Some people wonder what my goals are in music. What I hope to achieve. Many bands & musicians obsess with wanting to become popular and successful. That’s stuff is nice. I like all that stuff too. Like all musicians, I want to be recognized and hopefully become successful. The problem that most bands have is that most bands make music as to entertain the audience. That’s how I look at most bands around the area. I look at them as entertainers, not actual musicians. Now before I get flamed for this topic, let me explain what I mean. Most bands want to get people dancing and get them wild. That’s pretty much, the entertainment I’m talking about.

I would like bands to concentrate on the music more. They should be writing good songs, where people can actually listen to them. Make songs where they can actually sit down and listen. I never cared about hit songs and never cared about pop music.

This is why I admire, Sean Rowe. He’s the type of songwriter where you want to actually sit and listen. He doesn’t care about making pop songs and doesn’t care about making people dance to them. It’s about the music. He just wrote songs however he wanted. I’m sure people want him to write pop songs that you could dance to, but he just writes whatever comes to him. Not giving a rats ass what anyone else thinks and writing songs how you want to.

That’s how I always felt about my music. Wrote songs however I wanted to write them. People want me to go back to writing serial killer and horror songs again, but I can’t go back to that. Would I ever write another song similar to “Evil Fred” again? No. Probably never. I’ll still play “Evil Fred” and my older songs at my gigs, but my future songs will concentrate on real & honest things. Like politics, current news, protest songs, etc.

I like to look at my live gigs as an opportunity to show off my songs in front an audience. Not to be some pop entertainer like most musicians around here. I think you get my point now.

Kev

So I talk a lot about acting like a true professional in local music when you’re a gigging musician. How do you act like a 100% professional?

Here’s a step by step instruction, you bands out there may want to consider this:

• Be polite & friendly to everyone – There are too many bands at shows that are rude and some musicians can’t be friendly to people at all. Being polite, courteous and positive to everyone is important. People may enjoy your music but they want to like you as a person as well, don’t forget that. Being friendly to fans, booking agents and club owners. Getting to know them and making friends with people in music is a good thing.
• Show up early at your gigs – Believe me I’ve seen it all. I’ve seen lots of bands & solo acoustic acts show up real late at gigs. It happens all the time. If the club owner books you to show at 7:00 p.m. for soundcheck for example, show up an hour early. Why is it important to show up early? It impresses the club owner who booked you and he/she would want to book you again.
• If you need to cancel or pull out of gigs on the last minute, let everyone know before doing it – I’ve had plenty of musicians who never showed up at my gigs without not letting everyone know beforehand. This happens all the time. If you need to cancel out of your performance for your own reasons, let your fans and the person who booked you know about it.
• If you didn’t get a big crowd at your show, deal with it – I’ve had many bands & solo acts complain and whine about the dead crowd. If you get a dead crowd at your show where no one showed up at all in the audience, perform the gig and play it like it’s a great show anyway. A good attitude is a must have.
• If you didn’t get paid, deal with it – I’ve had many musicians complain to me about not getting paid enough out of the admission money from the door. If you don’t get money, it’s not the end of the world. You’ll make money at other gigs. Music shouldn’t be about the money anyway. It’s all about the love of playing.
• Don’t be critical of other bands on the show – If the band on your gig sucks,  then keep the opinion for yourselves. Live music is supposed to be fun and a positive experience. I’ve had too many musicians tell me that this performer sucks get them off the stage. It’s rude and I don’t care to hear other peoples opinions.
• Do everything the club owner/booking person tells you to do (even if you don’t like it) – The booking person who booked you to play the show is like your boss at a day job. You must follow orders. If you’re playing too loud, turn it down. If your set is too long, cut it in half. I’ve heard too many. If the club owner prefers your band to use their equipment and not your own, do it.
• Leave your egos out the door – This is a major turn off for me. Believe me, I met plenty of ego-maniacal musicians at the gigs. You’re no bigger than other musicians on the gig, you’re just the same as us.
• Promote yourself – Promote yourself on the internet whether in blogs, facebook, myspace, reverbnation, etc. Promote yourself in your hometown by posting flyers at stores/restaurants/diners, not everyone uses the internet.
• Take your music career seriously – If you want your music heard by as many people as possible, and want to become a successful band or musician, concentrate on your music only and nothing else outside of that.
• Ignore your critics & your haters – You’re not going to please everyone with your music. You’re going to get your share of nasty critics and haters writing a bunch of crap about you online. Ignore it all and don’t respond to any of it. You only care about your music and not giving a shit what other people have to say about you. You should be thankful and glad that you have haters because it lets you know that people are paying attention to you, good or bad. There are certain musicians around here who would reply to almost every negative thing written about them. Don’t be defensive of yourself ’cause you’ll never win.
• Just enjoy & have fun – If you don’t have the passion for music, then why bother doing it? I’ve seen plenty of musicians who don’t have the true passion for music. I’ve seen some who are just in it for the money, not for the love of music. Don’t treat music as a job, think of it as another life.

That’s about all I can think of. If there’s more, I’ll edit them in. Enjoy this list.

Kev

I went to an open mic night at a small venue called the “111” in Greenwich. I played three tunes, “Say Goodbye, Osama”, “Be Home Safe”, and “The Nightmare Has Begun Today”. Surprisingly enough, “Say Goodbye, Osama” actually got a very strong applause from the crowd.

Honestly, I thought the audience would hate me for playing the song. They might feel offended, but they actually liked it. Some people even came up to me to say to my face that they liked the song. The song is not a homage to Osama. The song is a celebration of his death, just read the lyrics in that video. There is swearing in the song, yes, but I feel it’s appropriate to add swearing into it. I mean, if you want it to be an angry song and if you want to be angry at Bin Laden for the things that he did, I figure swearing makes the song right. I thought about using the word “fucker” or “asshole”, but nah, not angry enough. So I thought using the word, “motherfucker” is perfect.

I don’t think I’ll be playing this tune at all of my gigs though. Probably only the bar room gigs, not the family cafes.

The song was inspired by all the metal bands that I listen to: Zeppelin, Iron Maiden, Sabbath, etc. I’m very proud of the song. I would like to record a studio version of it with a live band at some point. I just gotta find the right musicians and studio time in order to get it done. If I were to get a new demo CD done, I would do it in a professional local studio. I’ve been looking at working with Don Fury who has a studio in Troy. I hear he’s a very good producer to work with and I think I’ll work with him when I get a band going.

Kev

The two bands I will be opening for at Savannah’s in a few weeks, you can check them out and listen to them yourself at their Reverb Nation pages.

Check out Knyghts of Fuzz and the Sandy McKnight Fiasco.

Both of those bands actually sound very good. I’m looking forward to seeing them and meeting them after my set. It’s going to be a great night of rock n’ roll.

Glad to be back to where I belong.

I would love to release my debut album with an actual CD cover and all, it’ll happen sometime. I want an album to happen. It’s just very expensive to make a professional studio album to sell at local shows.

Kev

Well, what do you know? I was just asked another gig today and out of no where, Ralph Renna asked me to be on his “Capital Underground” series at Savannah’s. I’ll be opening for two bands that night. Knyghts of Fuzz and Sandy McKnight Fiasco! This show is updated in the “Brock Shows” tab in this blog.

I’m so glad to be back into booking shows again! I do miss performing live. I’m glad I’ll be performing Albany first, that way my Albany fans can come see me and I can make new fans as well.

I’ll be video taping all my live gigs, so you won’t miss anything.

Kev

What I said in the title of this topic is true. When you want to be a live performer, be it, either a acoustic solo artist or playing in a band, you need to have your “confidence”. When I perform live, I have 100% confidence in my performing. I’m never scared or nervous. You have to see it to believe it.

When I go see a live local show supporting other acts around the area, I am noticing other musicians don’t have that full “confidence” yet. How can I tell? Here are some bad signs that they look like they don’t have it yet: 1) They look bored to death playing on stage 2) Their hands shake while performing 3) Their faces are red, sweating a lot 4) Mumbling while speaking in between songs 5) They can get very shy 6) Their performance is not as good as you think it would be. I can come up with a lot of bad signs.

If you want to impress an audience, and draw a large crowd, you have to have that “confidence”. Give it your 100% every time you perform. If you have that stage fright, a little bit, then you’re singing and playing might be a little off, and not as tight or emotional. That’s when you start to lose an audience, they could get bored and walk away from your set. You want to keep your audience listening throughout your set. You have to win the crowd over.

When you have that confidence, your playing will be a lot better and it could catch the audience’s attention more. When I first started playing live, I had stage fright back then. I used to get scared and nervous myself when I first started playing open mics a long time ago. I taught myself on how to over come the “stage fright”. It takes a while to over come the stage fright but it will get to you. It just takes practice and learning.

What are ways to over come “stage fright”? Perform your set at home and pretend your playing in front an actual audience. If you love music so much, you need to show to the audience. Make some cool facial expressions while performing or do some cool guitar moves. Bang your head up and down, move around while playing. When you perform in front of a real audience, act like nobody is there. Do some before show rituals to help calm yourself down before the performance like do some exercises, deep breathing or listen to your Ipod, that also helps get your confidence in. My before show rituals, I like to get away from everyone, spend time alone, studying lyrics to memorize them for the show.

If you want to perform live as a musician, and if you have stage fright, then why bother doing it? You have no right to be a live performer if you’re not going to be brave about it. I’ll be video taping my performance at the “Alcove Marina” gig coming in June 4th, and I’ll show you how confident I can be. You need to give it your best if you want to be a successful performer.

Kev

Here are more Hootenanny live music footage from that show I went to over the weekend. This is Troy’s own, Maurizio. To you local readers out there, you may already know who he is. Enjoy!

Kev