Tagged with thoughts …

Nov 21 2009
2 Comments
Toby's Posts

Amazing things.

Sometimes amazing things happen to me.  Saturday night was one of the most amazing nights of my life – the kind of night I have been dreaming of me whole life.  Let me set the stage.

It is my band’s video premiere at Jim’s house, a subtle and intimate venue for something that is so close to my heart.  And it is perfect.   John is out of town for personal reasons, so Ryan and I decide to play our planned set of 14 songs (all off the new record) as a duo.  I am worried that without John on drums, we will sound hollow.  John also serves as kind of an eraser, complicating our sound so that our little mistakes are covered up/blended into the rocking beat he lays down.  Tonight we will be on our own.

I show up at 8 p.m., and the first non-me guests arrive at 8:30 p.m.

Earlier I had convinced Marie (not her real name) to show up.  Marie is one of the biggest supporters of my music and also good friend.  She was worried or uncomfortable about walking up to Jim’s house.  She really wanted to attend, and she ended up doing so after I promised to personally escort her from her car to the door – a red carpet treatment.

We start playing at 10 p.m., and people cheer during the transition from Firooz’s introduction to our first chords.  Then Ryan realizes that we are out of tune, so he tunes up, and I ask Firooz to re-introduce us.  People laugh at the ridiculousness of the re-introduction, but I feel it is necessary.  Necessary and funny.  Every band should have a smooth transition into its first song.

“Let’s get funky!” climaxes when Colin walks through the door with Lars, Ellen, and Erin just in time to hear his name sung in the second verse:

“The cops showed up and put Colin away!  Those fucking cops ruined my farewell from this town today!”

Amazing.  Perfect timing.  It should have been planned that way.

At 10:45, after burning through half of our set, I introduce Firooz, who introduces the new video.  I then introduce Firooz’s new director’s chair, and he goes bonkers.  A perfect moment.  The surprise in his face was worth a million dollars.

After the post-video applause dies down, Ryan and I start up again.  By this time, we are loose and pumped.  We decide to play a hybrid of new stuff and old stuff that gets my best friends all excited.  We sing together, we sweat on each other, and even the people who are experiencing this for the first time enjoy the show.  They don’t know that we do this every night.  All that practice with Firooz, Mandy, Jim, and Kumars around my table singing and making beats to my songs pays off in the form of a brilliant experience.

Amazing Friends!

I don’t know what other people are feeling, but I am feeling bliss.

Plus, Bavery is here.  He has flown up from Chicago for the evening, and is having a great time.  Soon he will be back in the mix of corporate America, doing things that only high-paid marketing executives can fully-understand.  But tonight he is a rock star, a guest of honor, a best friend, a supporter, and if I go any further with this it will get uncomfortable.  Bavery is singing, and I think he even danced a little bit, too.  He also changed my broken guitar string mid-set.  Amazing!

At 2 a.m., Lisa, Jane, Katy, Kelly, Baves, Mandy, Firooz, and I are all sitting around a bucket of taco-flavored potato chips singing some of my favorite songs – mostly songs I’ve written plus select Mason Jennings covers.  Miranda and Damien are anchored in the space beyond the couch, enjoying the show.  There is nothing more intimately flattering than a group of friends sitting around singing songs that I helped to create.  It is an amazing experience and the effects cannot be quantified.  I suppose it is something like a person might feel towards her golden retriever or his cocker spaniel.  I believe it stops just short of what a mother feels towards her baby.  It is an intense emotion that I wish I could capture in a bottle and share with people.  Instead, I try to make a mental note of how my arms and chest felt when Mandy and Firooz sang in unison, “You’ve got to get down on your knees and pray…pray for someone like me.”  It is a feeling similar to that felt by Michael Jordan after his first championship.  But I am no Michael Jordan.

I am an average guy who converts the biggest emotions he has ever experienced into wave forms that come out of his mouth and out of worn-out strings on an acoustic guitar.  I don’t take anything for granted.  I am not famous and probably never will be.   But who knows?  Sometimes amazing things happen.

Tagged ,
Nov 18 2009
2 Comments
Toby's Posts

Changing the Way I Sing

I have been taking voice lessons for the last month or so and have learned a lot about how some singers use their stomachs (i.e. diaphrams) to push air through their mouth rather than using their throats as I normally do. The advantages of using my diaphram are potentially huge, with the biggest advantage being the ability to perform for longer periods of time without tiring.

Currently, my voice gets pretty tired after about a half hour of singing and it gets REALLY tired at the 45-minute mark. I don’t like that.

Some of my favorite songs (“Kids”, “Quittin’ my job”, “Tonight was a wonderful night.”) require me to really belt out the high notes, which is what makes my throat super tired.

So, I am learning about singing with my diaphram. Like most things that are good to learn, practice is paramount. So, this week, I will be starting to re-learn some of my songs. That is, I will re-learn how to breath them and how to push air out of my mouth.

It’s weird, but after all these years of singing, I never really learned how to sing. In fact, I probably picked up all sorts of techniques that make it harder for me to hit and hold notes.

Part of my sound is my voice, so anytime I go and mess with something like that, it worries me. But I have gone through this before – like when I switched from alternative rock to swing-rock. Or when I switched from singing mostly low notes to mostly high notes (this was WAYYY before y’all knew me). It’s a big change, and hopefully for the better.

Tagged , ,
Oct 11 2009
Toby's Posts, Video

Rock-and Roll in the Digital Age: How the Garage Band and the Internet has Democratized Music

Yesterday I led a session at Unsummit about the democratization of music entitled, “Rock-and-Roll in the Digital Age”.  The personal computer and the Internet have significantly altered the path of music history.  With virtually no technical roadblocks to recording music, everyone with access to a computer can do things that would have cost thousands of dollars just a decade ago.  Put simply, artists can now focus on their art.

Back in the day (pre-2004), getting a “pro” sound recorded meant spending thousands of dollars in a recording studio. We had to pay for the space and also for the audio engineer.  Then we had to pay for master tapes and, God forbid we wanted a CD to play at home, we had to pay for that.

Today, we have an opportunity to record music using stuff we mostly already own.  There is no need for an audio engineer.  “Space” can be anywhere that is quiet.  And your computer is your recording studio.

The impact of this shift in ease-of-recording is that more and more artists are able to create music.  This is great.  Couple that with free or pay-as-you-go national and international distribution (i.e. websites, iTunes, Rhapsody, and Napster) as well as an organizational and categorizing tool (i.e. Google), and we’ve got everything we need to get rolling!  (Securing fans is a different story…)

As you have probably read, this democratization of music has REALLY pissed the record labels off.  They have sued everybody they can think of to sue.  They have squandered so many opportunities to become relevant that they are now a laughing stock.  Today, the record labels’ main assett is their connections/network.  They can still open doors for musicians but only because they have a solid stable of established bands that signed up before the digital age changed everything.  They can offer opening slots and give bands credibility.  And they can loan you money.  They can also provide you with a business organization.

BUT most of that is irrelevant for most musicians.

Most musicians make music for the joy of it.  And even the ones who are trying to make it big don’t really need the labels.  It takes a lot of hard work and persistence to make a career out of music, but it would take a similar amount of hard work and persistence to get noticed by a record label.  In fact, record labels are now looking for polished acts with a proven track record of success, basically serving as loan sharks to established bands.

Some perspective on my session.

In any case, here is me rapping at yesterday’s Unsummit (from multiple angles!!!).  :)

YouTube Preview Image YouTube Preview Image

YouTube Preview Image

And here’s another video clip from the session.

Tagged , , , ,
Oct 06 2009
Toby's Posts

The Politics of Listening

I purchased Andrew Bird’s “Noble Beast” on Amazon MP3 a couple of days ago.  It is one of the most expertly crafted rock albums that I have heard.

Today I am listening to a live recording of a Spoon show.  Spoon is not a brilliant band by any means, but their second record, “Kill the Moonlight”, is also in my top 10 best albums from cover-to-cover that I have ever heard.  Seriously, it is great.  Listening to “Kill the Moonlight” gives me goosebumps.  There are so many moments of innovative brilliance on the record.  It is a shame that they have so far been unable to recapture that magic on subsequent albums.

I think many bands, relationships, painters, writers, etc. experience similar moments of temporary brilliance.  That is why all of Kurt Vonnegut’s books are not as good as Bluebeard.  His brilliance is not omnipresent in his art, but make no mistake about it – Vonnegut was brilliant.  He has a library of material that greatly exceeds the art of N’Sync.  He was a pro.  A lifelong devotee to his art.

The Rolling Stones have made a career out of playing “Satisfaction” and “Sympathy for the Devil” – both brilliant songs.  But the majority of their work doesn’t deserve a second look.  Same with U2, Radiohead, and Bruce Springsteen.  Their longevity is based more on moments of long-lost brilliance than it is on any sort of art.  If anything, these bands do a disservice to their art by not mixing it up more.

So where does that leave me?  I don’t know.  I don’t have a hit, so it’s hard to say.  Put my best song on the radio with a promotional machine behind it, and we’ll see where we stand.  Brilliant songs don’t need airplay to be brilliant, but without airplay, nobody will know they are brilliant.  And airplay is more politics than it is music.  It is marketing and hand-shaking.

I wish we lived in a truly capitalistic world where the best music, hair gel, and cell phones would be the ones with the biggest reach.  But we don’t.

Tagged , , , ,
Jul 13 2009
Strategy, Toby's Posts

Help me position my band's brand! You are smart…we are musicians.

We need help. We have no brand. Well, actually, we have a brand, but we don’t know what it is yet.

My band, Cryns #3, has been playing shows regularly now for over 3 years, and over that time we have been focusing on what we do best (making music) and neglecting what we do worst (the business).

We have a number of strong assetts working for us:

  1. The Band.  We are a fun group of guys hailing from Minnesota.
  2. Our Music.  Our music kicks ass.  It is fun, up beat, funny, tells heartbreaking stories, and makes me want to dance all at the same time.
  3. This Website.  Okay. So our website user interface & corresponding usability actually suck quite bad.  BUT we have a lot of rich content on this thing (photos, videos, tour updates, songwriting workshops, mp3s, strategy, etc.)…if only we can make it usable.

Last week, I met with Dan over at Idea Food to discuss how we can make people take notice of Cryns #3 and, ultimately, get people to show up to our awesome swinging rock shows.  First let me say that Dan is awesome.  He and I brainstormed for about 2 hours about the band’s goals, aspirations, target market, brand, strategy, and other items.  Here is our summary document.

The main thing that we need to do, as a band, is get people to the shows.  Getting more people to the shows is more fun and provides us more motivation to keep doing this (It also provides more money and more fame).

As best we can figure, the most reliable way to get people to show up is to let them know that we are doing something awesome.  So, we decided to build our email list.  My goal is to balloon it up from 400 people up (at present) to 10,000 people over the course of the next year.  That’s roughly 1,000 people added to the list every month.

Dan and I brainstormed lots of different ways to accomplish this goal of a humongous email announcement list, mainly:

  • Give away “Free Download” cards at the door of the clubs and around the clubs when we play in an effort to get people to fill out their email address when they visit the site for a free download.
  • Take people’s photos at clubs when we play, and send the link to the photos out via our email list.  This is both a value add and an incentive.

Generally we think that free stuff attracts people.  It also convinces people to hand our their email list.

Of course, we will have a multi-faceted approach, focusing energies on our live show and our music in addition to getting people to sign up for our email list and come to shows, but the email list remains the centerpiece.

What do you think?  Am I on the right path here?  Should I change this up a bit?  Is there something I am leaving out?  Browse our working strategic document and let me know what you think!

THANKS!!

Tagged , ,
Jul 05 2009
recordings, Toby's Posts, Video

True Affection

There’s this song by The Blow called, “True Affection“, that I absolutely love. It is beautiful, catchy, and simple and means something different to everyone who listens to it. THAT is the sign of a good song. When it means something to you. The great songs mean different things to you over time.

For me, “True Affection” has changed from a song that describes an ex-girlfriend to a song that is a euphemism for life. We are always gasping for air, looking for that one big thing to solve all of our problems and make us happy. But we are always drowning, anchored by reality.

Yesterday, I set out to test UStream‘s capabilities, and I could think of no better song to record than the aforementioned one:

YouTube Preview Image
Tagged , , ,
May 25 2009
songwriting workshop, Strategy, Toby's Posts

Focus

Here is what is on my band-related docket right now in order of priority:

  1. Finish the new album!
  2. Start “song-a-week” workshop thing (and write a song a week)
  3. Build “Guitar Lessons/Media/Lyrics” page/interface

I have been traveling so damn much recently that it has been hard to get into a groove.  Maybe the first thing on my list should be “Focus”, since that is really what I am lacking right now – at least focus on music.  I have been focusing intently on work-related stuff, which is cool, because a guy has got to pay the bills.  Plus, it is challenging and fun.  But I REALLY want to polish up the new record, which has been in a state of “almost done” for months.

So, for the next two weeks, I plan on spending a few hours per day finishing up the album.  That means plugging in the old Marshall stack for a few hours a day – totally awesome!  The bad thing is that I can’t do that at night due to the ass-kicking nature of the amp.  So, I need to FOCUS.  And get organized.

I’m thinking something along the lines of

9 a.m. – 12 p.m. Website work
12 – 1 p.m. Lunch
1-3 p.m. Exercise
3-6 p.m. Record guitar
6 – 11 p.m. Website work

Geesh!  When I put it like that, I really don’t have much free time, do I?  Rock and Roll has never been easy, I suppose…

Tagged , , ,
Mar 31 2009
recordings, Strategy, Toby's Posts

Thoughts on a Dual EP Release

I have been doing some thinking on the new record, and when I listen to the songs all together, I get the feeling that there are two categories that the songs fit into:

  1. Damn, that was a long way back from the black infinity of sadness.
  2. Let’s dust our clothes off, take a shower, and get back to loving life!

So, I am entertaining the possibility of creating two EPs or sections of the disc as follows:

Movement 1: It’s a long road back from Sadness.

  1. The preacher doesn’t understand.
  2. Lori won’t get out of my way!
  3. So Just Be
  4. Sometimes I cannot sleep.
  5. Duluth

Movement 2: Let’s rebuild this fucking House after that dreadful fire!

  1. Let’s Get Funky!
  2. I’m quitting my job today!!!
  3. 2 Sisters
  4. Tonight was a wonderful night!
  5. Run. Run! Run!! RUN!! RUNNNN!!!!
  6. Colleen
  7. All That I Want
  8. Rock Star
  9. It’s time to decide!

What do you think?

Tagged ,
Jan 26 2009
Toby's Posts

What We Can Learn from Mickey Rourke?

“I look at these guys like Matt Damon, George Clooney, Sean Penn – they’re all very bright, educated guys who understand that it’s a business and there’s politics involved. I wasn’t educated or aware enough. I thought I was so good I didn’t have to play the game. And I was terribly wrong.” – Mickey Rourke in City Pages interview

Mickey Rourke is a talented guy. So talented that he is up for consideration for the prestigious “Best Actor” award at this year’s Oscars. But as he points out in the quote above, talent isn’t everything. Sometimes I wish it was.

I watched my über-talented older brothers’ band, Juvenocracy (and later Spank!) toil in relative obscurity in Chicago for ten years before, in a final push towards catching a break, they moved to Los Angeles, where the band played for three additional years before calling it quits. The band’s music was amazing, they guys had personality, they had (and still have) talent, their vocal harmonies were the stuff of dreams. But they didn’t make it. And it wasn’t from lack of trying.

They lived together, practiced together, and sometimes ate together, devoting large chunks of time to their stageshow and songwriting. They played all the big clubs in Chicago and had a large following, locally. They could even command top dollar from the concert promoters who booked them. Yet they could not break through.

I don’t know why they didn’t break through to the masses. Surely, there have been thousands of bands like them who have had all of the pieces that make for a great band, yet have been unable to get that big record deal.


(above: photo of Juvenocracy/Spank! with yours truly on the right, taken in L.A. in 2001)

I’m not sure what it takes to break through, but the lesson to be learned from my brothers and from Mickey Rourke is that talent and hard work isn’t everything. To get into those mainstream distribution networks like MTV, radio, and Rolling Stone magazine, you need to be “discovered”. The weird thing about getting discovered is that, really, anyone with some connection to power can discover you. It could be the son or daughter of a record label exec, a friend of Best Buy’s Chief Marketing Officer, or a talent scout from a record label. It could be a girl who is friends with a movie star who convinced the star to give a listen to one of her favorite bands (this actually happened in the case of my brothers’ band).

Anyway, I say all this mostly to vent. On Saturday, I saw two of the finest performers I have seen in a while (Brianna Lane and Peter Mulvey) at a house concert in Minneapolis. These two relatively unknown musicians blew my mind in ways that Beyoncé never has. They were 10 times more entertaining than Justin Timberlake and posess more charisma than Lil’ Wayne.  Plus, their music was beautiful and succinct.

I would love to live in a world where people are recognized more for talent and hard work.  I would love to see Lane and Mulvey headlining the First Avenue mainroom together (although it was quite special to see the two of them play in Brianna’s living room on Saturday).  I read earlier today that the Beatles wouldn’t have gone anywhere if Brian Epstein hadn’t forced them to wear suits and develop that “clean” brand they had early on in their career.    When it comes down to it, the Beatles might have been another of those great local bands lost to history had they not been discovered.

So, I am happy that Mickey Rourke is getting his just do.  A master of his art, not to mention a natural talent, Rourke is the type of guy that should be in mass-produced movies (unlike certain stars of the “Spider Man” and “Star Wars” trilogies).

Tagged , , , ,
Dec 08 2008
Toby's Posts

Life, the Universe, and Rock-and-Roll

Don’t let yourself get scammed! That’s what Grandma always says. I’m paraphrasing, of course. Grandma always says, “Don’t accept any wooden nickels!” But the more I work, the more I play the game or life, the more I see the humor in it, the big scam. In the end, none of this REALLY matters. In 4 billion years, the Earth will be swallowed by the sun, and if we are lucky, we will all be but fuel for our great sun in this vast universe. As long as we are here, living this life, we might as well make it count for something. Make people smile. Play the game as good sports.

I see far too many people coasting through their days without taking any chances – at least none that I see; and none for the sheer fun of it. Many of the kindly neighbors I have had the pleasure of knowing are so steeped in paying the bills and saving for their elderly years that they don’t realize the fun in taking risks.

“What would you do if you inherited $10 million?” I asked my girlfriend earlier tonight. She said that she would buy a house and 10 cats. I like that. To live in a house with 10 cats would be an adventure. I also like those crazy millionaires who take balloon trips around the world and fund space exploration ventures. I can’t think of a better way to blow billions of dollars than to build a space ship, which has zero chance of ever being profitable in our lifetime. A waste of money? “Sure!…but it sure was fun!

So here I am. Playing in a rock-and-roll band with close to zero chance of ever becoming a famous rock star. Like those millionaire savants, I am pretty much just following my heart, trying to do something special with the time I have on this planet. The goal for me has never been to become famous. Rather, I have always dreamed of playing in a popular local band that is able to sell out local venues. Hopefully when all is said and done, my efforts will have touched enough people to have made it all worthwhile. But if not, at least I can say, “I tried.”

I have probably accepted more wooden nickels in my day than most. That is, I say, “Yes” to risks, fun, and adventure more than is safe. The rock-and-roll lifestyle is one of excess even if I am not partying every night and trashing hotel rooms. It is excessive in the sense that I spend thousands of hours every year playing guitar, moving amps, singing, warming up, practicing with my band, recording music, writing songs, and blogging about it all. I am living the dream in many ways, playing music that I love in front of audiences of fans and friends. And what could be better than living the dream?


Tagged , , ,
Dec 02 2008
Toby's Posts, Video, Video Blog

That Thing You Do!

While I am waiting for the noodles in my mac & cheese to cook, I am watching That Thing You Do! on Netflix.  I love this movie!  It’s the story of a 1-hit-wonder band called “The Wonders” and stars Tom Hanks with a great supporting cast.

YouTube Preview Image

The movie accurately portrays the prospects of making it big in the music biz as purely a combination of timing and luck.  That is, talent is secondary – a fact that is made aparent by the glut of pop stars puking in our ears at any given moment with their unartistic, cavity-inducing ear candy.  No offense to you pop stars out there.  There certainly is something to making successful pop music…but it is more machine than art.  I stand firm in the belief that any band, if played enough on MTV at the right time, will sell 1 million records.  When that corporate buzz machine gets kicking, there ain’t no stoppin’ it.

I would be lying if I said that my disdain for the music biz wasn’t partly due to jealousy.  Surely, I would have sold out long ago if fame had offered its ugly hand.  It would be quite an adventure to have millions of fans, wouldn’t it?

But, fame has not arrived at my door…yet.  So I plug along.  And, hey – It’s not that bad!

Tagged , , ,