"Loud Lovin’"

Rochester, NY (9/10/13)

Find my photos here.

 

The Henrietta Red Roof Inn was my home for the night. After a long day skirting the Lake Ontario coast from Old Fort Niagara to Sodus Point collecting lighthouse pictures, I arrived at the Rochester, NY suburb a little before 4:30PM. More than anything, I wanted to take a shower. I really needed to wash the day off! Sunscreen, sweat and record heat for Rochester (the Mini's gauge read 95° at one point) made the shower feel like my entire soul was being cleansed.

Afterward I settled on my king size bed to take a look at the local offerings for the evening. The city paper was conveniently located right next to the ice machine that I had stopped at before that cathartic shower. Options were typically sparse for Tuesday night. One club featured a punk band I knew of but didn't appreciate. The only other show this evening sounded a bit more intriguing, so I investigated the venue. Not only was it a great sounding, funky pub, it was only 10 minutes away – a real bonus given all the miles I already logged today. I called to ask if I could still get a ticket, dressed, and set my trusty GPS once again.

The Lovin' Cup Bistro was a very interesting place, oddly located within an upscale mini mall and adjacent townhouse and apartment development. It had an open layout with seemingly good acoustics. I was offered a drink, opted for my usual Makers Mark, and began to peruse the menu.

"DJ Tanner," a heavily inked young woman with a Meg White look, was old school all the way, from the vinyl on the turntables (Technics on the right, Genesis on the left) to the mostly obscure rockabilly, blues, R&B, and punk numbers she served up with a "Pulp Fiction" vibe. Later I told her that for all the music I thought I knew, she stumped me way more often than not. She guessed that she had somewhere between 1,400 to 1,500 records in her collection. I have her beat on the basis of pure numbers, but I also have many years of collecting on her.

The mix worked perfectly for the main act and the crowd. Segues did not seem to be a top priority, nor did they seem to be important. The jumping' jive of twists and turns added anticipation to the feel. You never knew what was coming next, but it was always dead on. In typical fashion, she ended her set with a song I never heard, "Why Can't I Touch It" by the Buzzcocks. Nice!

All the while I took my time with the menu, lingering over the bourbon that was lingering over ice. I finally settled on the "Me and the Bean" appetizer and, after a while longer, "Bell bottom blues " burger. I was hoping my table would also be my vantage point for the eight o'clock show. I enjoyed the ample garlic hummus and sweet red pepper coulis snack, and the wheat beer complemented the burger. On top of that, it turned out I got to keep my seat, so it was all good!

The headliner had a test pressing that he had autographed and was selling via raffle ticket sales before the show – like he took a page from the Band:Smart approach to real money made at concerts.

Barrence Whitfield and his band, the Savages, impressed me from the moment they did their sound check two hours before their show. Guitar, bass sax, drums, and a wailing Whitfield pounded their audience with a full-blown, no holds barred attack I was only vaguely prepared for. About three steps beyond dirty, they were at once tight and ragged--the embodiment of what rock 'n roll is supposed to be. My only worry was that my stereo wouldn't be able to support the energy level, or volume, displayed on this night.

As it happened the show was part of a series of benefits for Rochester's local music scene. The sponsoring organization, Bop Arts, is led by the owner of a great record store called Bop Shop Records. Tom Kohn served as the evening's MC. I admire his ilk. Like Cindy Barbers and her "Cleveland Rocks" organization, these are genuine people who pour heart and soul into helping local clubs and artists. I hope they are all successful, and I encourage all of you to check out the special events they produce.

Postscipt: Barrence and company appeared on a recent episode of "Later with Jools Holland." Look for it, as they rerun the program on both BBC America and Palladium.

Next Week: "Have a Cigar (part 1)

"Welcome to the Music Business..."

The Weekend: Day Three (9/11/13)

The symposium’s second day began with Martin Atkins talking about how important it is to develop a social media mindset. He invited his audience to choose select vehicles from a lengthy list (including many I had never heard of, like tiny URL, Klout, Nimbit, Topsin, etc.) and encouraged them to develop a system of posting once a day vs. seven times on one day per week. He also noted that Tumbler.com is now the most popular platform for the under-26 demographic.

Main Takeaways:

1.     Think of online posts as t-shirt designs,

2.     Tweet is the new fax,

3.     “Shoot the dolphin,” meaning that your message should jump back and forth between digital and real worlds.

Gary Kuzminsky (right, aka Sir Real) is one half of JaGoFF, an artist, activist, musician & media collaborator. Like Atkins, his maniacal approach to public speaking was used effectively to drive home points related to the film industry’s ties to music. Unfortunately, his delivery was so powerful that it kept me from taking extensive notes. I did get to speak with him later, but that conversation mainly centered on “Dust Radio.” BTW, he knew little about the artist and nothing about the project.

The morning’s panel discussion featured information on networking, photography, promotion (by Umphrey’s McGee drummer Kris Myers), filmmaking, performers’ venue rights (or lack, thereof), and the radio industry.

Takeaway: Photographer Mary Sweeney talked about a Madison, WI group called Sexy Ester. It made me stop and wonder how many bands there are. As I sat down to write this, I searched for the answer online. This was my favorite, from a Yahoo Answers user named “SleepWalker” four years ago:

              “There are about 7,000,000 bands on Myspace (a recent survey was conducted).
                So there might be around 8,000,000, out of which 7,999,000 suck.”

One band that doesn’t suck is the aforementioned Umphrey’s McGee. They give away more music than most anyone else records and sells—supporting the idea that “free is the new black.” Just search their podcasts on iTunes for hours of free live music that is worth hearing.

Kris Myers (far right) and bandmates can be vewed (among hundreds of other places) here.

After lunch, a session called “Zero Dollar Marketing” was delivered by the organizer. I have seen this idea in practice at every show I have attended since. The use of signed material, promo copies, and, of course, t-shirts sell and are raffled off regularly. More on this to come.

The next event included a t-shirt screening workshop, so I decided that it may be better to spend the next hour or so at the Navy Pier. With camera in tow, I set off to see and document the Chicago Harbor lighthouse. To my disappointment, the end of the pier was off limits. A concert was happening, and the crowds made any good views of the structure impossible. With nothing more than the workout of walking out and back on the long pier to show, I returned to SAE for the day’s final lecture.

“How to Make Your Show an Event” was a highlight of the conference, both in content and delivery. Atkins’ patter had not become boring, and the practical information was worth the band attendees internalizing (though I had my doubts as to how much was absorbed, as only one other person was taking notes). The main theme was that the show is not the first thing, but the LAST thing.

Top Ten Takeaways:

1.     Sell more than one style of t-shirt,

2.     Your band’s name does NOT have to be on the t-shirt,

3.     Put a tip jar on the table and keep it full,

4.     Sell re-mixes, live CD’s; don’t sweat quality, make them limited editions,

5.     Make EP’s and singles more that full-length CD’s,

6.     Add a cause to the event,

7.     Assign a theme, based on coinciding calendar events (even obscure ones),

8.     Piggyback onto a nearby major concert event,

9.     Incentivize early ticket buying

10.  Play five venues within 40-80 miles of an actual target city, depending on the area (a larger area in the Midwest, for example),

And my favorite quote. It related to a great story about a band who promoted a show as their last before embarking on a fictional European tour, only to be caught by some fans when they went out to buy beer: “It’s not lying, it’s show business!” So true.

As we broke out, I headed out to the post-conference party. I was looking forward to seeing Moldover perform, having heard so much about his unique approaches to music, production, packaging and promotion. I was quite impressed, enough to get sucked into buying a personally hand-made package of his CD. I was pleasantly surprised about how lucid and friendly he was to talk with, and I asked him to consider bringing his distinctive brand of performing to Pittsburgh. Here’s hoping this San Francisco product fares better than the hundreds of thousands of others.

 The long day ended with a fantastic dinner just down the street, at a nice neighborhood pub called the Green Door Tavern. I headed back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep before heading back home the next morning.

Postscript: At the time of this posting, Moldover’s Kickstarter campaign for the production of his second release continued steay movement toward its $290,000 goal. As mentioned before, this second offering is even more creative than the above-first release.   
Check out the video here!





Next Week: "Loud Lovin' in Rochester"

"Welcome to the Music Business..."

The Weekend: Day Two (9/10/13)

I had turned in early after a nightcap and woke up even earlier. I waited until I could see some daylight then went out for a morning run, which I find more effective than caffeine for charging up my system.

I had no trouble finding the host site, SAE Institute of Chicago, and registered at the front desk. The first person I met at breakfast gave a preview of the kind of diverse backgrounds I would encounter throughout the next two days. Attractive but nerdy looking, she was born in Montana, where she grew up on a stead diet of country and bluegrass music. While attending college, she got into hip-hop and is currently a performer in that genre and has been living and working in Chicago for the past two years. She was a disciple of Atkins, having come away from previous lectures of his feeling “energized and like I could take on the world.” It remains to be seen if she will. I’ll let you know if I hear anything.

As I waited in the auditorium, I took note of the numbers and types of attendees. There were almost as many of each. There were about 40 or so artists of varying styles, producers, promoters, executives, just about everything but a recently out-of-work teacher who was there just for the experience (lucky I was in the room!).

As of 9:07AM, the 8:30 keynote address had not yet begun. I wondered if the Midwest was on a different schedule. When the festivities did begin, the days became a series of micro-blasts. Information came screaming out of each presenter’s mouth, body language and AV support. In the 30 years of attending educational conferences, I had no idea what I had been missing. The energy, humor, vulgarity, and pure usefulness of the talks exhilarated and exhausted this reporter. The symposium organizer, a mad scientist of a post-punk drummer and no-holds-barred entrepreneur, started things right off with advice about how to promote yourself in one-to-one conversations about your latest CD release:

1.     Don’t open your conversation with it; 2.     don’t keep mentioning it; 3.     share credit; 4.     be thankful; 5.     be humble.

He moved on to talk about the cyclical nature of the entertainment business, starting with the notion that we are on the brink of rediscovering the cassette tape, and using Robert DeNiro as an example of how celebrities start as objects, move to weird/new, then are adopted, achieve iconic status, become lame and discarded, later become hip memory prompts as they settle into once again being objects. It made a lot of sense!

Just a sample of other takeaways:

1.     “Free is the new black” (saying that big money can be made by giving stuff away, Atkins contended that it’s not a problem if 2,000 people illegally download your music, rather it’s a problem if they don’t).

2.     You have 13 seconds to make an impression on YouTube.

3.     Always be nice to everyone, especially to those who can do the least for you in that moment.

4.     Packaging sells—make it cheap and unique (more on this later when I talk about the artist Moldover’s hand-made and fully functional CD package, shown below).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8UzSVFUIc0

There was also a panel discussion detailing such concepts as how a band needs to promote itself (and be resigned to the fact that it is the soul architect of its promotion), how bands need to work with the owners of clubs and other venues, and how social media, blogs, and podcasts are essential ingredients to promotion.

Perhaps the afternoon’s most interesting session was devoted to Kickstarter, the online community for raising monies to fund productions and start-up businesses of all types. It was a Kickstarter project that secured funding for “Dust Radio,” a movie about Chris Whitley that has yet to be released after three years of supposed post-production.

Day one ended with a presentation by Wendy Day, a pioneer in the recording industry for both her gender and race. Day the founder and CEO of The Rap Coalition and is another “in-your-face” entrepreneur who seems to fear nothing.

The day ended with a gathering of attendees to sample Wisconsin microbrews and listen to the man who’s web site informed me about the event—Chris Connelly. It was nice to talk with him about his career and the interesting turns it has taken. If you ever have the chance to hear the “Shipwreck” CD, I highly recommend it.

Postscript: At the time of this posting, Moldover is in the early stages of his own Kickstarter campaign for the production of his second release. It is even more creative than the above-mentioned packaging. Check out the video here!

(Next week: ”The Weekend: Day Three)

:30 Side Trip--Lincoln Durham at Club Cafe in Pittsburgh

Excellent set turned in by this Austin Rocker! Vocals are that of a tortured soul drowned in whiskey. Songs are dark, yet spiritual--real stories about real people and experiences in his life. Unlike his stage persona, he comes across as a mild-mannered, friendly, self-effacing guy with a wry sense of humor.

New CD ("Exodus of the Deemed Unrighteous") just released on Tuesday is worth buying, if he's not coming to your town any time soon. My friends in Central PA will be able to catch him at an upcoming blues fest in Lancaster. Stay tuned...

Visit his website to learn more:  http://www.lincolndurham.com/

“Welcome to the Music Business…You’re F**ked.”

The title of the symposium’s keynote address jumped out at me, snatching my attention. It was outrageous, irreverent, and just plain funny. Maybe I identified. After all, these attributes worked for me at my job for 24 years. Until there suddenly wasn’t a 25^th.

It ceased being more fun than not to go to work, and my dwindling sense of humor became too obvious. I had become, in short, a liability. I needed a fresh start. So did my employer. We parted ways, and I set about redefining my career and life. My goal was to find the fun again by combining elements of my skills set with one or more of my passions: music, writing, history, sports, photography, and lighthouses (combining the last two on the list is demonstrated below).

http://s977.photobucket.com/user/stonegaCCC/library/Lighthouses?sort=3&page=1

The organizer of the symposium, Martin Atkins, certainly had an attitude that mirrored his keynote theme. It was evident in his books, one of which bore the same title of the aforementioned address. I read three short reviews on Amazon.com. Two of the three critics lambasted him as a "charlatan and vulture who preyed on the vulnerability of struggling, young, naïve, aspiring artists." For some reason, these views only heightened my interest in attending the event. One doesn’t have a long career without making some enemies along the way, a fact that was not lost on me as I saw my career in the field of education end.

I came across the upcoming “Band:Smart” happening while checking out an artist’s web site. He was going to be providing entertainment on the first day. Investigating the symposium’s web site lured me into considering a last-minute trip. With nothing better to do that weekend, I plunked down the $99 registration fee and began to plan my excursion to Chicago. I booked a room in a suburban hotel and entered addresses into my GPS. The short process, as well as the original exposure to the opportunity, was made perhaps far too easy by the Internet. In any case, initial steps on a possible new path were laid down.

Those steps might actually have been traced to another, much earlier time in my life. I grew up around the entertainment business and those who lived and died in it. My mother was a country music radio DJ and member of a local band of some local success. The happenstance of my waiting for her shift to end one day led to a role in what would evolve into an off-Broadway stint at the age of nine, followed by a series of other stage performances. So I had already seen all levels of the vocation, from those who made it big to those who were as Atkins had labeled them.

The Weekend: Day One (9/9/13)

I headed to Chicago in my 2008 Mini Cooper S convertible with GPS, EZ Pass, golf clubs, suitcase, iPad, notebook, and 82 hours of iPod music files in tow. After about 7 ½ hours, I arrived at the Oak Brook Marriott (which I highly recommend based on location, price, comfort) and explored the Friday night options for entertainment.

A group called Hedgehog and the Fox were having a CD release party for the early show at Reggie’s. Since Reggie’s was reputed to be a prime club with an adjoining record store, I elected to drive into the South Side of the city, which was not nearly as scary as Jim Croce would have had us believe.

My view of the show that wasn't

While the record store was a disappointment, I was initially feared that the night might be a wash. The wait to order a beer and some food was longer than the drive into town. I theorized that maybe I didn’t look like I fit in, until Hedgehog and the Fox started setting up. I looked younger than most of them.

Things looked up a bit when they plugged in their instruments. An old favorite of mine, “Sylvia” by Focus was the vehicle for the band’s sound check. I was feeling better.

With still plenty of time before the 6PM show and the place rather thinly populated, I finished my burrito and second Amstel draft. As I watched the lead guitarist mingle with a couple of equally seasoned women, my idea about the band’s average age was confirmed. Unfortunately this only fed the mystery of why I felt a bit of an outcast.

I spent the rest of my meal looking through the city paper, trying to add up the number of venues and shows existing during the next week, and wondering if this market—big as it is—isn’t saturated.

By 6:50 it became evident that the band had little intention of starting to play any time soon. The parking meter was only good until 7:20, so I decided to make my way back out of the city. I paused long enough at the sales table set up at the front of the bar to pick a copy of the CD they were supposed to be performing, based solely on the Focus tune they rambled through earlier. I listened to the disc on the way back to the hotel. The instrumentals were impressive, but the vocals could be scrapped.

(Next week: ”The Weekend: Day Two)

Fresh Start: Welcome to My Rediscovery

A quarter of a century is a long time to spend at one place of employment. Apparently, hitting that mark was not quite on my agenda. A major turning point came when my patience was wearing thin and my sense of humor was becoming less of an asset. Suddenly my 30-year career in education and 24 at the same place ended one July afternoon.

What turns would lay ahead? That seemed to be my call. In a way, it was like winning the lottery. I now had time to read, write, explore, and meet new people--activities that would not have otherwise fit into my life. I began to focus on the events I’ve witnessed, as well as those I now had opportunities to attend.

I treasure the people I’ve met and the places I've been--from Chicago to Holguín and Providence to Jerusalem. As I began to catalog the more distinctive among them, it became clear that so many were things that few others have had an awareness of, let alone a chance to witness for themselves.

Ultimately, this blog is meant to reflect on the little highlights that can make a life worth living and to expose others to people worth knowing. The entries will be posted in no specific chronological order, beginning with a three-part series about a remarkable weekend in August.

I look forward to using details of my encounters to I bring others with me on my exciting, unpredictable, and ultimately rewarding journey!

Next up: "Welcome to the Music Business...You're F**ked!" (Part 1)...