I Did It!

Not one to toot my own horn so much, but if you’re a regular Music That Matters reader you may recall that I put forth a goal at the end of June to post every day in July…well, that last post a few minutes ago made it 31 straight days of at least one post, and there were a few days with two.

On that note, I’ll probably take much of this week off to rest my fingers, but I’ll be back–the one thing this exercise has reminded me is that writing creates more writing, and the more often I do it the more I find reasons to do more of it…

Now, Some Do’s and Don’ts

This is the last part of what’s turned out to be a three-part semi-rant about bands, live shows, and more…The bands can all play their hearts out, from openers to headliners, local to national acts, but without fans, listeners who not only like their music but care enough about it to tell others, they’ll be relegated to playing forever to friends and family members.

So here’s where I tell you to get out there and spread the word about your favorite music if you want it to survive–every scene has passive audience members who come and go, but there need to be more people out there who tell others about what they like in ways more compelling than just posting Youtube videos of classic rock songs.

I’ve spent years in sales jobs to support my music habit, so I tend to approach this from that perspective. If you eat at a good restaurant or have a positive experience at a retail store you’ll usually tell people about it, right? Well, supporting your favorite bands, especially those on a local level, should be no different. You don’t have to put up a blog post per day like me, but sharing those event links on Facebook is a big help to bands trying to get a crowd out to a show. posting pictures, fan videos of live shows, even sharing mp3 files with friends, all of these help.

Think of a band or artist as the center of a circle, that circle being the close friends, family, and others who they can count on to be at every show. for this example, assume that’s twenty people. If every one of those people do one of the things I mentioned above, they might convince a few more people each to come out to the next show, which then has sixty in attendance. repeat this process and the exponential potential is huge, obviously.

The biggest question I get is the “how” one….how do I get those people to talk about my music, repost my events, etc…? It’s a simple answer, really–play your music so well that it turns heads, pulls ears out of bar conversations, and generally makes people pay attention. That’s accomplished through practice and perseverance, usually years of it. Even the twenty-something ‘prodigy’ act out there has done something such as taken classical violin lessons since she was four.

I’m usually not a negative kind of person, but here are a few ‘Don’ts’, too:

Don’t expect to put a band together one week and sell out even your local watering hole the next week, month, or even year…Don’t take your crowd for granted, wring your hands when they don’t show up, and wonder why you don’t get booked on a Saturday night again when you only drew thirty people…Don’t complain you get no local media coverage when you don’t send your town’s newspaper music editor a CD, demo, or even a link to your web page until two days before a show…Don’t play a show under-rehearsed, under-prepared, or under-committed to playing your best because you’ll always have people out there who are seeing you for the first time–it’s up to you to convince them it won’t be the last time.

Stick Around For The Main Event

As a followup to last night’s post about opening bands, I’ll add that sometimes a non-local opener is a good idea, because after a local opener the fans of said band tend to leave in droves, thinning out the crowd for what’s usually a better act coming up later.

Thursday night’s main acts, The Sea Wolf Mutiny and Full Color Footage, have fairly healthy (if fairly young–I was almost the only one with an adult beverage in hand the whole night) followings considering their relatively short tenures on the local scene. I had seen both bands in an acoustic competition previously but had not been able to catch either one in a full-on electric setup, so I was going nowhere even after a pretty decent opening act.

Sea Wolf Mutiny rises up through the awkward yet arresting stage presence of lead singer and keyboard player Bobby Hatfield, whose vocal strength and pounding, rhythmic playing style provide much of the group’s personality. Perfectly flawless they’re not, and they’re better for it–you’ll be hard pressed to find a more honestly wrung-out performance.

Full Color Footage, on the other hand, are slicker and more melodic; as different as they are from their friends in Sea Wolf Mutiny, it’s the keyboard’s central presence in the music that ties the two bands inevitably together. It’s a musical alliance that appears to benefit both groups, as the crowd didn’t change over much at all, if any, from one set to the next.

The proof’s in the performances, of course, so here are a couple clips from the sets of Sea Wolf Mutiny and Full Color Footage (Lighting’s terrible so the picture’s not the best, but the sound is pretty good):

Pay Attention to the Opening Band

Sometimes, it pays to show up early to a club and catch the opening act, especially when it’s a ringer tossed onto a local bill like the one I just saw. Early in this case meant about 8:45 pm, and when I walked in the band was on stage soundchecking–from what the bar staff was saying, they had been running late and just gotten there minutes before.

Conditions was the name of the band, i found out later, but not being familiar with them didn’t matter because the five-piece lit up the stage like it was an amphitheater using every inch (and there weren’t that many to use) and just generally moving and pacing around the stage like a real rock band should.

Turns out they were two nights removed from a stretch of Warped Tour dates, not surprising when one considered the tightly wound pop/punk/rock sound they pounded out over a brief six-song set. Not really my favorite style, to be honest, but they were solid, professional, and very good at it, which won even me over.

After a little research, I find that they’ll be putting out a new album on September 14th, Flourescent Youth (Good Fight Records). If Warped Tour vets like New Found Glory are your thing, seek this one out–until then check them out on Pure Volume here.

Need more proof? Here’s the one video I shot of their set: