The Make Break Point And Free Parking
The term “viable” means basically, “able to support oneself”. This applies to any activity in life. Even street drumming. I worked out that it would take $66 a day to make street drumming “viable” at 20 days a month. Pay the bills, keep the lights on. Well, A couple of things didn’t get factored into this equation, like parking. Do you know it costs $5 an hour to park in San Francisco? So if I make $20 an hour drumming on the street. I need to play for about 3 1/2 hours to make that $66, but now you add about $20 to park and I have to play for 5 hours to clear $66. Something like that. Yesterday I pulled up to the Ferry Building at about 5pm, didn’t have enough change to put an hour on the meter, so sat there and waited until 6, when parking becomes free. Only, I had to pick my girl up from work at 7. So I had an hour. 20 min to push drums down the street, find a place to set up. Set up, play, tear down, push cart back to car. 30 min playing time, maybe. Fuck it. Went for it. Push cart, set up, start playing. Super dirty homeless guy immediately comes up beside me doing crazy man dance. Tough call on the street because you can’t really kick people out who have no other place to go. Being a street musician, you’re kind of on their turf and it comes with the territory. However, people were repelled by this dude and that meant nobody wanted to come close enough to drop a buck in the case. 10 min later, he left. So 20 min to make it worthwhile. Few people dropping a couple of bucks. This well off gentleman standing a couple hundred feet away watching the rocking. 10 min later he walks over, big smile, says “somebody’s got to make this worth your while, you’re killing it” drops a $20 in the case. I played for about 25 min and made $24. There’s a lot to be said for “Just DO IT” Don’t do dumb stuff. Don’t hurt other people. But definitely DONT sit there wondering IF, or SHOULD I? Get out there and DO. Someone will eventually dig it. Faith in mankind...
Outside Outside Lands
Today I set up outside Outside Lands 2012 in Golden Gate Park SF. Played for 2 hours, made 18 bucks. I think its kind of a funny thing to have TheBEstDrummerInTHeWORld on my kick drum. Honestly, for the most part, the people walking by, heading to a major rock festival ignore you. I hate to say “kids these days” because I hate to sound or BE old. But, kids today are in their own world. I’m sure I was. I know many of the bands on the Outside Lands roster, but I don’t really know who many of the drummers on the bill. I could have been any of them. I would recognize Lars from Metallica, Dave Grohl or Taylor Hawkins from Foo Fighters, but thats about it. Fitz and The Tantrums drummer is great, but I couldn’t pick him (or maybe its a her) out of a crowd. At a certain point, a hipster dude with shades and a captains hat asked if he could sit down and play. I let him and he could play. He quickly had about 6 people around banging on the drums with him. Maybe he was the popular guy in the neighborhood, maybe the captains hat signaled a certain level of cool that I don’t quite grasp. But he gathered a crowd with arguably less drumming skills than I. It’s just a funny part of the study to see the responses people have to ME and to “some guy playing drums in the street” They seem to be two different studies. Maybe I need to dress like a stereotypical rockstar. Leather pants street...
I’m Not The Only One
Never thought I was the only one but busking is a funny experience. You have to pick yourself up by the scruff of your own neck and drag your stuff out there, not asking permission and Do it. I never considered myself part of a community. Never belonged to a support group. My experience has been in bands and part of playing in a band is an “us against the world” mentality. It’s always nice to find people who think like you do. Its even better when you can respect and admire what they do. The icing on the cake is learning from them while maintaining your own unique orientation. And so it is with this awesome group from SF called Clangin’ & Bangin’ I subscribe to a “music business insiders” newsletter called TheLefsetzLetter. It has lots valuable insights into the music biz and the world of music as a business which has lost its soul. The Clangin’ & Bangin’ guys gave a thoughtful response to one of the articles in the newsletter. I contacted one of the guys and asked if I could reprint his response as it was so refreshing to find a kindred spirit. A drummer friend and I were frustrated with all these issues being discussed and decided to do something about it. We’ve been in bands for a few years, played bars, decent venues, small festivals, etc. But definitely no $ or major recognition. So over the last year we’ve been dragging an upright piano and drum kit all around the Bay Area. We started playing on the streets for free, in winter, (with hand warmers!) and it has led to all kinds of gigs. We still play on the street often, but those initial gigs led to private parties, MLB baseball games, NPR recognition, and actual paid gigs. Our drummer quit his job a few months ago and has subsisted on playing gigs ever since. Granted, he does have some loans and grants for music school, but he makes more money playing music than in his previous jobs. His classmates can’t believe how many gigs he plays. But they weren’t handed to us. If you put yourself out there you never know what can happen. http://music.clangnbang.com/ -Kirby Lee Hammel Well said. And kudos to anyone who pushes a piano out into the street to play. I promise to never bitch about lugging my drums ever again. ...
A Man Without A Country – Vonnegut
I subscribe to this newsletter and saw this Kurt Vonnegut quote in it from A Man Without A Country, which I haven’t read, which I’m gonna run out and get Reprinted with no permission of anyone but me. “If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don’t have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.” “A Man Without a Country”,...
Death Of The Rockstar – Rockin The Deathstar
The other day, one of my bandmates made the comment “It seems like people are becoming more and more nervous every day” This should be obvious to everyone. It’s not just a political situation. Its not just an economic situation. It’s a world situation. It comes with the death of the rockstar. It should be obvious also that the potential power of music to move masses of people is not a small thing. “The 60’s”, that great mystery period where large numbers of people began to question the status quo and the powers that be, was at least coordinated by and with, music. Music said something. It no longer does. Music’s ability as a cultural force to mobilize people has been marginalized by the business interests which once helped foster it. Record companies which once helped record, select and develop the artists they signed with have been bought out by electronics and media companies. This has not been a successful marriage. It used to be that no musician was “In it for the money” And they didn’t really know how to make it with this unique product called music. So some businessmen cam along and took care of that side of it. Then there was money involved and the musicians began to demand it as part of the package. Then the business guys used other business tools called marketing to make more of it. Technology advanced and soon we had videos explaining what the music meant. And then it became unnecessary for the music to mean anything because the business side got more “efficient” The playing field is supposed to be evened out these days with this mass communication tool called the Internet. Theoretically, anyone can make music and market it themselves and they don’t need” the music business or record companies of the past. But, they do need to do all that themselves, instead of making the music that moves people. Again, the rockstar has died because he now has to become the business man as well. Originally music was the thing you did if you had a creative impulse to inspire people to have faith in themselves, or the future or to question the way things are around you. It was originally the purest form of rebellion. Now the Rockstar has become part of the Deathstar. He wasn’t so much lured to the dark side by greed or by the dark forces, for the dark side exists in all of us. Becoming his own business minded self managed DIY solo artist blogger merch guy all adds up to the musician doing his music for something other than...
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