Chapter 22: Working with Tom Jackson Productions and Amy Wolter

Posted by admin on July 6th, 2010 | 1 Comment »

This week I am going to post a blog post by Amy Wolter, the live music producer from Tom Jackson productions that we flew in from Nashville to work with us on our show last week.  She wrote a post about the experience on her own blog and I liked it so I’m going to repost it

Here is the link to it: http://bit.ly/9xXEu6

On a personal note, the experience was a very worthwhile one.  One of the things that Amy helped us understand as band is how to step out of our “musician heads” and step into the head of being a member of the audience.  Most audience members don’t speak the same musical language that musicians speak, so they will actually HEAR something better when they can SEE it.  Amy helped show us how to SHOW the audience what we were playing which at first, made some of us uncomfortable or feel insecure.  However as the band leader I encouraged everybody to take risks and trust Amy’s expertise in the subject of Live Performance Production and as we continued to work, we started to get more comfortable with some of the movement we were doing.  Even simple things like walking to the front of the stage to take a solo or highlight a bass line made huge differences.

Our first show since our work with Amy is tomorrow night in Burlington VT.  We are excited to see how our connection with our audience benefits from this work and are eager to share it with you all.

Stay tuned…

Chapter 15: The Thick Skin of an Artist

Posted by admin on April 16th, 2010 | 1 Comment »

After my set last saturday I got off stage, took my mailing list and a handful of CD’s and walked around to everybody in the audience to introduce myself and ask them if they would like a free CD or sign up for the mailing list.  Why do I do this?  If your thinking it’s because I want as many people to take CD’s, give money or sign up as possible then that’s not correct.  If your thinking it’s because I want to meet the right people, the people that actually loved the show, listened, would come back again, shake their hand and have them get to know me, even for five minutes to build intimacy and direct relationships with fans, then you are correct. This may seem obvious but it’s not.

“I’d rather but 9 people’s favorite thing, than 100 people’s 9th favorite thing” is a lyric from a show called [Title of Show]  That’s not a typo, that’s actually what it’s called, and the reason I would rather be 9 people’s favorite thing is because who really talks about their 9th favorite thing?

Most of the people that I walked around and met were happy to meet me.  Some were very happy, loved the performance and called themselves “new fans.”  Others didn’t want a CD, or even to have anything to do with me.  This would have hurt me a year ago.  Now, with thicker skin, I can be present to the fact that I’m doing something right.  Now I know that I’m being specific enough in my “brand” that I appeal to a certain kind of person with a certain worldview and that my music tells a story to that kind of person, and not to others.  This will assure my success.

Stay tuned.