The Social Muso

Again I haven't written for a while and for that I apologize. I intend to put that right over the coming months, but I'm full of good intentions. Feel free to have a go at me, but many thanks to the people who've kept in touch, sent comments and viewed the site.

I've got various social networking sites on the go at the moment, including Twitter and it can be difficult to keep on top of all the stuff that's going on. Twitter did seem a little pointless to me at first but once you get into it, I think its one of the essentials for the today's musician. I've kept in contact with some of the musicians and bands I've worked with, found out about airplay and licensing opportunities, not to mention gigs etc... and now find myself with over 1000 followers - don't these people have anything better to do? I'm joking of course...

Facebook again is great for your band. I'd recommend starting a Group on there which will allow you to post much more content than the fan based sites. You can have discussions, add pictures and video, invite people to join, invite them to related events (gigs) and generally keep in contact far easier. Its important not to "spam" your members for obvious reasons and keep the content updated and interesting. We have a Big W jokes page on our site, feel free to join and tell us your best or worst music related joke. (The few we have on there are terrible, mostly mine!!)

Many bands have been using myspace for years and I think it still has its place, but its going through a transitional stage. It needs to change to survive and become more flexible with its layout and give us more options on how we get our music out there. It was the dominant force for years, but has failed to evolve quickly enough.

I use Bandcamp.com for my music which is much more flexible, advert free and you get a dedicated page for each song, you can also set the price of your songs, allow free downloads and they give you the option to download the tracks in various formats such as MP3, Wav etc..

There are many more networking options out there but you can only do so much. Its important to remember that people want to be entertained and informed with good content and then hopefully they will listen to your music download a song or two and turn up at your next gig, meet face to face and continue the relationship. Its all about socializing for today's musos.

Finally, just wanted to mention Big W again, (hence the picture) as I'm very much enjoying the gigs with the boys and feel like I'm settling in. Hopefully we can move to the next stage and get some of our own music out there.

Get Your Facebook Username Now!

Just a quickie... (as the actress said to the bishop)

If you didn't get the .com domain of your artist/band name, you know what a pain it is. Same for Twitter and many others...

A few days ago, Facebook added the ability for you to have your own "username" which will take people to your profile. Visit http://www.facebook.com/username to get yours right now before someone nicks it!

Got mine at http://www.facebook.com/chrispicton

Live Music - How Much?

I thought it was about time I got back to writing, as its been a month or so since my last post. There's been lots of stuff to write about but never enough time to do it in, or maybe I'm just a lazy so and so, probably the latter. One thing is, I've been busy settling into playing "Live" again with the band Big W, which I'm enjoying very much.

Something that did piss me off recently though, was how little value seems to be placed on Live Music by some people these days. A couple of weeks ago Big W were playing in a local venue and a pub manager I knew spotted me on stage and asked a friend to pass his number on to arrange a booking for us. I'd played the place quite often in the past with other bands and told the lads it was a good venue and decent money.

The next day I called him and he said he'd like to book us, but could only pay half as much as before, plus it was a Sunday night (bad news for working Monday mornings). Bear in mind this is a very busy club on Fri/Sat but he wanted to get Sundays moving. I thought about it the next day and spoke to the band - they were up for it in the main, but I just thought - bollocks, by the time we've paid petrol, had a couple of drinks and got home about 1pm, we'll be lucky to come out with minimum wage for the hours we'd worked. Plus, if we had brought in punters in their droves I'm damn sure he wouldn't have given us anymore money.

I understand there's a credit crunch, but band money in pubs/clubs hasn't gone up in 20 years - some of us have been playing for 30+ years, why shouldn't we get a decent wage for the time and effort we've put in, some pubs can do it. DJ's get paid 2 and 3 times what a band gets paid per man, don't they know they can teach monkeys to put records on, or should I say - click a mouse on a laptop, (sorry, showing my age).

Plumbers and Electricians are skilled individuals who get paid well, are musicians not the same? The trouble is we love what we do so much that its hard to say no, but sometimes it does you and your band good. Its about time there was a minimum fee that venues should pay before they engage a band. We have the Musicians Union, but its too much time and effort to get them involved, it could be incorporated when the venue applies for its music license which would make things a lot simpler.

I used to get paid very well for playing in a Rod Stewart Tribute Band, but when I was in Quecia, having written, recorded and produced our own music we'd be expected to play for nothing or expenses just to promote the band. This seems crazy to me as there are plenty of people out there willing to pay a fair price to see a good band (see my post on House Concerts).

The trouble is there is not enough pub and club owners with the business training or common sense to pay and put on a varied selection of whats out there, whether it be Original, Covers or Tribute Bands. Pubs are closing left, right and center these days and are turning to Live Music to save them, so come on - pay the bands what they deserve...

Rant over!

House Concerts

I was recently reading an update from Francis Dunnery (ex - It Bites) I received about the upcoming series of House Concerts he's undertaking in the USA. It struck me, what a great way for musicians to make new friends and fans and put across their music in an intimate and interesting setting. Having done quite a few acoustic shows myself its quite a different experience having the audience up close and personal and within in touching distance, almost being part of the band, if a little nerve racking at first.

House concerts have been very popular in the USA for some time and seem to be growing a little here in the UK. A House Concert is a private party which requires an invite as opposed to a public music venue without all the hassles of setting up a tour.

The venue I have heard the most about is in York which has places for around 50 people with donations to the artist made prior to the event of no more than £10. Its a chance to see great artists who are often only over in the country for a very short time.
"The concept behind the concerts is that rather than making a fleeting connection with tens of thousands, the aim is to make a far greater impression on a select few". - York Post Sept '08

http://www.houseconcertsyork.co.uk/

I'd be interested to hear of any venues elsewhere in the UK, in particular the NW of England, may even set one up myself and ask Francis to come along, now there's a thought!!

http://www.francisdunnery.com/

Breathing Space get new guitarist

A Note from Trevor Cotterell - At last I can reveal that Breathing Space have a new guitarist. If you want to know who it is, go to the Breathing Space web site www.breathingspaceband.info and all will be revealed!

Also, just in case there are any tickets left, don't forget that Breathing Space, Mostly Autumn and others will be playing at the Duchess in York this coming Sunday May 3rd in aid of the Andrea's Gift charity.

My New Track needs Lyrics!

I've just uploaded a new tune on my Bandcamp site called "Fakin' It" First of many I hope. It's an instrumental - unlike the music I usually write. Its kind of jazzy for me and something different, not the usual Rock or Prog. It started from the drum loop and kind of grew from that. If anyone out there wants to write some lyrics or play some guitar or maybe sax on it, please feel free and let me hear the results, that would be great. Its free to download as a basic mp3 or you can set your own price and get the quality version.

For those of you who need to know stuff:-
I played everything on there except the drums. It starts with a drum loop from a program called Reason (probably a hip hop beat, OMG.) and the keyboard sounds are from the same soft synth. The main drums later in the song I programmed from EZdrummer in Cubase. There's probably 3 guitar tracks on there played with a fender strat and the bass line kind of follows the piano - ish, with a bit of twiddling at the end.

Hope you enjoy it - and like I say if you want to play about with it, remix it, solo over it, whatever you like, get in touch and we can have a little collaboration going on.
Cheers
Chris - http://chrispicton.bandcamp.com/