The 2 Page Music Business Plan

Here’s the 12th episode of Seamus.TV. This post is about my low-complexity approach to music business planning.

Video - An Interesting Life

Just a little something I bunged together while I was watching TV last night; an amazingly high-budget filmclip/slideshow for my song “An Interesting Life” which I wrote in 2009 and recorded in July 2010. (See below video for notes.)

The scene at the start on the train and all of the photos were taken, on a small, lo-fi digital camera in mid-2007 in France, mostly in Paris and on a visit to the Palace of Versailles. I got pretty bored of taking shots of monuments and crap like that so I started taking covert snaps of people minding their own business.

Although the song, with its reference to the Scarab Bar (a perfectly wonderful late-night watering establishment on Main St) is “set” in and around Belgrave, Victoria (as much as any song is set in a location, which is not much), I thought the pensiveness of the images suited the song with its themes of regret and remorse. And anyway, they were all I had besides happy snaps of the family dog or whatever Enjoy! And be sure to watch through ’till the end for a cameo appearance by the incredible speeding Snowflake Man himself!!

Enjoy this post? Then please return the favour by checking out my music - click here -> Seamus’ Music

New band - Zuiiza

Yes that’s right - the new band is called Zuiiza - an odd name for a bunch of odd fellows.

Zuiiza is a totally obscure Japanese Zen word I found which means to be off duty (literally: to sit as one pleases) except we decided to pronounce it differently than you are supposed to. It’s apparently really pronounced “zoo-ee-zah” but we say it “Zoo-zah” and we keep making up various fictitious definitions for it, so in short, it’s pretty much a made up word

Click here to check out Zuiiza and have a listen to some work-in-progress music.

Music Marketing Rant

Hey just posted a rant on music marketing over at Seamus.TV - click the link below to check it out:

Seamus Music Marketing

Seamus - Musician

I’ve just posted over at Seamus.TV - it’s a post called Seamus - Musician and it’s some thoughts on diluting your personal brand by using hyphenated jack-of-all-trades descriptions for what you do. It has been bugging me lately, and so I am going to change all of my branding to simply Seamus - musician (even though, yes, I can write, sell, this, that and the other).

Maybe not world changing stuff but hey worth checking out if you are currently calling yourself a musician-astronaut-music business consultant-dishwasher or whatever.

Glass and Blood and Leaves

Hang the Gatekeepers! … and then what?

OK you might need to go watch Seamus.TV episode 5 to understand what that means.

Never Tell People What You Are Planning

That’s the advice I read from Derek Sivers and I reckon he is one guy who ears should flap enthusiastically towards, so I have left a post I got ready for Seamus.TV unposted, and made a different video instead.

The unposted vid was about all of my plans, and as I mentioned in the last post here, it was a kind of “this is who I am, take it or leave it” thing to all my nearest and dearest.

But it was wickety-wack; Those closest to me know I am a “lone nut” and they only wish me well. I reckon they would just prefer to let me do my thing and I shouldn’t worry so much about what others think.

So I am just forging ahead. I am loving the idea of making music and video blogging about the process and co-creating a source of inspiration for all musicians who may feel frustrated, burnt out or hard done by, for those musicians who think they are too fat, too old, too ugly, too shy, too lazy, too un-hip, or too remote. Every time I bring these kinds of feelings and issues up with musicians anywhere, they all latch on to it enthusiastically. I think a lot of musicians feel the same (that it all isn’t working out for them) and I think we all need to address what “it” is and turn it around. So that’s my mission, to do this for myself (well I already am) and to inspire other musicians to do the same.

Oh wait! There I go - announcing plans again! Sorry Derek, I’ll shut up and get on with it!

So here is the latest episode:

Seamus.TV – A Musician’s Guide to Giving it a Red Hot Go

To “give something a red hot go” is Aussie slang for giving something a try, for having a shot at doing something.

It’s  not about me preaching about “how to be a rock star”, that would be not be keeping it real – that would just be silly.

Rather, it’s a diary of me getting my music out there and generally raving on like a loony hopefully inspiring you to do the same.

So I’ll be making great music, having fun promoting the music (on and offline), and trying my damnedest to find a  bigger audience to dig my musical vibe-ola.

Yes, I still REALLY need to get a better camera. Yes, I have a LOT to learn yet about video blogging. No, I don’t think it’s better to wait until all the ducks are lined up: Real artists ship. Check it out:

Seamus.TV – A Musician’s Guide to Giving it a Red Hot Go

If you like it, please subscribe to it, or connect with me via Facebook or Twitter and let me know what you think. That would mean the world to me.

Ok I gotta go, I got a gig tonight.

Introducing Seamus.TV

Hey! I am happy to announce that I have decided on a name and concept for my new video blog - or vlog as “the kids” call it.

Seamus.TV - A Musician’s (Potentially Dubious) Guide to Giving it a Red Hot Go

I am pretty excited (and nervous) about this new project.

The reason I am starting another website is because I simply believe that those who get in now and start their own online TV shows will be in a good position to get some serious eyeballs and opportunities in the years to come.

So while what I have there now is pretty simple and the video and sound quality is totally shit, I will improve this over time and I am hoping it will grow into a really interesting source of inspiration for musicians all over the world.

The basic premise of the show is this:

• I have privately (sort of) come to the decision that I cannot really be happy doing anything else other than pursuing my music (doing the right thing by my health, my family and society aside that is).
• I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing sensible about “sensible”. What I mean by this is that by playing it safe all we achieve is mediocrity. I have been pounding my head against the desk for years now trying to come up with a “sensible” career option - but I cannot make it work despite ample raw talent - because I simply only have one love - music (and yes, writing, the two are inseparable to me).
• What this means is that I will never really achieve any great level of satisfaction and/or income doing anything but following my passion.
• So, while I will always make sure that I first meet my responsibilities to my family (which is pretty easy really), once the rent is paid all bets are off. “Sensible” can go fist; I am up for some Epic Shit. I don’t care if it IS a damn fool idea, I am chasing that beautiful, wonderful, music all the way to Zanadu.
• And I reckon there’s plenty of people out there, other musicians, who could use some support and inspiration to make the same crazy (smart) decision that I have made. I would LOVE to help somebody reignite their passion and put their musician hat back on in a big way. So while I get on with making and promoting my music, I will be documenting the process through Seamus.TV

So there you have it. Now all I gotta do is tell my wife - Ha!

Seriously, that is the theme of my next video post - announcing the above plan not to the world “out there” (that’s easy) but to the immediate world of my partner, family and friends.

THAT’s what I am a bit nervous about - not of failure or looking a like a mug (I’m used to that shit) - but of putting the above plan to those people in my life who know me, have seen me try all kinds of wacky schemes and who probably just wish I could be happy settling into a nice, sensible career.

But … Sensible? Stuff that up a dead duck’s arse!

I am pretty hopeful that the people closest to me will be cool about it. After all as my best mate Peter Owen said to me the other day (something like): “You and the normal world = square peg and round hole”.

Amen to that.

So go check out Seamus.TV and subscribe by email or RSS

2nd video blog episode

Below you will find the second episode in my new video blog experiment.

If the experiment works, and I continue to publish this, I may put it on it’s own domain and find a better name for it, but for now this is all about getting the ball rolling. It’s not about preaching how-to do things that I have no right to teach - it’s about taking people with me on my journey as a musician, and joining others on their musical journeys. I want to connect with all the people out there who (like me) sometimes let their enjoyment of being a musician suffer for various reasons (mainly Fear aka The Lizard Brain) but who (like me) MUST keep making music all their lives no matter what.

I have been working on this for a few days and to be honest it has been really hard to hit publish because my Lizard Brain is resisting like crazy. It is saying:

“Aaagh! Don’t do this - everyone will laugh at you!” (Well maybe they will laugh, more likely “they” won’t even notice.)

“You can’t publish this - the video and sound quality is terrible!” (Yes the quality is a very much on the lo-fi side but I am publishing anyway. If I stick at this video blogging lark I will get a better camera.)

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