: not a blog

18 jan 07

why is it so hard to get a band somewhere in australia? what are the stratagies to get your band somewhere if you have a good one?

i'm in a shitty mood, and i just got four submissions in a row. i'm going to answer them all in exactly one hour. it is 1:13pm now, and at 2:13pm i will upload what i have written, regardless of how terrible it is.

i guess i don't really understand the first part of your question: "hard to get a band" as in "difficult to book a band", or as in "difficult to get a gig"? but then the second part of your question makes me think you meant the former -- that you're an aspiring rock and roller, wanting to share his craft with the public ear.

i don't think there's anything particular to australia here. but i do think that there are, always have been, and always will be, more bands submitting demo tapes than there are professional slots for said bands, either in producers' recording studios or on club owners' stages. the trick is to sound like something that's going to catch the ear of the person filtering out demo tapes.

there are infamous stories of how beatles or eric clapton's demo tapes were cast aside, just like cary grant didn't enjoy a sucessful audition for years because he was too funny lookin'. i'm inclined to think a lot of it is luck, in which case the solution would be to submit a lot of demo tapes. but these pro-listeners have in their heads formulae as to what's going to sell, either CDs or seats, and you need to read their minds a bit.

is there some common element that all successful bands share, besides tenacity? heart, i think -- spirit.

there are many, many, many, MANY bands out there, even in the great outback. well, maybe not in the actual outback, but certainly in perth, melbourne, sydney, etc. sorry to fall back on such a cliche, but i think the secret to being successful as a band is to work really hard at it. practice endlessly, submit endless demos, record endlessly, tour endlessly, etc.

i myself am a pretty bad songwriter. the best things i've done were parodies and jokes, the very first thing i recorded (having no preconception of what a recording was supposed to sound like), and then the "sound art" pieces i cranked out in college. but a lot of it is just miserable, and i think a lot of that misery -- i'm sure of it, actually -- came from trying to fit into the verse/chorus guitar/drum/bass/vocal rock 'n' roll song mold.

but is it possible to be too original? yeah, i think so, maybe. well, at least inasmuch as the consequences being that no one will like to listen to you. consider iannis xenaxis, a contemporary "classical" composer who bases his pieces on engineering mathematics. fun idea, but quite unlistenable.

a good recording engineer can do a lot. consider the all-teen girl death metal outfit "kittie", who are terrible. but someone heard the lead singer, who is actually pretty interesting (you just don't hear death metal vocal spasms coming from a 16 year old girl too often), and cleaned up the rest of it with recording strategies such that it became almost listenable. i have a track ("spit").

well, it's 3:42pm. i went and did other stuff, got distracted, etc. let me sum up this totally inaequate response by saying you have to have heart (soul, feeling, passion, etc), technical proficiency, and tenacity. the latter two can be acquired, but the first is either there or it's not. you have to be a madman, sorta -- totally dedicated. these are the sorts of people who make it in the rock music industry.

but maybe you just want to get a gig -- any gig -- paying or not. i don't know where you are in australia; it may be that there just aren't that many venues around. expand your willing travel radius -- that always helps. and submit lots of demos. and, make sure they sound good. plus, the things i mentioned in the paragraph above.

oh, and make sure your arrangements sound tight and purposeful -- like everyone knows what they're doing and when to do it (unless it's a phish-like jam band).

i'm still sick.