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 17: Dear Diary :) About last nights show…

Posted by admin on April 30th, 2010 | 2 Comments »

It was fucking awesome that’s all I’m going to say.  The sound at Sullivan Hall, at least on stage was phenomenal.  It was our first gig together as a FULL band with Keesha and Sally singing.  Obviously a first gig in terms of being shaky in spots, but now we are excited to let the music marinate and get into our blood.

We tried a couple experiments costume wise.  The band was dressed in slick black DKNY shirts, cufflinks and silk purple patterned ascots around their neck.  I haven’t seen the pictures yet so I’m wondering if they look bad ass or not.  Anybody in the audience, your comments are welcomed.  Ascots or no ascots? The lady’s on the other hand were wearing these very cool feather veil hats that Sally designed…I don’t have to ask because I already know that they looked super bad ass.

It was a short set, just five songs but we will be back there for an hour long set at the end of June or beginning of July so stay tuned.

In other news…I threw a bit of a tantrum on wednesday…it wasn’t an obvious tantrum to anybody else (except my girlfriend…sorry Sally) but more like a mental or internal tantrum about how overwhelmed I was at the whole business side of the music business.  I was feeling resentful of the fact that right now, I have to do all of it myself, including booking which is my least favorite part.  I was bitching about how clubs don’t give musicians the courtesy of calling you back, even if they want to book you, and how NACA will take your money even if you don’t get a showcase.  They want you to have been in the college circuit for 2 years it seems and yet they ARE the college circuit so it feels like a Catch 22.  I was pissed off and wanted somebody else to come and save me and do the hard dirty work for me.  I’m over it now.  These tantrums are healthy I think to a certain extent because when I come out the other side of them I realize that this is part of paying my dues and that the means justify the ends to a certain extent.  They build character…balls, integrity, perseverance and self-confidence.  Even though it sucks sometimes I’m grateful because I know that when the time is right, and I have built a certain amount of success on my own, then the right team of people will come to take it to the next level and I can truly call the product mine…with all my fingerprints all over it.  I love this business.