Wednesday, May 22, 2013

We're Lawbreakers

I've played a lot of gigs. Hundreds, I believe. Indoors, outdoors, large crowds, small crowds, jazz, rock, acoustic - a lot of gigs. But this past Friday with my cover band In The Pocket at the Quiet Man Pub, something happened that had never happened at one of my shows before: somebody called the cops. I feel like it's a rite of passage or something. We were being too loud - rocking it too hard - and someone had had enough.

About 1/3 of the way through the first of two sets (yes, we had barely gotten going), I watched as two police officers came in and began talking to the bartender, who was obviously pissed. This bar has been having live music for as long as I can remember, but recently one of the neighbors has started a battle of noise complaints, and honestly we were a little surprised. I mean, the weekend before a noise complaint was probably justified because the bar was hosting karaoke, but for us? It's Saturday night and we're not "noise." Get a nightlife, already.

Anyway, kept playing, the crowd kept on dancing, and the cops were there for about 4-5 songs. And while I'm sure they enjoyed what they heard (who wouldn't?), they ticketed the bar and were on their way. It unfortunately wasn't a scene from the end of The Beatles' Let It Be with the cops coming and shutting us down, which would've made for a much better story and a much better blog post. But I think it's enough to say that on Friday night the cops were called to our gig. We're officially lawbreakers, right?

Thursday, May 9, 2013

DIAY

I am a DIY artist, and DIY, as you may know, stands for "Do It Yourself." But for an artist in the position that I am in, it's really much closer to DIAY - "Do It All Yourself." Consider the things that I have to handle: organizing the band, rehearsing the band, writing out the charts, booking (or trying) the shows, setting up the PR, reaching out to PR opportunities, managing a website, managing a Facebook page, managing a Twitter account, managing a YouTube channel (which includes shooting and editing videos), writing this blog, overseeing the design and production of merchandise, building my mailing list, writing and sending a bi-weekly email to my mailing list, networking with other industry people. Plus I have all of my commitments for In The Pocket and a few other things like giving lessons and playing in a jazz band. But, wait, I'm sure I'm forgetting something. Oh yeah: writing songs. That one's only kind of important, right?

There's a great song by Jackson Browne called "The Load Out," about what it's like being on tour, putting on a show in a different town day after day. And there's a lyric that says, "The only time that seems too short is the time that we get to play." Well, for me it's the time that I get to write. With all these things on my plate, the task that often gets pushed off is writing new songs, which is very frustrating because that's one of the main reasons I got into this gig. And because writing - for professionals, anyway - is not something that happens only whenever you get "inspired." You don't do job only when you're inspired, and neither do professional songwriters. And I'll admit that my time management skills could probably use a little more work and discipline, but whose couldn't?

At the beginning of the past couple years I've made it a goal to work on a new song each week, and as of now that has yet to happen. Why? Because looking at my workload, its quite possibly an impossible goal. But I'll keep working toward it.