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  • Songstuff Writer and Artist Development Challenges

    By john

    Independent writers and artists face several large disadvantages when they are compared to signed, mainstream writers and artists.  Disadvantages that add up to making it a competition that indies can’t win. Hell they can’t even compete.   Lack of budget and poor contacts are fairly obvious disadvantages. Lack of experience and a lack of knowledge restricts songwriters and artists alike. Lack of an overall strategy, and a limited set of incomplete tactics, makes for a critical problem
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The Writer's Blog

A Music Weekend...

The Hoffman Center crowd really liked “Pole Dancing for Jesus”; I think it got the best applause all evening. Don’t know how to translate that into an income, but I’m definitely getting known. Met another writer who was also performing, and encouraged him to come to the Sunday night jam at the Rapture Room. Went to play with the Friday Night Group at City Hall but there weren’t many performers there, or much audience, either; Elsie (accordion) and I were about the only ones who could play

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The Writer's Blog

Getting Back To Normal (And A Robotic Elvis)...

Are things getting back to normal? I hope so. (Then again, one is tempted to paraphrase Bill Clinton: “Define ‘normal’.”) Lazz has only a couple more accomplishments to learn before he can be a Real Computer, I’m finally getting some work done on the house, and every single one of the job applications outstanding is to be a city manager somewhere where I’m not only qualified, but someone knows me. (Of course, the “someone knows me” isn’t necessarily a good thing.) Two—ultimately three—new

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The Writer's Blog

Mostly Computer Updates...

Oh, fun stuff… Had to cancel the Deathgrass performance for October 1, after getting word drummer Chris wasn’t going to be available either. I had substitutions for John (bass) and Doc (blues harp), but this was just getting too difficult. I’m expecting the “Golden Spike” people will be able to get along without us—they have a pretty full agenda. Should be impressive even without us—and despite the rain the National Weather Service is predicting for that day. It is just as well; that le

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The Writer's Blog

And "alice" Is Dead...

“Alice” the ‘puter is dead. I don’t know if ‘twas I that killed her, or whether her motherboard just finally reached the end of its useful life, but she finally gave up the ghost this week. I haven’t quite been ‘puterless; there is “Lazarus,” daughter’s old laptop which got resurrected from the dead and equipped with Windows XP. Lazz does have 2 gigabytes of RAM, but needs all my old software installed to be useful, and that could take a while. His biggest “issue” is he can’t burn CDs—

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JaredSteppBand's Blog

Don't Give Up On Me

Don't give up on me I know I seem like a failure now A bastard child at best I know that I've fallen from grace Fallen harder than the rest I swear I'll be myself again one day I swear I'll be here for all the words you say In the end my friend Don't give up on me I know you've tried a thousand times Don't give up on me This place of my regret Will burn like a pyre in my mind I'll burn it all every moment Until your heart I find I swear I'll be mysel

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The Writer's Blog

Rocktoberfest Post-Mortem...

The Rocktoberfest—at least, our part of it—is over. Yes, it was a good show. Played a lot of people’s favorites, and still managed to concentrate mostly on rock music (with some blues and ragtime thrown in, of course). Larry (sax) was great—a saxophone is ideal for rock ‘n’ roll, and I think Larry would like to play more with us. And while Larry said he liked the rock ‘n’ roll songs best—heck, they all do—I thought some of his best leads were on the more “countrified” songs. “The Dog’s

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The Writer's Blog

Obsessing About The Video...

I have over 150 photos taken with the “Twenty-Four Seven” video in mind, but I won’t use all of them. I continue to run into “photo opps” that are better than ones I’d taken before—having a camera on hand constantly, and keeping one’s eyes open, is a great habit to get into. With very few exceptions, I have my illustrations for most of the lines in the verses. The chorus is more problematic. The chorus happens four times, and I wanted the photos to be different each time. “Twenty-four

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The Writer's Blog

Updates...

FIVE DAYS till the Rocktoberfest, and there’s lots to do. The Rap is written (though not practiced), and notices sent out; won’t get to practice until at least Thursday night—just two days before the gig (and it might even be Friday instead). Before then, I must play, play, play. Need strong fingers. Answered a couple of ads on Craigslist (I still check Craigslist), one from a self-described songwriter in Tillamook (I’d like to meet him), and one from a film student in Portland intereste

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The Writer's Blog

Signs, 9/11, &c...

It’s the tenth anniversary of September 11, and the airwaves and cyberspace are full of 9/11 songs. I don’t have one. I tend to leave the serious stuff up to others, and this is no exception. I wasn’t directly involved, and don’t know anyone who was. As a city manager, I noticed our firefighters were the most affected: these are folks who lay their lives on the line regularly, and 9/11 was and is a reminder you don’t always get that life back. And the terrorist attacks? It’s a little like

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The Writer's Blog

Thoughts On Train Songs (And A Video)...

10 songs definite for the Train Set, thus far (and I haven’t gone through everything yet). They fall into the following categories: GOSPEL: Life’s Railway to Heaven (trad.)—fast Gospel (starts slow) Glory Train (Katherine Fear)—fast Gospel NOSTALGIA: Tillamook RaIlroad Blues—deliberate blues HISTORICAL: Wreck of the Old 97 (trad.)—fast bluegrass Steamboat Bill (Shields & Leighton)—1910 rock ‘n’ roll ODDITIES: Underground (Scott Garriott)—mod. fast folk, with railroad

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The Writer's Blog

Some Train Songs...

Still going through train songs… Thoughts below are not complete (and neither is the list—I haven’t digested or tried to play everything yet). There seems to be a paucity of themes running through train songs, and I’m not sure why. There are a lot of Gospel songs, of the “bound for glory” genre, and most of them are quite good. Trains are a good religious metaphor: a train almost defines “straight and narrow,” has a definite destination, and is rather unstoppable once it gets going. I p

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The Writer's Blog

Italian Ragtime?

One of the things I like about playing music with diverse groups of people is you get interesting ideas. Take “Italian ragtime.” I don’t know who at the Rapture Room suggested it, but somebody did. Turns out there is such a thing. (Thanks, Google.) Not much of one, because ragtime was a very short-lived genre, and very specifically American (and black American to boot), though ragtime did enjoy a momentary worldwide popularity—there’s some Czech ragtime, even Indonesian ragtime. And yes, I

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The Writer's Blog

Stuff To Do...

http://www.soundclick.com/share?songid=11015399 “Free-Range Person,” off the Deathgrass album. It’s Labor Day weekend, and (to paraphrase Woody Guthrie) a lot of folks don’t got no jobs to labor at. I suppose at the Library (today) and the “Rapture Room” (tomorrow), I should concentrate on Failed Economy songs, in honor of Labor Day. I do know rather a lot of them. That rumored bluegrass band will reportedly have banjo, fiddle, mandolin, bass, and guitar (I’d be the guitar, they tell me

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The Writer's Blog

"alice" Is Back...

Well, “Justin” the new computer may not have been such a good deal after all. I believe his power supply has quit now, and that’s a fairly spendy item to replace (and I can’t just swap out one from another computer, because everything in “Justin” is New And Different). I did isolate the keyboard-don’t-work problem: it appears to be a defect in the BIOS (though how it happened, I have no idea). They have fixes for that (which suggests the problem occurs frequently with Dell computers), and I d

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Kerryn's Blog

A Today's Discovery: Wall-Shaking Organ Music

I think no one into indie and electronic music would deny that one of the best records released in 2007 was Justice's Cross. Talking about more underground music, certainly there have always been records sounding more ominous, distorted, and mangled. But when a whole genre (say, rhythmic noise or dark ambient) is characterized by a specific – or even unpleasing for the most ears, – sound, that is quite different. Within mainstream music Cross does quite look like a white crow among its imperturb

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The Writer's Blog

New Computer--And Video Thoughts...

The new computer (its name appears to be “Justin”) is up and running. Does Internet just fine, and I've recovered a few Website links—by no means all. Got a word processor (Open Office), Audacity (this time with the *.mp3 “exporter”), installed my old Acrobat, digital camera and Click 'n' Design programs and a replacement photo processor (my 1996-vintage Adobe PhotoDeluxe is too old to work); still need to do PageMaker, the business card program, and a couple others. I also have to switch so

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The Writer's Blog

"blue Krishna"--And Marketing...

“Blue Krishna” is online: http://www.soundclick.com/share?songid=10947098 With Sedona Marie (co-owner of the Rainbow Lotus) on flute, and “Rockin’ Dr. Tom” Tracy on sitar. Mixed in Audacity because poor about-to-be-replaced “Alice” the ‘puter couldn’t produce a decent CD to dump to the Tascam. Fun song, and I am happy with the way it turned out. Commercial? I doubt there’s a market for that sort of thing; it’ll get played (and maybe requested) at the Rainbow Lotus, where it all started,

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The Writer's Blog

Song Contest(S)...

It is time, I think, to enter another song contest. I try to do a couple every year. This one is the Mid-Atlantic Song Contest, put on by a songwriters’ group in Washington, D.C. I really don’t know much about them—but it was comforting that their rules said they’d only accept professionally-produced demos. Most song contests (at least those with professional judges) are like that, but most don’t say so—they’ll say “submit anything,” and not tell you the judges are going to throw out anythin

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The Writer's Blog

"snow Piggy And The Seven Jedi"?

The by-now-infamous “Pig Wars” puppet troupe have done four plays now, dramatizing (in order) the legends of the three little pigs, the three billy goats gruff, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella. Lest they fade into obscurity, we should do another play. But which fairy tale to fracture this time? Snow White? There is really not a lot of plot in the Snow White story, despite Disney making a full-length movie out of it in 1939. Evil step-parent (that’d have to be Darth) has it in for beauti

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The Writer's Blog

What To Write About...

So what does one write about? I don’t usually have the “What do I write about?” problem; I’m either working on an “assignment” (from Coventry or the Writers’ Guild, say) or an idea somebody fed me just took form (or flight). I noticed the originals that the professional band performed Saturday night included a lot of love songs (their traditionals were a lot more diverse). Love, I suppose, is a safe thing to talk about: it’s pretty universal—since virtually everybody’s been there, or is there

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The Writer's Blog

"mookstock"?

I was approached at the library by a fellow promoting a weekend of music to raise money for the music program in Tillamook schools. He’s calling it “Mookstock.” It is a good idea. That’s what the “Moograss” bluegrass festival did, in its run from 2001 to around 2005 or 2006, and it was quite successful. Would Deathgrass like to play? Yes, but… The fellow was talking about having the thing Labor Day weekend, which is less than two weeks away (he said it had taken the Fair Board a long,

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The Writer's Blog

Rocktoberfest Setlist...

The Rocktoberfest setlist looks like this: Dead Things in the Shower—fast two-step Tillamook Railroad Blues—deliberate blues For Their Own Ends (Southern Pigfish)—folk-rock Pole Dancing for Jesus—slow Gospel Test Tube Baby—Elvis-style rock ‘n’ roll Steamboat Bill (Shields & Leighton)—1910 rock ‘n’ roll So 20th Century (Coleman & Lazzerini)—ragtime Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues—slow & sleazy quasi-blues She Ain’t Starvin’ Herself—fast blues No Good Songs

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