I have become convinced that there is more opportunity for artists now than there ever has been … BUT … it’s all up to the artist - i.e. you.

The following is my incomplete, two-step music success hypothesis. Incomplete as in there are surely more steps - hard work, persistence and people skills anyone?

By the way - I hypothesize because I neither want to preach what I cannot claim to practice nor do I want to blab on about things I’m “gonna do”. Theory is theory. It has a tenuous relationship with fact at best; might as well be honest about that.

First Step - Self-Empowerment

When I started out in music back in the early 90s, the best you could do was get an awesome thing happening, get as well known as possible locally and then hope you got picked up by a record company or a national booking agent or whatever. Sure, there were skills useful to making this happen (high-powered suction capacity being just one) but even if you were good-looking and available, it was kind of hard to sweet talk a record executive when there weren’t any within a 700 kilometer radius.

Now this has changed. I think a lot of musicians know this but, just in case you don’t - there is now nothing difficult about recording and distributing your music globally from your bedroom. It’s pretty much a given. The only thing stopping you is a lack of self-empowerment.

Even at my incredibly advanced age, I’m not that well-off that I don’t have to scramble to find the money to record, buy a better instrument or press a bunch of CDs, but if you scramble enthusiastically, you can usually find the dosh you need.

It also takes patience to learn how to market your music online, how to record your own music on your PC, do your own cover art  - or how to score a chick who can do your art for you - a specialty of mine - but you can learn new skills. All you gotta do is empower yourself to do it.

For some people this ain’t easy, but it is doable. If you live in the first world and you ain’t getting your art out there, then that’s because of YOUR failings not the screwed-up system. Turn of the video games and get off the pot - it’ll help.

The next trick is rising above the noise; getting noticed.

Second Step - Make Like Dog Balls (Stand Out)

I can’t remember if I am paraphrasing Seth Godin or Derek Sivers (aka God) but I am pretty sure both have commented that the real trick these days is not getting the music made and available, but marketing it in such a way so as it gets noticed, talked about, bought, borrowed, stolen, cared about.

There is a great line in a Pavement song that goes something like: “Songs mean a lot when songs are bought”, and terrible as it may seem to the sensitive amongst us, I am afraid it’s true. Whether people buy the songs literally on CD or online, or via concert tickets, or via a t-shirt doesn’t matter. Money is energy, when they trade money for your stuff it’s ‘cos it means a lot to them.

So How Do You Stand Out?

Well, it’s simple - Ha! - be remarkable. And this brings us back to self-empowerment.

If you empower yourself to make your music, to learn how to use all of the tools and resources available to us and to stand out and be unique, different, original, remarkable, amazing, commendable, outstanding, pass-on-able, memorable, wonderful, essential, must-see-able - and if you have all of your other hypothetical little ducks in a row - then you may do well.

This is my challenge as this new decade comes around.

It ’s probably yours too.

Good luck.

http://reckoning.com.au

You can follow the Music tab to the download page or just go straight to the reckoning music. Here’s a taste:

And here’s the very seldom seen video clip of one our most popular tracks “Weird Kids”

Listen, download and if you like it please do share it around - there’s a share function you can use to plug it on facebook, twitter etc.

The exciting news is that preparations are now underway for Peter Owen (the drummer from Reckoning) and myself to get together next year and begin to make music again.

Hope you enjoy - and if you do please use the “share” function to tell some mates about it. Cheers!

But I believe many musicians, sometimes myself included, don’t recognise this. We name excuses but ignore that back of these lie fear.

News Flash: Musician’s Worst Nightmare Comes True - Life Happens

Many musicians want to become musicians to avoid reality. In the end though, reality has a habit of catching up to all of us.

For example, one sunny day you may wake up to find that you have suddenly morphed into a parent and are faced with a very real requirement from society - not to mention your little angel - to be RESPONSIBLE (Gasp! The Horror!).

Suddenly you simply cannot work 3 days a week in cafe for beer and rent money, using the rest of your time to jam and record.

Suddenly you just can’t get up and go on an underfunded tour of coastal cafes to build a following, knowing that you’ll get home hundreds of dollars poorer, not richer.

Suddenly you can’t sleep in until noon, jam all arvo, then go out and network with other bands? Why? Because little diddums gets you up at 6:30am, needs breakfast, entertaining, lunch, a nap, more entertaining, dinner, a bath, a night time routine so they’ll actually got to bed nicely (hopefully). Meanwhile someone also has to bring in some dosh to pay for those meals, those pyjamas, that hot water. And then you’ll need to go to bed before midnight because sure as the sun will rise, that kid’s gonna wake up with it.

HOWEVER!

This DOES NOT mean that you are trapped! It does not mean that you have no recourse!

You Are Not Trapped - You Are Just Letting Fear Fuck With You

There are still many options - it just means you have to be organised. It means you have to be creative and (if you’ll forgive the cliche) think outside of the box. There are many ways and means for you to get out there and make your music.

For example …

Worldwide music distribution - from the couch!

There is so much more to the internet for musicians than Facebook and Myspace.

For example, I recently set this online music distribution point up while I was sitting on the couch at night while watching TV and resting after a busy day playing Dad.

Here is a list of just a few other places I found - in five minutes of searching - to distribute your music online:

http://www.tuneshout.com/
http://www.muzic.com/
http://bandzoogle.com
http://bandcamp.com
http://www.musojam.com/content/index.php
http://www.whotune.com
http://www.unsigned.com/
http://www.broadjam.com

Now I don’t know much about most of these sites yet, but given that this is a minute sample, it is obvious that there are very few excuses for not getting your tunes out there.

Of course, just getting people downloading your free Mp3s isn’t going to solve all of your problems, but it is just one way to help you:

A) Get Satisfaction

Since setting up Seamus.bandcamp.com the other day, just under 300 hundred people have listened to my music there (or via embedded music players placed on other web pages, like this:

which bandcamp makes easy to do). And many of those people also downloaded the album. I didn’t make a penny but Jeez it feels better than looking a box of CDs growing dusty under the bed - huh?

B) Start Making Progress

“A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step” and other corny - but true - cliches.

I know now that if I had spent the last 15 years slowly getting one thing at a time done, step by step, I’d be a wealthy man by now, but instead I was always looking for the short cut. Unfortunately, I know now, THERE IS NO SHORT CUT. Not one that you can deliberately take anyway.

This doesn’t mean you can’t work smart instead of hard but nevertheless, you’ll need to work and it will always take more time than you want it to.

Take the long way, it’s the only way available.

Ok - enough jibber jabber for now. My point is that we all have the chance to shine our light - no matter what the circumstances of our lives.

Back soon with more on this topic.
Click here to listen and/or download my music FREE (or pay what you feel).

Why am I SHOUTING?

Because I am excited about bandcamp.com that’s why!

I intend now to release all of the reckoning recordings in the same fashion, as well as all of my other back catalog (solo recordings, Quill, and more).

The new music marketing dilemma

Awesome. It’s an exciting time to be a musician.

When I was twenty, the problem was “how can we distribute our music out there into the big wide world?” the answer was that we couldn’t really, not without a record company.

Now I can beam my tunes out to the world in my pajamas from my couch, but the problem now is - how do you get anyone to care?

More on that soon …

So relax, will ya?

How I Made It As A Musician

I was sitting out in the sun a year or so ago (maybe two) and I suddenly thought to myself - what’s the hurry?

Hey, the sun will do that to you right?

But truly what is the hurry? What’s the big internal hurry to “make it” as a musician?

Suddenly I realised that I was here already. That I had “made it” already, so this means I have permission to just relax and enjoy being a musician just because I am one.

Just like Bob Dylan can. Or whoever your hero is.

Relax and Make Music As You Feel Like Doing It

Last summer I got really busy, played a bunch of gigs and met all kindsof new people. It was the most fertile music summer I have had in ages. Then winter hit and I retreated.

And it felt right.

Now spring is here and I am gearing up again to make some more music, do some more gigs.

And after a head-down-bums-up winter of hard work I have a new recording that I wannna get made and another year’s life experience under my belt (that just makes my music even tastier) and I feel even more Zen about it all than ever.

But not that bullshit zen attitude that I superimposed on my musicianship back in my late twenties. Back then I was flopping around, slacking off saying “hey man, every thing is nothing, I got no agenda” but really I was burning up because even though I was gigging all the time, I wasn’t living up to the defunct musician model in my brain.

So I had serious dissonance, discord, disturbance.

Now I know I am playing a kind of music that I will play all my life and then I will die. And that’s cool with me. there’s no permanence. Even the Beatles and Elvis will be forgotten one day (read some Asimov to give you that sense of perspective).

So all that matters is making music now.

And when you’re not making music, all that matters is what you are doing that isn’t making music now.

So yeah, I am looking forward to playing more and better gigs, and making new recordings. And if it takes off it takes off. But if I just enjoy playing so-called dive gigs for the rest of my life, well, I actually do enjoy 99% of them so what’s the big deal?

There is no big deal, that’s the lesson grasshopper.

YOU are no big deal.

So just play some music mofo, and stop moaning about how you haven’t made it yet - because you’re wrong about that.

You have made it.

This is it.

Go have a listen!

Hoping to get hold of some photos to put up later but that’ll have to wait.

I haven’t actually written a post since then, which is because writing it marked the end of a phase for me, as I had sort of ticked off the to-do list a big one which was to get out there and play gigs again.

I did so for a few months and that was ace but then I realised that:

A) winter had come and I was cold and

B) this meant I needed it to be a pretty good gig for me to go driving half way across the state at just-after-kids-bedtime on a Tuesday night and

C) I really needed to update my recorded product because the stuff I have is nonrepresentational of my (far more upbeat and humorous) current set/act.

D) I also run a business and it has been going through a major restructure so had to focus on that big time or else it was going to be normal job huntin’ time for me (no thanks).

This was, in truth, probably the major factor in my short hiatus from making music.

But now I am a little more stable in terms of self-employment again and looking forward to the having some extra cash to go do a new recording and getting out to do some gigs again. I have a couple of minor gigs, both music and stand up comedy (which I am seriously inexperienced at) coming up in August and hopefully this will segue into a busy Spring.

Also have had some fresh encouragement in that fairly major publisher is interested in reading a couple of chapters of a book I am working on so that is exciting, see how it goes…

Hoping to find time again to devote to my creative-side because putting it on the shelf for a few months - while necessary for the (financial) well-being of my family - had the unfortunate side-effect of intensifying my usual bout of winter blues to the point where I was probably as depressed and anxious as I have ever felt there for a while. It was no fun but I have always struggled with a roller-coaster slide down and back up out of depression on a semi-regular basis and it (thank God) always passes.

When I started out in music I had some pretty simple goals, make awesome music, get wildly popular, have a blast. That was about it and pretty soon I had accomplished this to a big enough extent that I suddenly found myself feeling empty inside and aimless. I then succumbed fast to all of the usual cliches of the young popular rock musician: drugs, booze, cheap sex.

Which was fun to an extent but was also dissatisfying.

Well fast forward 15 years and it seems I have really only now, as a musician, finally found my way out of the darkness and back into the light (to put it in a cheesy way).

I don’t mean I haven’t made any great music or enjoyed playing any great gigs, but I certainly do mean that my non-career as a musician since my early successes has been a direct result of first a misguided sense of entitlement, then a despondency that waking up to the falsehood of the former brought about.

By the time I was in my late 20s I started to believe that I was too old and had missed the boat. I felt bad inside about my self-worth and my music career chances in general.

It was a weird thing, because inside my heart I have never stopped being a musician (and have always continued to compulsively write songs and play gigs). And neither have I ever stopped (privately) nurturing the dream of becoming a professional working muso, but this dream has for years been held at bay by other factors, namely:

• lack of focus and work ethic
• lack of self-worth (due to a faulty self-identity model)

Lack of Focus

When I publicly started out in music, at the tender age of 18, I was very focused and there was little to distract me. I barely drank at all, I didn’t smoke weed, didn’t do harder drugs at all, and I was content with my steady girlfriend. I could also live off a very low income quite easily, due to life being cheaper then plus just being young and easy to please (i.e. wasn’t as soft as I am now, could sleep on a filthy old mattress on the floor in a damp and drafty old house and eat beans on toast and not mind a bit).

This keen focus brought me a lot of initial success but then as I said above, the lack of a deeper meaning in my life* left me with an empty feeling that I tried to fill with drugs, drink and one night stands. Predictably the band and my relationship with my girlfriend fell apart and my life descended into a very feral stage. I was having lots of fun and adventure on the surface but underneath it lay a shallow sense of despondency.

Yet despite this lack of focus on the work I should have been doing, being a musician (who was focused) I still thought that my early success was all the proof I needed that all I had to do was get up on stage and sing here and there and I would eventually “be discovered” and rocket to true success and glory.***

Sounds stupid now … and indeed, it was.

Eventually, around the age of 27, I found a deeper meaning in my life. At this point I might have gotten things back on track, but no sooner had I pulled my head out of one pit did I promptly plunge into a different hole in the ground.

Lack of Self-Worth

I used to have a very strong sense of self-worth, but then as I pushed thirty and still hadn’t “made it” as a musician (read: Rock Star) my sense of self-worth as a musician deteriorated rapidly.

Why? Well, because my paradigm was all wrong. The model I had based my self-worth on (sad as it may sound) was the young-rock-star-in-the-making model.

I have always enjoyed the first part of the rock star (movie star, entrepreneur, etc) biography where the young star-to-be had to struggle and fight and hope and pray that one day their talent would get noticed and they would make it to Easy Street. And this is how I saw myself, as the young star in the making, who could happily look forward to hitting thirty as a well known and wealthy musician. Sounds stupid I know, but this fantasy kept me going and made me feel secure. It was in fact my whole self-identity.

So when I left my twenties behind and this fantasy hadn’t materialized (due to point above about lack of focus and work ethic, duh) I found myself at the wrong end of a defunct self-identity model and I quietly stopped telling everybody that I was destined for musical greatness. Even though a little voice inside me still claimed it was possible if I would just readjust my parameters, a louder voice inside me pointed out the fact that I had missed the rock n’ roll boat. This fearful voice said I should shut up about it and try to find other ways to make some good money.

Then five years went by very quickly. Fine years, happy years on many levels, but not on a career level.

Then one and a half years ago almost to the day, I was holding my brand new baby daughter in my arms, marveling at the miracle of Life, when a voice - a higher aspect of my own voice - spoke to me quietly (in my mind).

“What are you going to teach her? That it’s ok to just give up? Or that dreams can come true for those who persist?”

Well, I knew the answer straight away and recommitted myself to achieving success. BUT I had to go back and construct an entirely new model of success** because the old one (young David Bowie style rock star) was completely out of date - I just don’t even relate to that cliche anymore at all.

So I was thinking about this, soon after the baby holding incident, and was thinking about the age thing and suddenly, sitting in the sun one day eating my lunch, I suddenly thought “What if my goals took me another fifteen years to materialize? What if it took me another 30 years? Would this be so bad?” and the answer was “No - not as long as I enjoy the process.”

And I do enjoy the process, and you are never too old to be a successful musician, and success is something that you get to define your own way anyway.

So - think, and grow rich - that’s all I am saying

Analyze what’s going on inside your mind and see if you are holding yourself back with your own lack of focus or with limiting self beliefs.

And here I am one and half years later, well into a protracted, inspiring process that has brought me nothing but deep satisfaction. I am not the musician I once was, I am a new model, Musician 2.0!

Hope this helps somebody out there!

Cheers,

Seamus

*No I did not eventually become a Born Again Christian (been there done that as a child) but I did find my own kind of “spirituality”, for want of a better word. As it happens I am currently documenting this process in a series here.

**My new model of success is more than just “a musician” but I prefer to let it take shape in the arena of life rather than spell it out to people, it keeps my power from being wasted on “gonna do’s”.

***Musicians SHOULD NOT wait around to get “discovered”. In fact this whole post was inspired by reading this line over at Digital Pill “musicians … are not waiting to be discovered, they have discovered themselves and go about doing their job of telling people what they have discovered through their music.”

Just got back from an ace gig and not at all sleepy, so - please - allow me to ramble on….

Saturday April 4th 4 - 6pm - Empress - with Dirtbird

I originally intended to make this gig a multi-act line up. More specifically I wanted it to be a half-half music and comedy gig. I was going to call it “Laughing Vs. Singing” with 5 minute comedy spots between 15 minute singer/songwriter spots.

Unfortunately this idea fell flat (mainly due to my failings) and I really had to confront myself and face the fact that it is in my best interests NOT to add the hat of “promoter” to my fashion range but just to focus on being a “performer” - which is all I truly care about anyway.

Turned out just fine. My mate T K Bollinger (who is one of the finest, most original - and challenging - acts I have witnessed of late) recommended his mates “Dirtbird” to me. Or vice versa - Dave from Dirtbird got in touch with me and asked about doing a gig with me in Melbourne.

Turns out Mr Dave lives in Castlemaine which is a goldfields town in rural Victoria. I said sure but I want to swap for a gig in Castlemaine. OK said Dave.

I wanted this odd time-slot (4 - 6pm) because, frankly, since I started gigging in earnest again I have become painfully aware that my mates have all gone soft (due to children in some cases but NO excuses afforded to the childless). Basically bugger all of them had been rocking up to support me so I figured that a nice easy Sunday arvo gig would entice them out (turns out I was only partially right).

OK, look - long story short - it was an ok gig, not a bad turn out - lots of children. Bit of a crèche really. And let me tell you nothing weirder ever than opening your mouth to deliver the next barrage of four letter words into the mic only to look down and see one’s 18 month old daughter staring up at one from the edge of the stage!

Turns out Dave, who I picked from the get-go as having been around the block once or twice, was in a band who were pretty darn popular (especially in Adelaide from whence one hails) once upon a time, called the Bedridden. I kinda missed them (too busy being lame out in the suburbs) but later ended up being pretty good mates with the late-Baterz who was also in the Bedridden. (We used to do gigs together at the Crown and Anchor Hotel in Adelaide back in the late ’90s.)

Dave, you still owe me a goldfields gig. (I resemble an elephant in more ways than just girth!)

Tuesday, April 14, Ruby’s Lounge

I live in Belgrave and I am really fucking grateful that, hick town that it proudly is (why I moved there), it actually has a music scene - and of course Ruby’s is pretty much the apex of said scene.

Whenever I do gigs in the city I always mention Ruby’s and it never fails to get a cheer, such is the fame and popularity of the joint as pretty much the only out of town joint (That I, in my ignorance, know of) that gets decent touring acts and also has some style.

Anyway, I am by no means (yet) a star of the Ruby’s thang but this year I have managed to get myself a regular gig there (ok, not actually that hard).

This night wasn’t my finest. At least not for the first set. BUT it was important for me because I was really learning some tough lessons about the idiosyncratic nature of my “comedy meets edgy-folk-poet” act.

Herein lies the lesson: If you have a nice fat crowd to perform too, and they are listening, you can ramble on and crack jokes and (if you have any talent) they will dig it

BUT

If you are just some schmo in the corner of a cavernous pub and there aren’t many people there and those that are in the venue fucking are NOT there to see you, better just sing your songs and leave it at that. Music seems to cut through and win people over (or at least *cough* mine) but comedy on the other hand needs an attentive audience. It is a very, very different dynamic.

Thank fuck I have the music is all I can say.

Three more points worth mentioning about this gig:

1. First is that I road tested my new song (mentioned in my last post) about The Scarab Bar (which is across the road from Ruby’s Bar in Belgrave). Not surprisingly this seemed to go across a treat with those blessed yokals who were paying attention. The song itself is called “An Interesting Life”.
2. A certain Mr Jeff Springfield, Belgrave’s music scene Godfather, the very man who produced my CD and is also the sound guy at Ruby’s of an evening, was in attendance which is in itself not unusual but the lovely thing is that he was just so totally positive about my music and attendant ambitions that it made my pathetic narcissistic heart truly sing. Look forward to catching up with you next time bro, upon which occasion I will be sure to pucker up and kiss thine holy and no doubt fragrant arse.
3. I did a terrible set to start with, and it was meant to be my only set so I was massively depressed that it just sucked so fiercely. But then while I was sitting with a dreadlocked guy who made guitars, watching his mate (extremely talented guy  - I think he had dreadlocks - whose name MIGHT have been shane or shaun  - oops!)- I found out that the band had failed to show so I got up and did a 2nd set. Ok no big deal BUT in the meantime I had eaten some humble pie and realised that you can’t force a scripted show on a pub crowd and the 2nd set went much better and since then I have truly embraced a loosely scripted framework (of between song banter) let go wild with improvisation and it is surely the way.

(Note to self: Round gigs up one by one … this is FAR TOO EPIC!)

Friday 24th April, Vibe On Smith, Songwriters in the Round 8pm with Shane Walters and Kerrin and the Nips

OK for the record SITR are fantastic wonderful beautiful gigs. I LOVE these gigs. They make me cum. It had nothing to do with Kerryn’s lesbo jokes or Shane’s crackling lead, although these were extra highlights for sure. I could go into massive detail but A) who’s going to read it all and B) I am fucked - it’s 2am! Suffice to say: wet dream of a gig.

Oh yeah - and “The Nips” are actually Kerryn’s tits, as it happens…

Saturday 25th April, 5:30 at the Brunswick Hotel

Meh. Frankly this is a great venue that needs a crowd (and I wasn’t the guy to attract one). Lovely sound though.

Sun 25th April, 4 - 6pm at the Empress with Brooke

Brooke (whose surname I am completely ignorant of) turned out to be a talented and sassy young thang fresh back from the ubiquitous European sojourn and thank God she brought her friends and I really loved the gig, although again having my little girl hanging her cute 18 month arse off the front of the stage frankly put me off my hard core shit. Great gig though, loved it. Nice crowd too.

(Just like to point out that I can barely type anymore … this is simply too much … )

Friday 5th May “Songwriters in the Round” with the insanely beautiful and talented Siobhan and Brad who is both talented and beautiful as well (to be fair).

Full house.

I repeat:

F.U.L.L.  H.O.U.S.E.

I got called in last minute. Everyone there bar two were there to see the other two performers.

Lucky me

Personally, after 15 years gigging, I feel confident in saying that I was in top form. Truly you do all the shit or half-good gigs to prepare you for the night that the room is full.

I can’t write anymore tonight but I would like to close by thanking God and you, should you be weird enough to have read this far. (My advice to you now, faced with the vortex that the cessation of my dribble will surely leave is:

* Male?

Are you kidding? Beer. Porn. Weed. Sport. The choices aren’t exactly endless but they’re pretty fucking good.

* Female?

Sorry … no fucking idea…

P.S. Tonight I debuted “Gimmee A Frontal Lobotomy (and a Glass of Wine). It went ok but had trouble with subtley and the microphone tonight, just couldn’t get good responsiveness from the microphone, but I knowthe song is a winner…. and may I say, kudos to Aaron the sound guy cos this is the first time I have had any complaints at this gig and the room was chokkas which changes the acoustics and I am talking a pro level subtlety - and also there are actually no foldback monitors at this gig due to the “in round” format… … … Goodnight.