap using laser printable waterproof vinyl.  We have a homeless lady that listens to us practice at our studio.  She's always wanted to help us, so I gave her a handful and asked her to put them up where ever she could.  And I put one up too.  Take that Banksy.  A whole sticker.  On a lamp post.