I posted this little rant in facebook yesterday:

“It is really amazing to me, how certain musicians can sometimes be big drama queens, have bad attitudes and short tempers. I expect professionalism, positive, kind & joyful musicians. If a musician decides to be a negative nancy, it’s not good karma for your career and those are the kind of musicians, I don’t want to be around with. You need to be a professional on and off the computer. A negative attitude in music is not a way to go. I’m only speaking from experience and learning.”

I really meant what I said too.

That post wasn’t really aimed at any musician or band in particular, it’s pretty much aimed at all of them. What is it with musicians getting angry over small stuff? I’m just trying to make it a more positive music scene. That’s all I’m pretty much doing really.

Musicians think they can act how they want to in the world of music. Well, you can’t. Gotta act like a professional 100%, no matter where you go and no matter who you talk to. If you want to make it somewhere, gotta be happy and positive. Smile a lot. It’s not that hard to do.

Edit to add: I mean, isn’t that what everyone’s been telling me for years??? People’s been saying I can’t act how I want, I should be a nice guy and be a professional. Yet, other musicians still think they can act how they want. Just proved my point that people around here can be a bunch of hypocrites.

Kev

Loren Weisman, my favorite music blogger, once again wrote another great blog. Giving advice to bands how to reveal big news as a way to surprise your fans more, read it, here.

Right, once again. I’m noticing a lot of bands around here, have a huge problem of releasing huge band news too early. It’s a bad idea to do, in my opinion. Wait until the time is right, and then be EXPLOSIVE.

Going to be on the cover of Metroland or any other local paper? Don’t announce it, wait until it comes out. Going to open for a huge national act or did you get signed to a big label? Don’t announce it too early, wait for the right time!

If you get a huge opportunity, don’t spoil it for the fans. Do the right thing and surprise them big, you would get a lot more respect and more love that way!

Kev

If you’re a new & young band or solo act, just getting well known and recognition with your music, one thing you must understand that it’s going to bring out all kinds of weird people. Like I always say, a mixture of reactions. Some will like you, some will not. You could also get all kinds of crazed fans, writing weird stuff about you in social networking sites. Another thing, that your popularity will also help get you in touch with people from your past that you haven’t seen in a long time, either good or bad experiences with that person.

I know all of this is going to be confusing and strange to the new bands out there just getting success, but don’t get bothered by the mixed reactions. The new and young bands, still have a problem with taken it all too seriously. Being too upset about things or disappointed.

The last thing a band or musician wants to do is to be upset or disappointed with the mixed reactions. That’s how the music world goes, you know? You need to stay above the negative stuff and be thankful that you came this far with the music. Don’t reply to the haters at all, just be thankful for it anyway. Don’t be all defensive toward music websites giving you bad reviews, just be thankful for it anyway.

Having a good and positive attitude about your career, no matter what happens, will get you even farther in your music.

I mean, I’m just speaking from experience once again. When I started my music back in 2006, to bring it to the public to get heard, all kinds of weird reactions started coming after me. People either loved me or hated me, it’s all good, in my part. I’m not worried about if people don’t like my online web presence. I am, who I am and there’s nothing people can do to change it.

Just be grateful for everything. Whether people are making fun of you for laughs, or just flat out bashing you publicly, just take it with heart and see it as good publicity. Bad publicity can be good, right?

Responding to everything is just a bad idea. There’s a certain band that should be nameless, that has a problem with this, and this is all I’m trying to help them on.

Kev

If you want to become a better musician and improve, listen to your heroes and learn from them. I agree, read, Loren’s blog about it, here.

Learning from your heroes & inspirations, WILL help you play better. Doesn’t matter what instrument you play. Since I play guitar, my heroes are: Jimmy Page, Hendrix, and Satriani.

Learn what equipment and instruments they use. Learn what kind of chords they are using and what kind of scales they mostly use for improvisation. All that stuff. Learn about your hero everything in detail.

I borrow a lot of stuff from Jimmy Page. He mostly listened to old blues music, which helped him become the great guitar player that he is today. Satriani got all his inspiration from listening to Hendrix. Hendrix is Satch’s hero like most of us.

Study their style of playing and you’ll become a pro in no time.

Kev

Just getting back home from the funeral of legendary blues musician, Ernie Williams. We didn’t stay very long. We only stayed for a few minutes and left. We wanted to say our quick goodbyes to a local blues legend. The place looked interesting though. There was a stage there with instruments on it ’cause Ernie’s band, The Wildcats, were going to play a concert there tonight. I would have liked to stay for the whole thing, but the guy I went with wanted to leave, he didn’t want to stay. That’s okay though, I didn’t really know those people anyway. Most of the people were there are just family and friends of Ernie.

I was expecting the place to be really packed, but it was actually pretty quiet. Of course, there were news media vans in the parking lot though.

I’m sure there were some local musicians there, but I would think they would be friends of Ernie’s. I didn’t see anybody I know there. Glad, I actually went there to pay my respects to Ernie Williams. The funeral is probably gonna go on all evening, we didn’t really stay that long.

RIP, Ernie, he maybe gone, but his music will live on. Now I wonder if the Wildcats band will continue on without him or hang it up? Maybe we’ll hear something from the band very soon. I need to start buying music from Ernie Williams now. I could probably get his music directly from Itunes.

Kev

Sure. Musicians can act how they want to in the music world. I’m not trying to force people how to act. They can act like they’re better than everyone, have short tempers, and have bad attitudes all they want to.

Or, you could be the nice guy musician. Being nice, friendly and courteous at all times. Being nice to people, and you get the same respect back.

It’s your choice, who you want to be. All musicians have different personalities. Some can be the niceguy and some can be the badguy.

I prefer to be the nice guy. If things don’t go my way in the music scene or if I run into someone I don’t like, I’ll let it slide right by and focus on the positive instead. You gotta understand what good & bad karma does in music.

When you be the niceguy, everyone will start to say great things about you and will respect you even more. Wouldn’t it be cool if someone said, “I haven’t seen anything negative said about this guy and he’s always smiling”. Talk to fans and musicians as if they were your friends, just be positive about everything. I’m trying the best I can. You should try it too.

Sure, there is still going to be people that are still not going to like me, no matter how positive or nice I get. That’s okay, you should still keep it that way. Staying positive and ignoring the negative people.

A lot of musicians and music fans like to call me, “delusional”, which that word seems to be the most over used word in the music world. Musicians seem to want to call each other that all the time. One guy thinks they’re telling the truth and the other is delusional. *yawn* Can you come up with anything new? All musicians want to think they’re doing nothing wrong, all want to think they’re better and smarter than others.

Not all musicians are like that, I know. I do know there are kind musicians who treat people with respect, and I know there are some that still treat me with respect. I do know there are professional acting musicians who never get into this drama stuff. Those are the kind of musicians I like to be around with. I know who they are.

If you all of a sudden, don’t get along with musicians anymore that you’ve been friends with in the past, that means they never supported you after all this time. If there are musicians that still support you, no matter what happens, that’s what a true professional really is.

As some of you can see, I still get some support by other musicians around the scene, which I’m honored for that. That’s one of the reasons why I decided to start talking local music again to start promoting the scene more with reviews, interviews, etc.I want to return that respect back. I’ll start the musician interviews next week.

Kev

Yes, that’s right. I’m going to legendary bluesman, Ernie Williams, funeral tomorrow. Gonna go and pay my respects. Even if I never saw the man perform or met him, I respect him for the legacy he created here, so I’m going to show my support.

Tomorrow will be an interesting day. I’m sure a lot of local musicians all over the place are going too. I’ll be going with a musician buddy of mine, he actually invited me to go.

I’ll probably write all about it, when I get back home. I usually don’t go to funerals for people I don’t know, but somehow, I knew Ernie Williams even if I didn’t.

Kev

When you try to give friendly advice to bands & musicians if you disagree with something they do, a lot of them get angry and upset about it. You were nothing but nice and friendly about it, and then they start yelling at ya for no reason. Why?  I believe it’s part of an ego thing, period.

The band is doing something with their music and going places, they feel that you are not up at their level, so they look at you like second class citizens. Which makes them feel like that you don’t deserve to give them advice and your 2cents.

The only time a band will take advice from people are from other bands and promoters that are successful in their own way. Some of them will ignore real people like me. That’s okay though. Like Steve said in this blog in the comments, let the bands have their big egos and bad attitudes. Let them mess up their careers.

That is why I write band posts on this blog ’cause I do know, most of them are reading (probably about 90% of local musicians reading my site on a daily basis still). This is why I write about band stuff here, it’ll hopefully get musicians think, “Hmmmm, maybe Brock is right”. Get the deal? That’s the goal with the blog. Get my message across to musicians to a hopeful better music scene.

Kev

I’m sure some of you musicians out there have family members as musicians. As some of you know that includes me. If you have brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, or who ever being a musician just like yourself. If you think they support everything you do, think again. You even have to win their respect as well. It sucks but it is what it is. You’ll learn this harsh truth soon enough.

Sure, some musicians that have family members as musicians will get along no matter what, but every family is different. There are family musicians out there can dislike each other, just ask Liam and Noel Gallagher of Oasis.

When it comes to family musicians not getting along, ego and jealousy gets in the way with everything between the two of them (including me too). That’s all it is really. I guess this is pretty normal in the music world, so I’m not worried about it.

One wants to think you’re doing nothing wrong and the other side wants to think you are. Ah yes, drama. Gotta love it. It never seems to end. I got my own music to work on and my own life to concentrate, so I’m all good. Gonna move forward and keep on making the music.

Kev

I’ve said it before guys. When you want to be in a band or be a solo artist, when you become successful and established in your area, you need to act like professionals. You need to act like a professional at all times, no matter where you go and no matter who you talk to. You have to be friendly, positive and have a good attitude at all times. Even on the internet.

When you become successful and get a lot of fans, get a lot of press, etc. You can’t be a negative person. In other words, you can’t be an asshole. That’s the problem with the local music scene. Bands become successful, their egos would get even bigger and when they’re publicly being negative in facebook, twitter, etc., on the internet, after you just became successful, that’s not a cool thing to do.

If you want to make it in the music industry, these guys take professionalism very seriously. The industry is no joke, if you want to make it. You have to have good karma at all times. Being a negative person, bad karma will get at you. Think how club owners and other promoters would think if they see a band acting like an asshole online, they’ll say, “No thanks, next please”. I’m serious. I’m only speaking from experience, ’cause I’ve dealt with the same thing.

What is going to happen if you’re being a huge egomaniac, an asshole or a drama queen online? Well for one, club owners get could you banned from playing there. Promoters will refuse to book you, and the press could start writing some pretty bad stuff about you. Even worse, you could turn off your fans and they will no longer support your music. I’ve been there, done that. Learning from my mistakes.

I tell other bands this, they get all pissed, and become defensive. Like I said before, they’ll think you’re the badguy. I know I’m right on this, it’s just that the truth bothered them. They just didn’t like hearing the truth, simple as that.

If this is how you’re going to act toward people, then you’re not fit for the music industry. Sorry but it’s the truth.

I know many musicians out there don’t like my internet personality. I’m sure some of them are going to laugh at this and hide behind freedom of speech, but I speak reality here. I am, who I am. An honest guy, who is not afraid to be real about things. Some musicians may accuse me of being delusional, but I mean well. I’m an honest guy who sees everything with reality. People think they can get away with reality. Some musicians may disagree with what I say here, but I have some musicians that support this blog and agree with everything I say on here.

I’m the same guy on and off the computer. If you want to hate only for being honest, go right ahead. It just shows that you aren’t really supportive, and I’m okay with that. I can’t please everyone. Bad karma will kick your ass hard. You won’t even make it in the industry if you keep acting like an asshole.

On a lighter note, I’ve been quiet most of the day ’cause I ended up writing and recording music. Yep, recording new songs again. That’s why I’ve been quiet lately.

Kev