Oh, you've changed

Maybe all i Need is a shot in the arm...

So I'm thinking (semi-seriously) of becoming a Musician. With a capital 'm' even! Either by taking one aspect and going at it fully: a cover/working band that plays at least a couple times a week or being in a couple different projects and always have gigs lined up... starting a music empire/business with either advertising & marketing of bands & events or just managing bands and getting gigs, etc. OR I could just do a little bit of everything, recording, writing, playing music and gigging, getting gigs and advertising my bands... it seems like it would be a lot of work, but may add up to a full time job that can support some people. Hopefully. I would think, though, that to make any kind of money doing the marketing/pr/management stuff I would have to do bands other than my own. Of course, I would pretty much have to do that stuff anyway for my bands to be successful, but I guess that's obvious. Right?


the 'Band' thing
As long as I'm playing in a band consistently and we keep getting gigs and people always seem to be impressed (or at least a little bit interested), then I think if I pushed it and just practiced like it's a job... and got some buzz/press/good exposure, we could keep getting gigs and moving up (bigger and better shows, etc.). This is kind of what happened with my last band MEGATRON... we went from $60 for a three-hour shlock-fest at 'Whoknowswhatit'scallednow' bar to playing bigtime original shows with some other up-and-coming bands. Our debut album was getting close to being done, and we seemed to be attracting more and more attention from important people. Of course, I think we could have done a lot more, especially in terms of promotion and getting a leg up on the local scene... It would have been a lot easier once the album was out, but still, too late now!
Anyway, there are plenty of bars and venues and there are plenty of bands out there that have gigs every weekend, even monday-thursday, and a lot of people that actually do it for a living. You just basically have to put in work and play your way to the big gigs where the real money is. And if we can get exposure and keep getting gigs and writing material, we can branch out and get into the big original venues and shows.


Ok, I know what you're thinking!
I know there's a major difference between playing cover shows (being a 'bar band') and doing the original thing, especially in Tulsa. Of course MEGATRON seemed to go back and forth pretty easily - playing all our originals in between the covers at bar gigs, as well as playing all-original shows - so maybe it's not so bad. It's especially useful (or necessary?) when trying to make a living playing music, at least until you get fairly big.
It's kind of sad, but it's a reality. And playing music is fun; getting paid to play is even better. So I think a good compromise (kind of what I'm doing now) is to play whatever gigs I can get, keep pursuing the better-paying venues, and branch out into a few projects so I'm constantly out doing something. Right now I have the cover band that might soon be an either/or (www.myspace.com/TulsaRivals) that gets good gigs and makes some dough; the jammy, creative, who knows where it will go all-original thing (www.myspace.com/themoveband) that lets me throw back and get crazy; and an in-the-works original rock/punk/progressive/who-knows band that will hopefully take off soon so I can bring out the Rockstar side.

So, I would have to say things are looking up. The business side of things will have to wait a while... or just be on the side since I'll have to do this silly 'day job' thing for at least a while. It's not that I wouldn't mind having a job I enjoyed and still playing music (I would love a good job!), but until I graduate I'll probably have to take what I can get. Being a working musician while going to school isn't that bad of a job if you can keep steady gigs so you're not stone-broke, so that might work for a while longer until I graduate.
I just really hope that when I do finally get my degree, I can do something useful with it. I know there will be some pretty good jobs that I could get with my degree, but I really want it to be something that fits just right. Somewhere I'm happy, doing things I enjoy, and something that's suited to my talents. No more of this 'well, i could do that... they might give me a job and i could probably tolerate that for a while' stuff. It doesn't have to be exactly what I want, just as long as I feel useful and that I'm not wasting my God-given talents.
Maybe there are a million people better than me, but I feel like if I could just prove myself, doing stuff I'm good at but don't necessarily have much professional experience in - writing, blogging, turning doodles and sentences into advertising or pretty good stories and ideas, being creative - then I can really be happy and get into something good that will become a career.

And so, I guess, if that 'career' happens to be something of the music persuasion, I will have truly made it. Or something like that. So, look for me in Rolling Stone: on the cover and in the bylines!



Wow, big words... lots of words. I think it's time to go!
Thanks for lookin.