Monday, September 10, 2012

Seven Habits Of Unsuccessful Bands

#1 They get too comfortable at home
If you're in a band, go ahead and ask yourself these questions: "Do you have a good job?" "Are you an attentive boyfriend/husband" "Are you an involved and dedicated father?"  If the answer to any of these is "Yes," then your band is probably doomed. 

Bands that take their work seriously live on the road.  They don't have real jobs, healthy romantic relationships, well-adjusted children, houseplants.  They might be able to keep the loyalty of a dog back home, but that's about it. 

Being on the road takes groups of good musicians and turns them into great bands.  Every day on tour is a test of mettle for a band.  They have to learn to get along, they have varied and wild experiences together, they practice and tighten up their skills nightly in front of new audiences.  They live their music and become artists.  No local band can compete with a road-hardened band, even if they have more innate talent. 

If at the end of this sentence you haven't quit your job and broken up with your girlfriend, you have probably just insured that your band won't get much farther than it is now.

#2 They celebrate small accomplishments
It's tough not to get high on small victories, and in other aspects of life, we're encouraged to take a lot of stock in them.  But in bands it can be a huge waste of time.  Have you ever heard of a "Single Release Party"?  I have.  It's where a band records a single song, and puts together a show and party to celebrate the fact that now that song is available to be downloaded.  Yay. 

Small accomplishments come faster and easier to bands now than ever before.  Instant feedback on newly recorded songs, tons of small shows to be played, mini-reviews and little write-ups on music blogs are easy to come by.  The problem with all of these things is that they resemble real accomplishments, but aren't.  Hearing your Facebook friends cheer loudly after a song is not the same as rocking a crowd of strangers to the point where they explode out of genuine musical bliss.  But it feels the same.  Getting a glowing review on a blog you'd never heard of isn't the same as getting a glowing review on Pitchfork or Rolling Stone.  But it feels similar. 

Aim high and don't get too giddy over the little morsels that want to inflate your ego.  Years can go by coasting on these small accomplishments, and therein lies the problem.

#3 They fight
Just like unsuccessful couples, unsuccessful bands fight too much.  They don't really like each other, they talk about each other behind backs and are resentful.  If you're in that situation, just go ahead and get out now...you're already wasting your time.


#4 They never get good (or interesting) enough
This may seem too obvious to be said, but there's more nuance to it than you may think.  Many bands start off as very derivative of a band that they love...but they forget to move on.  If your idols are an amazing band, and you sound like a worse or "lite" version of that band, you're never going to get very far.  What successful bands figure out is how to separate themselves from their influences without one-upping them.  You can alter the vocal style, introduce a new instrument or tone, be crazier, be funkier, any number of things.  If you can't beat bands at their own games, you have to change the rules and make your own game.

#5 They just want to hang out
The opposite of fighting too much, is getting along too well and not getting anything done.  Some bands enjoy the company of their band mates so much that they don't push themselves as musicians when they're together, they just like to chat, crack jokes and catch a buzz.  While it can be extremely fun to be in a band, the music has to come first.  If "taking 5" turns into a half hour of roundtable comedy, you may be in trouble. 

#6 They practice once a week, play one show per month
The once-a-week-rehearsal-one-show-a-month routine is extremely common amongst amateur bands.  Those in that category can absolutely expect to stay at amateur status.  Bands need to recognize that this schedule constitutes a hobby, not a serious pursuit. 

You certainly can accomplish a lot during that time.  You can write some new songs, get tighter, and get better at your game over time, but it'll probably take a lot of time.  During that time of casual improvement, lots of things will change in the member's lives...new life goals, illness, babies, divisive girlfriends, etc.  When you're in a band, time must be treated like a precious commodity, and constant activity is the only way to stay fresh and relevant. 

#7 They don't write good lyrics
Lyrical content is the probably the most reviewed aspect of any band, not only by professional music critics, but by casual listeners as well.  Getting tight instrumentally is vitally important, but having great (and stylistically appropriate) lyrics is much more important.  Writing lyrics is a strange art form, and there must be a master of it in any band.  They must be familiar but enigmatic, poetic but easy, and they must fit together in unexpected ways.  The problem with bad lyrics is, they stand out from the music so prominently, that everything else will be ignored as soon as that groan-inducing first line is delivered.  Take more time to craft better lyrics, and the rest of the work will be that much simpler to take care of. 

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Perform For The Gig You Want, Not The Gig You're At

This will be a short entry -- no reason to expand too heavily on an old cliche that I've adapted for the musician/performer class.

That old cliche, of course, is "Dress for the job you want, not the job you have."  It's very sound advice for anyone with a job, and a ladder of promotions somewhere in the distance.  You want your managers and the higher-ups to see you, day in and day out, with a clear desire for upward movement.  You want people to look at you and see someone who is under-utilized, in need of advancement.  You do not want to give your peers the impression that you belong where you're at, but rather that you belong at least one step higher than you are.

I feel that the same applies to bands and musicians, and can be very effective at increasing the odds of success at a live concert.

Look, you can get a bunch of people to come to your shows, beg your friends, coworkers and family to come support you.  You can get heads in the crowd, who can buy drinks at the bar, and you could very well be invited back to play that venue again.  But, that means very little if the strangers at the gig don't remember you, and perchance, talk about you to their friends/coworkers the next day.  The best compliment anyone can give your performance is the kind of compliment you can't receive the night of the show.  It's the one that pops in your band's Facebook feed the next day...an unsolicited "Like" or message from a person who was at the show that remembered what you did the previous night and is making an effort to stay in the loop with your band.  This person may want to find out about future shows, and is actively planning to invite a friend or 2 to the next one.

With this said, the thing that I'm stressing is that it's extremely important for a band, even at a bar on a Wednesday night to perform like a band who's playing a small theater.  It's important for the band in the small theater to perform like they're in a large one, headlining on a sold-out night.  No audience member has any interest in seeing a detached, disinterested band run through a set because they're not super-inspired by their surroundings.  No audience, at any level, wants to see band members joking and taking sips of water between songs, looking down at their setlist to see what's next, then casually beginning the next song after asking "you guys ready?"  They want to see what you'll do if you were at a big place, with big ticket prices, on a big tour.  They want to see you at your best.  No one, anywhere, at any time, is going to be interested in any performer who is not trying their hardest.

This is where it becomes essential to perform for the gig you want, not the gig you're at.  You have to be impressive on a small scale to move up to the bigger things.  If it's clear that you're only willing to perform at your peak if the circumstances fit you, you can be absolutely sure those circumstances will never come your way.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Meeting vs. Exceeding a Songwriter's Expectations

As a session drummer, it's my job to:
a) write drum parts to a song
b) record the parts to the best of my ability

Often, however, the first part of the job is done for me.  When I think of how I feel about that, I am alternately grateful for the efforts of a songwriter to come up with drum parts, and apprehensive to play something that can often differ from my vision of how the drums should sound.

I have grown very accustomed to letting the songwriters' vision of a drum part shine through, but there's always that sense that when an instrumentalist is given freedom, there's all sorts of possibilities that the songwriter didn't see.  From my perspective, if you've hired me to play drums on your song, it's likely that you're hiring not only a person who has a specific ability, but you're also hiring a "second opinion" whose input can, hopefully, improve the whole vision.

That is not to say that the songwriter should not have ideas for how the drums should sound.  Of course, everyone who writes has an overall vision, and that vision can be destroyed by a rogue instrumentalist who plays the song in a totally different way than imagined.  For me, a road-map is important.  "The drums start here, end here, and go at this pace."  This is essential information.  But the specifics of how it gets from Point A to Point B to Point C is certainly something that is open to interpretation.  I feel that the only problem when a non-drummer writes all the drum parts is that they are limited to the the tools that they accumulated from listening to records.  As a drummer of almost 20 years, someone who has obsessed about rhythm and drum patterns for that long, I can bring to the table ideas that are original, unique and played in subtle ways that a non-drummer wouldn't necessarily imagine for themselves.

When I work with a producer or writer, it's often that we find the perfect idea somewhere in the middle of their vision and my "modified vision."  Meeting there halfway is a great feeling for someone who has invested their time and energy into a project.  It rewards their physical talents as well as their creative talents.  And when someone has a clear reward for their creative talents, they will give just that much more to the song.  Also, it's great to help improve a producer/writer's vision, and not merely prove them wrong by out-doing their vision.  I don't want to bully anyone into thinking I "know better."

The risk you run when dictating 100% of the recordings, you take away the creativity of the player and now you've just hired a "musical athlete," someone to play the things you wanted, and stop there.  I think one thing we can all agree on, is that the records that sound the best are the ones where the players are genuinely "into" the music.  The freshness of that sound, always seems to trump the most solid, stoic vision.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

The Art of Being Unusual

Now more than ever, we are surrounded.  Surrounded by more sounds, visuals, and creativeness than we ever have been.  We live in a world where we look at screens at an ever-increasing rate, and the outside world at a diminishing rate. What that means is that we are surrounded synthetic, curated environments as much as we are surrounded by buildings, trees, and other people.  Even right now, instead of typing this into a blank word processor, I'm typing into something that was designed by a professional, housed in website controlled by a major corporation, hosted by a totally synthetic construct of millions of creative contributors.  Design and architecture is now something that consumes most aspects of our lives, rather than merely our home and our cars.  Creative design inundates our work, our communication, our relationships and our time-wasting. 

This, in a way, is a real plus for the creative community.  Given my work as a recording musician, I am presented with more opportunities for work, because music is still a big part of creative design.  Even if it's barely noticeable, music must be thoughtfully composed for ads, phone apps, websites, bumpers, trailers, games, etc.  Because of that, I can work more.  I am very grateful for that market, because I like recording music for a living and would like to continue doing it. 

I think what I appreciate most about this creative environment is the strain it puts on higher art forms.  It forces the artist to look for hard-to-find sounds and emotions that can elevate music above the fray of the music we're surrounded by.  On the one hand, we have thousands of extremely competent musicians and composers working on the music that is "used" on us throughout the day, and on the other we have "artisan" composers who look to entertain us in the more pure sense of music appreciation.  There's still a major element of competition for our ears, but it cannot be won by one musician being more technically skilled than another; no, there are more than enough A-level musicians out there. 

One thing an artist can do, and what seems to work on me, is finding the art in the unusual.  The off-beat sensibility finding its place in the on-beat part of the brain. 

Speaking from a drummer's perspective (as is my only real musical expertise), I can see it happening more and more.  Drummers are no longer judged by speed, or how hard they hit, or how good they look with their shirt off.  (Not that those things don't matter, especially the last one!)  Now, a great songwriter needs a drummer who can think outside the box, and apply an unusual spin on the typical "backbeat on the 2 and 4".  Having a strange, makeshift drum kit can help, mixing in a snare that sounds trashy, or rocking a broken cymbal, or deliberately avoiding the obvious pulse in favor of an oblique approach. 

I've heard many attempts at the unusual sensibility, and much of it seems completely arbitrary.  Deliberately playing without variation for 5 minutes is hardly a substitute for art, neither is hitting a piece of plastic instead of a kick drum.  Art does not exist because you're doing something weird; art only exists when the unusual hits a note in the brain that makes some kind of perverse sense.  To make this work, a musician needs to look outside of his/her own role, and find something that fits the song more than what's obvious.  To find something that works on a level that no one else would be able to figure out.  That's the vision that an artist has that a "practitioner" does not.  That's the vision that I and many others strive for, and practice towards.  Art certainly isn't defined as "unusual expression", but on some level it has to be.  If anyone can do it, why would it capture our imaginations and make us feel something above the ordinary?

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

How Hourly Rehearsal Studios Ruin Bands

There are a few things that are indigenous to the Los Angeles musician culture that are so bizarre and backwards that there should be numerous psychological studies done to properly understand them.
  • The Showcase: The ever-popular idea that doing a single, properly-timed live performance will be enough to launch the career of an aspiring, lazy songwriter/band. Savvy musicians know what these actually are.  They're excuses for venues to demand ticket sales from up-and-comers and ensure that bodies pay the cover charge to get in the door.  Call a concert a "show" and artists will want to just show up and play, call it a "showcase" and they'll bend over backwards to get on the bill; oftentimes fronting hundreds of dollars for pre-sold tickets.  There's always some kind of vague promise of "industry" folks showing up to these events, chomping on cigars, saying words like "moxie" and "exciting new sound", but they never do, because those people do not exist.
  • The Industry: Is this a thing?  What industry?  You mean the industry that loses money every year?  The industry that is shrinking faster than a cinder block thrown into the L.A. river?  Yeah, get your hopes up young songstress and handsome pianist.  The industry and the "industry contacts" you've accrued are coming to give you money, any day now.  They want your money, not the other way around!  The thing is, that most, if not all, aspiring musicians will come in contact with a music industry in their careers, it's just not the industry of selling music to the public; it's the industry of making money from the young and aspirational musicians.  The instrument retailers, the recording studios who make your demo, the photographers who shoots the band, the video producers who make the promo videos, the PR people who bomb blog sites on your behalf, the session musicians whom you pay to play in your showcase and on your records, and last but not least, the hidden dragon in the L.A. music world, THE HOURLY REHEARSAL STUDIOS.
For those who aren't familiar with these establishments, hourly rehearsal studios provide a small, instrument-furnished room to play music in.  There will be a drum kit, amps, microphones and a P.A. to use, for a fee of anywhere from $15-50 per hour.  Many bands practice there.  Every night, the dozens of these places will be filled to capacity with Angeleno bands practicing.

What do I have against hourly rehearsal studios?  It's not the buildings themselves, they're quite nice and seem to be adequately priced for what you get.  Hell, I could recommend a few really nice ones where you'd delight to spend an evening.  The owners and employees seem to be nice, genuine people.  Even the business model makes sense.  Bands need a place to play, and L.A. is a place where rents are really high and people can't really afford to dedicate a room in their house (which they likely do not have) to setting up band equipment.  Also, monthly rented lock-out rehearsal studios are really expensive!  So what's the problem?

The problem is the psychological effect it has on a band, and the premium it places on rehearsing less.  There's nothing more important when renting an hourly room than rehearsing as little as possible.  You sure as hell don't want to spend more than 3 hours there if you can help it.  At that point the rehearsal is pushing $100.  Even split 4 ways it's a pain in the ass to spend $25 each to work on your songs one time.  But it inevitably will not be split amongst all band members.  These are band-people we're talking about; some are broke outright, and all are tight with their money.  So one person usually shoulders most of the load. 

At some point, subconsciously, a group will decide that it needs to rehearse as little as it can get away with.  The idea of rehearsing 4 times per week is completely out of the question, and rehearsing once a week becomes the norm.  When a band rehearses once a week, or four times a month, it's really three.  Someone will inevitably cancel one of those for some work-related issue.  That becomes the new normal.  The bare minimum is now the modus operandi.  With this new mentality in place the band trudges forward.

What happens to a band when they rehearse 3 times per month?  They start die a slow death. New songs are rarely introduced, ("We have to rehearse our set for the show next week! There's no time for new songs!"), and without a base-level of creativity fueling the band's desires, the feeling in the air changes irreversibly.   Rehearsals now lose any feeling of spontaneity, impromptu jams are cut short to make way for more important matters.  A song cannot be developed from scratch because the clock is ticking.  Rehearsals become an exercise for dead-eyed, bored musicians who are now daydreaming of being at home watching Battlestar Gallactica with their girlfriend.  Alcohol and marijuana creep in as a necessity to feeling good about the proceedings.

An interesting phenomenon occurs when the bassist cancels at the last minute, and the band plays without him/her...I mean, there's a 24-hour cancellation policy, it'd be stupid not to go ahead.  Without Mr. Bass, the band feels comfortable taking some mild stabs at him and his contribution to the band.  The bored bandmates who have now come to secretly hate these rehearsals have found a better use of their time: gossiping.  The playing becomes secondary to just hanging with friends. The gossiping becomes more or less acceptable, and the band proceeds to individually pick each other apart for no particular reason other than boredom.  All flaws and inadequacies are exposed, and openly discussed when the offender isn't there.  At this point, replacing faulty members gets discussed.  In reality, no one needs to be replaced, the band simply has run it's course.  The criticisms of each other are too deep, faith is lost and will never be coming back.

Unbeknownst to the collective, kept as a secret vice in the back of each member's mind, cancellations are godsends, shows are chore, and new songs are a burden.  Everyone wants out.  And then one glorious day, the scheduled rehearsal day passes by and no one receives a phone call about it, the day has come and gone and no one bothered to inquire about getting together.  The band is officially, unceremoniously over.

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Of all the negative things that face a band, it just seems silly to introduce an element that rewards a band for playing less.  Playing as much as possible is the only conceivable way to be a tight group who writes good songs and performs them well.   I would venture that it's smarter to practice in dank, subhuman conditions in the basement of a glue factory than to do an hourly rehearsal at a pristine studio.  At least at the glue factory, you can play until you're exhausted, writing and jamming until your brains are dead and your fingers are sore.   That's the reason we like playing, right?  It's a satisfaction that you cannot get any other way.  So don't cut out the thing that makes being in a band fun and noteworthy, keep it alive by any means necessary.  In this case, convenience now can only lead to disappointment later.