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Looking Back and Moving Forward
Dec 23, 2008 Moving 3 Comments
[Note: if you don't see images and embedded MP3's and videos below, click here to view the full post]
I’ve got a show coming up on Monday the 29th. My first solo show in two years.
The last time around, I had some trouble. I couldn’t figure out how to give the songs the groove they needed by myself, so I assumed the answer was more stuff. I brought in Ableton Live. I had a set of MIDI footpedals, programmed to do different things for each song. I layered keyboard tracks live, I looped harmony vocals, I wrote a nonsense song onstage… I even beatboxed. I had a binder on stage to help me keep track of all the details. It was a disaster. I spent far too much of the show hunched over the laptop, trying not to panic.
Here are some parts that worked.
The Real Kanye
Dec 16, 2008 Moving 2 Comments
I read this post this morning about Kanye West. He’s a funny fellow, Kanye. The guy we love to hate. Now we’ve got this all-Autotune all-the-time new album (Blasphemy!), and then this video on SNL (Uggh!).
But I have to agree with the folks over at New Rockstar Philosophy on this one. The most important thing about that video is that he looks afraid. Kanye West, who houses one of the biggest egos in pop culture, got up on national television, and did something that, from what I can tell, scared the fuck out of him.
He is really growing on me, this Kanye. At times, he seems fundamentally misguided. But this new album? It’s great! Quite possibly the only real creative use of Autotune I’ve ever heard. The combination of his voice and that plugin, so often used for evil, is a surprisingly expressive instrument.
I’m visualizing the final scene in a movie. A beautiful woman is driving away with her new husband, tin cans clanking and people cheering. The camera pulls back, and we see her sad little robot, standing in the road, holding on to something she gave him. The robot begins to sing Kanye’s Heartless. We see a montage now of all the things he’s done for her over the course of the movie, and we realize: the robot loved her all along! Robots can love! Autotune has feelings!
So what’s the point of all this? I don’t write reviews; what does the latest news on Kanye and his sci-fi love triangles have to do with anything? (OK, I guess it’s my sci-fi love triangle, but he inspired it!) Well, he’s pushing the envelope. And he’s getting shit for it. Not for something he said, not for something personal; he’s actually getting shit for the creative musical decisions he’s made! For being bold. For following his muse.
And I really respect that. I lost my day job a few weeks ago, and I’ve spent the time since then trying to figure out what to do next. How do you reach the audience you want? How do you make those connections?
And I think the answer is to be unrelentingly yourself. To follow your muse. Because in an age where everyone is a singer/songwriter and everyone has a copy of Reason on their laptop, your muse is what matters. Your individuality is what matters. The real you is what matters.
So thanks to the real Kanye for driving that point home. I’m looking forward to more for him. And hopefully soon you’ll be seeing some more from me.
About robots.
Top Pick on SoulBounce
Dec 16, 2008 Moving Leave a comment
Some buzz on the blogs recently:
Jacques Morel, a blogger I met on Twitter, really liked Far Side of Town.
And Ro from SoulBounce picked La Da Da Dee as her #1 song of 2008!! Thanks, Ro!
Happy Tuesday!
Dec 10, 2008 Moving 5 Comments
A couple years back, I used to do these weekly updates. Every Tuesday, I would wake up, and write about my progress over the past week. It was an enlightening process for me, and I think people enjoyed reading it. At least I hope they did. So I’ve decided to start it back up again. Yes, I know it’s Wednesday. Sue me.
The gears are turning. Last week, I posted Far Side, and results have been positive so far. People have promised to post on their blogs, share with their friends, etc., and downloads are starting to trickle in.
Essentially, I’ve been trying to figure out how to level up. My mailing list, my blog readership (Subscribe!), attendance at my shows - all of these numbers could stand to be a lot bigger. The big answer, of course, is to do more shows. I’ve been averaging one every few months, and it’s time to get closer to once a month. I’ve got one coming up on 12/29 at LIC Bar, and I’m thinking about where to book the next one. There are other answers too though - I’m doing my best to make connections, to figure out how I fit into the interlocking networks of independent artists, singers, soul musicians, hip-hoppers, social networkers, and nerdy bloggers. Twitter has actually been great for that so far. I’ve also got a series of Youtubes planned, which should be a really nice promotional tool. I’ll keep you posted.
While I’m thinking about all this, I’m working on a little side project as well. Sunny Lewis, another singer, songwriter, and home recording enthusiast, who also happens to be my dad, just released an album of children’s music featuring me and my sister. More on that one as it develops.
Next post: Less Marketing, More Deep Thinking!
I’m Back
Dec 2, 2008 Moving 6 Comments
My dear friends and readers, I have been absent far too long, hiding behind the veil of forward motion and career-building. I hope you have all been moving forward too, and I hope you can forgive me.
I’ve learned a few things since the last time I wrote. I put out that EP I’ve been going on about. If We Were, it’s called. A fitting name for an album that came from a place of hope, a place of wondering why things weren’t the way I wanted them to be, why I wasn’t the way I wanted to be, and thinking about how it would be if I were.
As you’ve probably heard before, you can buy it if you like. On iTunes, or if you prefer the CD, on the new rxlngr online store at 21bizarre.
But I digress. I started telling you what I’d learned, and right when I was getting to the good part, I started plumping my record instead. A vicious and sneaky tactic, I know. But don’t worry; I’m planning to tie it all together.
As it turns out, when you put out an EP, people tend to look the other way. Or if they do look, they position it at just the right distance from their bodies (you might want to pull out your protractors to get a proper visual on the angles involved) that they can look straight down the bridges of their noses. Why, this is only 24 minutes of music! It’s barely enough for a snack! Harumph! Excuse me while I adjust my monocle!
This is, of course, my roundabout way of saying that I haven’t seen the reaction I was hoping for in the two months it’s been out. We’ve sent out press releases, mass e-mails, song snippets, you name it. So far, no reviews. Everyone seems to love the record, but nobody wants to talk about it.
Ssssssssshhhhhh!!!
So I’m revisiting my goals here. What am I looking to do now that the album is out? I want to put out a new one - the working title is “In The Days.” I want to work with some of the awesome musicians I only know through my iPod. I’d like to do a tour sometime soon, and I’m doing some deep thinking about the structure of my live band. In my wildest dreams, D’Angelo finally returns with the album of the century, and we follow him around, giving the audiences of the world one last sweet kiss before he utterly demolishes them. And instead of pursuing these things, I’m still sitting around waiting and wondering. What if? If I just? If we were?
So my attention is shifting. Perhaps I’m falling into the standard new artist trap, but I’m starting to favor attention over sales. Potential income over actual. Big future over little present. And I’ve been spending a lot of time over at New Music Strategies, which could convince anyone to give away the store.
With that in mind, I’m taking one small step into the brave new world of 21st century music promotion. I’m opening up the first track on my album, Far Side of Town. I’m giving it a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license, and making it free for download.
A what now? What exactly does this mean?
It means you should take it.
Go ahead, it’s OK. Download it. Link to it. Feels good, doesn’t it? Like stealing, but with rules.
If you like it, share it with your friends. Or make a remix or a video or some crazy new media art piece, and share that with your friends. Or post it on your website, or your Facebook, or your Twitter or something. Whatever you want to do, as long as you give me credit, and don’t make any money off of it. (But hey, if you want to talk cash, you know where to find me.)
There’s been some buzz around the blogosphere today about so-called “viral content.” And I agree with most of what’s being said. I worked on music for a video project a while back where the promotional plan basically consisted of “we’re gonna make it viral on YouTube.” And all I could think was, I would never send this to anyone; how do you have a virus that isn’t contagious?
But I realized after reading those entries that there is one element that you can control. Putting it out into the wild. As Mike Arauz says, “Remove every possible obstacle or challenge that may get in their way.” If people want to share, they’ll share. That’s on them. But if they can’t share, because it’s too hard, or you haven’t given them anything, they won’t. And that’s on you.
So here’s something to share. Do what you will.
Mastering: Defining Your Terms
Sep 1, 2008 Waiting 11 Comments
Never ignore your instincts. That’s the lesson I’ve learned in the past few weeks. Never ignore your instincts. Not because they’re always right about the world, but because they’re always right about you.
The master that I was waiting for turned out not be the one I was hoping for. And, as should have been clear from my last post, I knew very well that it wouldn’t be. I was merely hoping that I was wrong. Hoping that this engineer, who specified up front that he didn’t need me to send him notes on what I wanted, because he would just listen to the mixes and see what they needed, really would know what they needed. That, after all, is the goal of working with other people, is it not? Ideally, you don’t want dumb hands to carry out your wishes; you want bright minds with ideas that are better than yours, and hands to match.
So when my gut tried to take me aside, to tell me as plainly as it could, “This man is probably very good at what he does, but he won’t hear the things you’ve heard in hundreds of listens, after working on it for 2 hours,” I stuffed it with Tofutti Cuties to shut it up, and shoved my fingers in my ears, just to be safe.
A few days and a few hundred dollars later, the master came back. The engineer had done a great job getting the record to a consistent commercial dynamic level using state-of-the-art signal compression techniques. Definitely worth the money I paid.
Well, it would have been if dynamics weren’t such an important part of my music. And not in the sense of strong quiets and strong louds. The moment-to-moment builds and drops are what make my music breathe. Even the slightest bit of compression renders it lifeless.
Of course, being a pro who stands by his work, he offered to do another pass, less loud. But after some discussion, I realized that this idea of loudness was his bread-and-butter. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that, in today’s pop music industry, mastering actually means “making it loud.” Where “loud” is defined not as a point on the road of dynamics, somewhere between “turn it up a little” and “oh jesus!” but as consistent dynamic range. As that overwhelming sameness that has taken over the sound of popular music over the past twenty years.
And I realized that if I wasn’t asking him to do the “mastering” that he was good at, I might as well be doing the “mastering” that I wanted myself. Fixing little EQ problems here and there. Manipulating relative volume levels, track gaps, and fades to make all the songs flow into each other exactly right.
So I did. And I sent it out to be duplicated. And in about two weeks, 15 boxes’ worth of CD’s should show up at my door. And then we’ll have a big show, and a big party, and, instead of the stress, and the confusion, and the frustration, I’ll remember all the good parts: the joy of creation, overcoming challenges, everything I’ve learned throughout this process.
And once that’s all done, and I’m ready to jump back in to the next one, my very first step, before I write any new lyrics, before I fire up the computer, before I set the panels back up in the corner, will be to put up a sign that says “Never, ever, ignore your instincts.”
32 Days
Aug 14, 2008 Waiting 2 Comments
I’m at home right now, waiting for the doorbell to ring. The master of my EP is out for delivery, and soon it will be in my hands. I have mixed feelings about this.
Let me fill you in, as I’ve been pretty sparse on details recently. Boldface proclamations notwithstanding, I decided to go back to my original plan: mix the record myself, and spend money on a good mastering guy to give it some polish.
Collaboration is tough. When you work with someone else, you want to trust them. Ideally, you want someone who you don’t have to tell what to do, because their own ideas are better than yours.
But how do you build up that trust? For someone as creatively solitary as I, it can be hard. Mastering makes it especially difficult, because, as far as I can tell, there is no way to judge a mastering engineer’s work.
Because of the way records are made - recording in one place, mixing in another, mastering by someone else - you can never really tell how much of the final sound he or she is responsible for.
So I’m left doing something I loathe. Acceptance by reputation. This particular engineer worked on a very high-profile major label record recently, and I’ve been told that this, in and of itself, means he is good, and he’ll do a good job. This makes me cringe, but what else can I do?
So that’s why I’m sitting in bed, biting my nails, and waiting for the Fedex truck. Eep.
Done
Aug 8, 2008 Waiting 2 Comments
The unthinkable has happened. On Wednesday night, I finished all the mixes for the album. 6 tracks, 24 minutes. If We Were. I sent it out for mastering the following morning. (I can’t believe how much it costs to overnight a package to California!!)
I’m not sure how to feel about it. About no longer being driven by this singular creative purpose, this “gotta finish, gotta finish” that has thump thumped in my head every day for so long. I don’t know what to do next. Next week, I’ll be on vacation, and for the first time, I’m not sure what to do. I’ve got a whole ton of Someday/Maybe projects that have been aching for their chance, but I’m not sure how to decide.
There’s still work to be done though. There are still plenty of decisions to be made before the album art goes out next week - what photo to use, what paper stock, which lyrics to cut to fit into the packaging. But I have a great designer working on that stuff; this is no longer my baby.
And ultimately, that’s the hardest and most wonderful part about being done. The loss of control. Now it’s up to the mastering engineer, the designer, the distributors, and ultimately, you listeners. I’ve opened up my grip on this thing. It’s out of my hands. It’s done.
Aargh
Jul 16, 2008 Waiting Leave a comment
Waiting to hear back from Red Bull. The suspense is killing me. Aargh!!
69 Days
Jul 9, 2008 Waiting Leave a comment
Getting closer. I’ve been working on the mix to If We Were. It’s tough because there are so many different lines going on at once. It’s hard to decide what should be in focus, and what should be background. I’m also having trouble striking the balance between sound that’s intense and enveloping and sound that’s not painfully loud. I guess that’s why people use compressors, but I hate them. Dynamic range is the key to everything I do, little expressive subtleties, quiet breaths and crescendos. Without those, it’s too close to the same old shit.
I’m also starting to plan the big release show. I’ve got most of the band in place, and they’re pretty awesome. There are a lot of possibilities floating around in my head. I think it’s going to be leaps and bounds beyond the last one. I’m really looking forward to new arrangements, new ideas, and new songs. Now I need to get the venue a picture, a bio, a blurb, etc. for their own promotion and press. Uggh. I don’t know why I find self-promotion so difficult. I think it’s the idea of having to manufacture an image. I’m happy to give people what I am; I’m happy to share that truth. It’s when I have to stylize that, and shape it into something, that I start to bristle. I need to figure that one out.
All in all, things are good. I plan to finish mixing (finish If We Were and revisit glitches in the other songs) by the end of this month, which puts me right on schedule for the release date. The art looks amazing; I can’t wait for everyone to see it. I’ve been meeting a lot of wonderful people recently, including one who’s beautiful and consistently grin-inducing. I’ve been rehearsing for a gig at a friend’s party, playing soul covers with a great band. Just on keys, and occasional djembe. It feels good to be able to concentrate on one thing at a time. I hope to do more of that when the Geniuses get back on stage.
The juices are flowing. Things are afoot. Life is good.