Another cool blog post by Loren Weisman.

He gives some good insight on bands trying to get fans to vote for them on different type of contests that they get themselves entered into. I’ve seen plenty of bands doing these type of contests as well, it’s in facebook all the time. Bands & solo artists trying to get people to vote for them on various things.

Some of them do it right and some of them don’t. A lot of bands have a big problem of being way too spammy with their voting requests.

If you want to get people to actually care about voting for you, read this post.

Kev

This is another big problem that goes on in the music world. All the bullying and harassment that goes on with other musicians. If you’re the type of musician that does this, then you’re not a musician. You’re not the professional that you think you are. I’m not just defending myself, I’m also defending other musicians who have experienced the same thing. Getting unfairly bullied and harassed by other musicians, only because you look funny to them and different. The bullying and harassment is immature. This isn’t high school anymore, guys. This is the real world.

I understand musicians think they’re comedians. They think they’re doing all this for a laugh and entertainment, but honestly, it’s not entertaining. What you guys do is inappropriate and offensive. You guys are adults, not little high school kids. It really is pathetic that people who are between the ages of 30 – 50, are writing mean and offensive comments to other musicians that they find funny to pick on. Yeah, makes you a big man.

This post isn’t aimed at a certain musician or band in particular, it’s aimed all of them. If you want to be successful in music, you need to be a 100% professional. The bullying at me from other musicians around this area continues, but I learn to ignore it and not care what anybody think of me.

Remember, I didn’t write this post just to defend myself. Just to try and help make it a better and more positive music scene. Although, I know, musicians won’t even bother taking this advice ’cause they’ll be hiding behind freedom of speech. Bullying and harassing other musicians, won’t get you any further in the music business.

Your fans and followers, may go along with the bullying, but that’s because they’re most likely childish people as well with nothing better to do but to look for things to laugh at. One day you’ll regret what you do, and you’ll feel guilty about it.

It’s just unprofessional for your career. Really, think about it. If you claim you concentrate on the music only and busy as you think you are, then you need to concentrate on the music only, but nope. Certain musicians just want to act like assholes.

I don’t care if people don’t like me, ’cause I know I’m not going to be liked by everybody. I just want what’s best for this music scene. This is not about myself at all. That’s why I’ve been brutally honest about the music scene over the years ’cause I want to make it a better music scene.

Kev

How can musicians be sensitive? Well, here’s a little list that I can think of at the top of my head.

• They don’t like being criticized by other musicians and regular music fans, in other words, they don’t like negative feedback.
• They don’t like being ignored by the local press. They get upset when they don’t get interviews for the local papers, no cover photo shoots, no reviews of their albums, etc.
• They don’t like being called out for their career mistakes. Like falling for scams, Battle of the Bands, signing the wrong label, etc. You get the deal.
• They don’t like being called out for their bad behaviors on the internet. If you call out musicians being all negative and being an egotist, they’ll get all defensive. They’ll always think they’re doing nothing wrong and they’ll call you the badguy instead.
• They get upset when they get screwed by the clubs at their gigs, like not getting paid and all that stuff.
• They get upset when no one listens to their music, not getting many plays of their songs online.
• They get upset if they don’t get many people at their gigs or worse, no crowd at all.
• They get upset when they get rejected from getting booked at a club or venue.
• They get upset when they lose contests like Battle of the Bands, radio contests, etc. You see it all the time. Heated flame wars online about not winning these silly contests.
• They don’t like getting advice from other bands & musicians. They claim they don’t need help and think they can get successful on their own.

I think I pretty much covered it. If I’m missing anything, feel free to continue.

When you want to play out in a band or just a solo career, you will deal with a lot of ups and downs. If you want to have a great career & be successful, you have to be brave and have balls. Ignore all the setbacks and let the negativity slide. Things may not go the way you want to, but that’s the way life is. You just gotta learn to be positive and stay strong. Keep a positive attitude about the bad stuff I listed above, and better things will come for your career. Remember, what karma is all about.

Kev

Another great blog by Loren Weisman, that I wanted to give my thoughts to, read it, here.

I totally agree with Loren that in order to understand a band and musician more, you need to see them live. MP3’s and the internet maybe pretty cool, but if you want to give even more respect to the band & artist that you like, you need see them live. Just like with my own music, if you ever get a chance to see me live, I would try my very best to put on the best show as possible. No matter how many people showed up at my gig, I always gave them my best shot.

Communication in between songs is pretty important. I try my very best to talk to the crowd in between songs. What I would do is say the name of the song I’m about to play, then I would explain what it’s about a little bit. Sometimes I would joke around with the audience. Treating your fans like if they are your friends, your fans will keep their respect for you after the gig. They will want to follow you on your tour.

I’ve always treated the audience like if they were my friends. Hanging out with them after the gigs, maybe even taking pictures with them or even signing autographs if you’re lucky enough. I’ve had done both with people before, take photos with fans and sign autographs with people after shows. It may not happen all the time, but once in while, someone will ask me to take a pic or sign something.

When you are communicating with the fans, there are some do’s and don’ts. I already explained some of the things you do, but the things you don’t want to do when communicating with the crowd in between songs is tell long ten minutes stories like Loren said in the blog. I’ve seen musicians do this before. They go on and on and on, boring the audience to death when they want the band or acoustic guy to get to the next song. You also don’t want to be too negative or be offensive.

As far as the swearing and cussing goes, I’ve seen this a lot at band gigs and acoustic shows. It all depends on the audience. It’s mostly the young crowd that don’t mind the swearing, but when you’re at a family friendly event, swearing a lot could get you kicked off the stage. Swearing is okay with the rock & metal crowd, depending on the audience age range, but it must be done carefully. I know a lot of bands can’t help saying the F word a lot at some gigs. It also depends on the venue you are at if the swearing is alright, the bars & clubs, yes, but the outdoor family friendly events, no.

On a positive note, if you want your respect and more people to come to your shows, if you want people to stay throughout your entire performance, make the show fun and enjoyable like Loren said.

I try to make my gigs as fun and exciting, the best I can. You have to see it to believe it. I’m planning on getting back out there performing gigs again sometime in the future, once I have a new batch of originals to play out, and new covers too.

Kev

Edit to add: I actually don’t talk too much in between songs ’cause I’ll admit, I’m not a very talkative guy. I maybe kind of quiet talking to people, but when I’m on stage playing, I’m a very confident dude.

There’s a lot of local bands & solo artists ranting about that Reader’s Poll thing in facebook today, with that well known newspaper that should be nameless, but you’ll figure it out. Many are accusing the newspaper of the Reader’s Poll votes being rigged and fake, all that stuff, blah blah blah, but you know what, that’s the good example of the kind of attitude that you shouldn’t have in the music scene.

Remember what I said, about not worry about these silly award things? In my few previous posts, I had a good attitude of being snubbed from the “Reader’s Poll”. I don’t understand why the “Reader’s Poll” thing means so much to musicians around here, when it shouldn’t mean a thing. It’s not like you’re being handed over a gold medal or a golden statue or anything, sheesh.

I understand musicians want to be recognized for their talent and hard work, but you don’t need your name printed in a newspaper to be recognized for that. You’ll be recognized for your talent when people are supporting your music. That’s it.

Don’t worry about these yearly Reader’s Poll, when you should keep doing your thing. Making the music and keeping your fans happy. That’s all that should matter.  Like I said before, the winners in the “Reader’s Poll” are pretty much the same people, every year with nothing new. I know I’m not the only musician struggling trying to get recognition, there are too many out there.

Just keep working on your music. That’s more important than these silly awards.

Kev

Yet another great blog by Loren Weisman, check it out, here.

That blog is kind of similar to what I was saying here for days. Can’t please everyone, not everyone will like you or your music. I also agree with him that any kind of publicity, bad or good, is good publicity.

All those hateful anonymous blog postings and people bashing me on youtube videos, that stuff don’t really bother me too much ’cause all it’s doing is helping to promote me, giving me more publicity. Haters can sometimes be good. I know I got a lot of bad publicity with people making fun of me and all that stuff, but that’s fine. If people want to hate me or make fun of me in facebook, blogs, twitter, or youtube, go for it.

A mixed reaction toward you or your music is actually a good thing for your career. It lets you know that people are paying attention to you and following you on a daily basis.

Musicians do have a big problem defending themselves when they’re being attacked by critics or haters. I tried not to do that too much as I’ve pretty much ignored most of it, over the years.

Here’s another good blog by a different blogger giving advice to bands/musicians with a twitter account or other social media sites. How to deal with haters and trolls? “Don’t engage, walk away“.

Don’t respond to any negativity, or you’ll be looking like the asshole instead. I  used to do it, and am learning from my mistakes. If you’re getting a mix of love and hate, that means you’re pretty successful and popular in some way, right?

Kev

Dear Bands & Musicians,

I’ve said it many times in the past and will say it again, just for this one last time. If you guys want to get further in your careers, then you need to stop being a drama queen online and get rid of your self centered attention whoring ego. It’s bad karma. I used to be like this in the past, but I couldn’t be that kind of person anymore. It’s just proves my point that the Albany music scene is so negative, everything about it. Being a negative nancy won’t help your careers folks, I know from experience. It’s just going to make your dreams worse.

Don’t blame other people that your musical dreams are getting destroyed, you’re just destroying yourself. Keep your personal problems & private life off line (’cause no one cares to read this shit). Stop your angry rants. Keep your swearing and profanity to a minimum, (I swear sometimes but not a whole lot).

When you see musicians do things like this, they just do it to try and get a reaction out of their supporters. Just their way of getting their supporters & friends online to make him/her feel better. We all have problems in our personal lives, even I do…but when I have a problem, I don’t post it online for the whole world to see, I would talk to family & friends privately behind the scenes if I had a problem.

Being a drama queen online, other musicians, and other people in the music business will NOT want to work with you if they see the way you act online. And like I said before, you could lose a lot of fans & supporters.

If you want a great career in music, you have to be positive, always. Have a good attitude at all times, and good things will come out of it.

I had to delete a certain musician in facebook that will be nameless yesterday ’cause he was acting like such a big drama queen. I don’t want to delete people like that but when all you want to do is be a negative person, get out of my sight. I will continue to delete people off of my facebook, if I see musicians continue to act this way.

I want to be around happy & joyful people. I don’t have time to deal with negative people. That’s why I’m strict with posting comments in this blog and youtube ’cause I don’t tolerate negativity. It just proves my point that some musicians can be assholes. I want to be around the good musicians, the ones with a positive attitude, the ones that act like a true professional. I want to be around the cool people. I can be a nice guy and prefer to be around the nice people.

Of course, bands & musicians will not take this advice, ’cause they will be hiding behind freedom of speech and think they can be honest whenever they want to. Nothing wrong with being real and honest, but there are positive ways of being honest.

Kev

It’s very rare that original bands get so successful in music. To the ones that do get successful, how are they doing it? It’s not because the music is good. Well for one, they write very catchy songs that you maybe able to hear off the radio. They write simple radio friendly songs that could easily catch a listeners ear. They write pop songs that would get the audience dancing and going crazy, or write a bunch of sing along songs. An original band can be a party band, just like a cover band can be a party band. That’s how they are able to attract a large fanbase ’cause the original band concentrates on being a party band or a pop band. Know what I mean? They try to make themselves look like a mainstream band even if they are not.

No offense to original bands out there, this is just an observation.

With my own music, I never cared to write party music or pop songs. I just wanted to make art. Write whatever came out of me. Once in a while, I’ll write an original song that a lot of people would actually like. I just wanted to write songs. Write, write, write. It didn’t matter if the song attracted a lot of attention or not, I just wanted to express myself. That’s what I do songwriting for.

If I ever get myself a band going, it sure won’t be a party band or a pop band that’s for sure. I’ll be playing some serious music where people can actually sit and listen. Sure, people dancing and singing along to my songs would be fun, I’d like it, but that’s not what I look for in my music. I look to send a message out with my songs, and I am a storyteller with them.

Again, nothing wrong with being a party band giving the audience a good time, but I’m all about the music. I like those kind of bands that are not worried about being a party band and concentrate on making the art.

You have to ask yourself. Do you want to be a pop star or an artist? I want to be the artist. That’s the goal that I hope to achieve with all of my songs, getting the message out.

I’ll be having more originals coming soon.

Kev