Well, to bring home one point that I keep bringing home, nobody is going to play The Enormodome playing copy music. Nobody here seems to accept that you HAVE TO WRITE SONGS to be a "playa" in the big game. You may define success as being the best cover band in your city. I do not define it that way. An occasional cover here and there, repurposed rather than note for note, okay, but not a 22 song show. The early Beatles albums were half covers, but the other way to look at that is that those albums were also half stuff they wrote. (Can you even imagine that in the middle of Sgt Pepper they'd do some stupid cover song?) Part of success is putting out an album, touring to support it, doing the radio promo for the shows, the t-shirt sales... all of it. AND you have to do something that is not exactly "in the mold" to set yourself apart.

Please take a minute to read my (fairly long) story below "the mold" and how I had to learn humility. Fast.

In 1984, I decided that I was going to head out to Los Angeles and show the music business everything they had been doing wrong up until then. I took a leave of absence from my job (I was a mailman) and loaded my car, and off I went. I had done a lot of leg work before this actually happened. I had a friend who managed an 18 suite apartment building and we worked out a deal where I could live in whichever suite was being renovated, as they were typically rehabbed with carpet and paint and such whenever a lease ended, and the next lease didn't start for at least a month, so I could stay in each place for at least one month, longer if they had no applicant. When he finally ran out of places, I stayed in the room that the Ramada on Highway 1 in Santa Monica gave his trio for their cases and such, and they were the house band there for a few years so that was stable. (Yes, I lived walking distance-ish from the ocean!)

When I got there the first thing I did was contact all my Cleveland friends. The guy with the apartment was a drummer. There was John the keyboard player who much later in life was in the house band on American Idol as well as doing sitcom jingles for NBC. Then there was Jim, a bass player, and his wife Pam, a singer/rhythm guitar player. I was playing guitar then. The game plan was that we (I) would write songs and do a showcase at a place in Santa Monica called At My Place, owned and operated by Matt Kramer. Matt had some business experience and he was very good to the bands that were going to perform as far as helping them pick which 5 songs they would play. I wrote about 15, pared that to 10, and then one afternoon we went in and he listened to all 10 and told us which 5 to play. We polished those up and he set up a showcase on Monday night, when they took place, 10 days later. We went in there ready to wow the dozens of label people that would be in the place.

Well, come showcase night, there were only 6 of them there, and the people who came to those things were the lower tier underlings, not the top guys. Matt told me it was protocol that when we finished I should towel the sweat off, grab a quick drink of water and then go out and greet people and thank them for coming. And that at that point IF they had any kind of critique, they would give it then. So after doing what I thought was a strong set, I dried off, grabbed a plastic cup of water and went out to see people. I never knew August in California could be so cold. The first guy, nothing. Shook my hand, grunted while he nodded, barely looking up from the pile of papers on the table in front of him. The second guy was nicer, but not much in the way of critical review, just to stay with the writing and keep trying. The 4th one was a woman probably 40-ish and she actually asked me to sit down with her. And that went like this.

She told me something close to "I can see by your eyes that this is your first showcase and the reception is falling far short of what you hoped for. Let me tell you this. NOBODY gets a deal on their first showcase. Never. Most of us here don't even bring contracts out of the briefcase to show you one until we see you at least 4 or 5 times, and each time we want new material. Your music is fine, but it is SO midwest mainstream, and there is already a Johnny Cougar. Get back to work with your writing and stay with it. There is talent and potential up there, but no wow factor. You need that wow to get anywhere. And that's the truth of the matter. Also, you are a handsome man, but you need to drop 25 pounds or so." And I shook her hand smiling through happy tears that somebody finally told me the truth.

I fought back the urge to say "This is 5 people from Cleveland here. What did you THINK we would do if not midwest mainstream? That's what we know because that's where we're from." I nodded, thanked her, and walked away. And about 2 weeks later I came back to Ohio with my tail between my legs, still arrogant enough to think they made a mistake not signing me to a rich 6 album deal and that they were STILL doing it wrong. Yes, I was THAT arrogant back then. And to a degree, still now.

But back to 100% more on topic, a lot of why people don't get discovered is that they never leave their turtle shell. You simply HAVE to be a writer. That is the other half of the creative toolkit. If not you can play at the campfire and back porch "jam sessions" (I HATE that term!) you want and be the star "picker" (I hate THAT term too) at those jams sessions, and if that salves your soul and makes you feel complete, then god bless you because you have reached your goal in music. But if you want anybody outside your town to know your name, the path is very different.

We have a scene here where Wednesday night is jam night, and the players are SO STUPID they don't see that they are providing the bar with free music when they should have to be playing $650-700 for a band. AND THEN, when their band is not booked on some random night, they complain how there are no places to pay anymore. Well, YOU are giving your craft away. That's WHY there are no places to play.

The game has changed since my day. For the worse.

Last edited by eddie1261; 09/30/20 12:05 PM.