Mentoring, Mixers, and Me

What's two weeks between friends?

I should start out by apologizing to all whom I promised this blog post two weeks ago. I've had trouble with writing it, and also have been busy with other things (mostly in a good way, as you'll see). So, I'm sorry.

Back on January 13th, I met with Matthew Wettergreen at Caroline Collective to be the first person to participate in the new Music Mentoring Program, sponsored by Dan Workman/SugarHill Studios and W. Ross Wells/Zenfilm. Thanks guys! That's initially all this blog post was supposed to be about.

I must admit, the session wasn't exactly what I was hoping for. I guess I was looking for… magic. If you've been reading this blog, you'll know that my goal is to be a songwriter and musician. One of the things I'm currently trying to determine is how to do that and live the lifestyle to which I have become accustomed. Lori works a "square job," and ideally, those are the primary hours I'd work too. I was hoping there were some angles or ideas I was missing in order to get my songs out there that I had not thought of.

The session brought me back down to earth, perhaps rather hard. The reality is that there are some things I'm just going to have to do to get myself and my music out there. After spending the first half of the session giving Matthew some background on myself and what my goals are, that is what we discussed, what I need to do to get to the next stage.

He talked about me working in parallel with the band to promote myself and my songwriting. He thinks I should get the band to play out once a month, sell merchandise, and thus make some money to make a record. The record would give me another tool to present my material, and performing it live would give us the chance to tighten up the material and see what works.

He also felt that I should finish the song I started for Beth Black and just present it to her. I forgot to tell him that I also have another song I'm cowriting with my sister and need to finish that as well. Those are things on my to do list that I haven't gotten to, and as he pointed out, I need to get at least those people to know my songs and give me feedback, etc.

Lastly, he said I should get out to some other blues shows and meet the people there, present myself as a keyboard player and songwriter so they know of me and my songs.

I knew right away at a certain level that he was right about this, though some of these things were things I was either avoiding or not bothering to do for whatever reason.

So How Am I Doing?

Pretty good, akshly.

The Sunday after I did the mentoring session, we went to the Snake Charmers' CD release party at Bohemeo's. I met a bunch of people and networked with them. I also played at the jam at the end and got compliments on that from some of the same people. In fact, one guy, BIll Nelson, said he really likes our stuff. I talked to him more yesterday, and he expressed interest in doing gigs with us, with one of us opening for the other. He's also interested in producing us. He said he "gets ideas" listening to our music. Stylistically, we have a lot in common. I was impressed with him before I knew he knew who I was.

The Tuesday after that (one week after the mentoring session), we went to the Houston Music Makers Mixer. I met a ton of people there and talked about what I do. In fact, I met so many, it was kind of overwhelming. I ended up creating a document just to keep track of all these people. One guy was interested in me playing with his band and we are talking about that. Another owns a studio where several local blues acts such as Mighty Orq, Tony Vega, and Alan Haynes have recorded. He also has a band and we talked a little about me playing with them, as well as touring his studio which I hope to do soon. When the woman from Houston Live Music To-Go found out ours was a blues band, she said, "please sign up because we're always looking for blues bands." I'm leaving out a bunch of other people that we met but hope to keep in touch with.

Not long after the mentoring session, we were asked to play the Twestival on February 12 with several other bands. So Blue Funk is getting ready for that show. We are also in discussions with a couple of venues to play in March and later. The band is discussing the possibility of going into the studio to record sooner rather than later. Since there is "square job" money for most of us, we could each invest our share into the sessions in order to get that done, and then try to recoup that later. It seems to me that the investment into recordings will give us better material to present to venues and a vehicle for my songs (as well as Jeff's if he has aspirations beyond just us performing them). Lori pointed out to me last night we ought to do a band partnership agreement with all of this.

So out of several to-dos from the session, it seems like a few got completed by falling into my lap. I'll take that. 😉 Am I bit overwhelmed by all that's going on? Absolutely. Am I excited by the possibilities? Definitely. Do I realize that I sound like Donald Rumsfield two years after he left office? Sure I do. I've realized in all this that I just have to take each thing as it comes. It is easy to be overwhelmed and not know what to do next. But, I just have to do whatever thing and keep moving.

There are a lot of other things I want to get done that I'm struggling to squeeze in, like improve my technique, learn more styles of music, learn how to use tools like Logic so I can make demos and write songs and create sheet music that I can present to people, but I suppose I'll just have to make time for those things. As the French say, such is life. But the French say a lot of things.

Posted 2009 01 27 at 12:48 PM

Site design and hosting graciously provided by termite terrace studios.