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My reason for basic income

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(Found this strange gem…

written 3 years back before I had done any real research and was just looking at it as a supplement for everyone with no other concepts or arguments. It was also before I came up against much in the way of counter arguments. Later I wrote this blog when I became a little more knowledgeable on the subject…

https://tompogson.com/2020/08/20/a-creative-professionals-take-on-universal-basic-income

I now run the Basic Income Victoria BC multiple accounts at basicbc.wordpress.com)

Here’s the older original…

———————————————————-

I know I’m not alone. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if many readers have great reasons of their own.

I can’t physically work more than I do. Presently I have arthritis and certainly cannot take time off for the surgery and weeks of recovery it would cost. And I’m Canadian. I know this flies in the face of our “health care is magic” but I can promise you it’s not roses in every case here.

Here in Victoria we have a lack of doctors run off their feet. They no longer, for instance, do full physical check ups as they are considered “a waste of time”. In order to avoid any problems the only thing you feel you can do is improve your diet and exercise.

Now add that to the aforementioned low income, and inability to work more due to arthritis. If you exercise you push against the arthritis that makes what work you do even more painful and if you work more the same so you have to take what little money you have to actually pay for better food which costs more.

This is why there is the modern phenomenon of poor people being obese. It used to be rich=fat. Now it’s poor=fat. Rich people can do a paleo or southbeach diet. We can’t.

When you are poor you are eating to feel full. This is starches and low quality food. Food costs are up across the board as well as gas. Again with the interconnection.

This is the part that actually makes me crazy. That I actually studied Sociology in university that in the first term explains how “income dictates health”.

How can poor people pull themselves up by the bootstraps (a sarcastic physical impossibility, meant to be simply condescension) if their situation is built to fail. It’s 2019. We can do better and we do know how.

It’s the basic income model. I just got paid Friday, paid bills and now on Wednesday I have 2$. A supplement to this would not stop me working. It would have me work more efficiently, more effectively and for longer. I’m typing this into a crap phone on a city bus but I have seen and read cases on how when this program has been tested in not only didn’t make “everything worse” but it actually cleared up problems across the board. Medical centers, for instance, notice a significant drop in visits because people’s lives became healthier.

Reason I say my story is because, even though it is specific to me I know I’m not alone. I’ve heard through the cracks in media’s paint.

Most of us are not doing better than we were ten years ago.

If someone told me they were going to make things “great again” I will admit, my hope would be raised too. This isn’t going “that way” now but it’s connected. It all is. When things are impossibly hard in a way that cancels happiness and threatens your existence you grab for any rung. You can blame me or anyone else that “didn’t make it” but that also is logically flawed. We can’t all be the head of the company. The architects just didn’t make the executive washrooms that big.

Also many of us have a “side hustle”. We worry we’ll miss out. Only stands to reason you would be on your phone so much. It doesn’t stem from anger. It stems from trying to make it “great again” yourself. It’s true no matter how you politically alighn yourself. All of us fish see the same nets being used. And it’s freaking the gills out of us.

Please have a look at the different basic income accounts out there on social media and check out what they’ve been saying.

It may be early days for this still grassroots idea, but we got to start somewhere.

There is other gains as well that can occur from Basic Standard Income as well.

Firstly we can kick off we a general feeling of brother love and togetherness in a way that actually matters, and not as an abstract concept.

Secondly the boom in the arts and humanities cannot be overstated. It is at our peril that we discount these parts of our culture as some would do. They are our culture. They are were we step into our higher selves and think beyond the immediate. Examples range from Beethoven to Beckett, from the Charter of Rights to the inscription on the Statute of Liberty.

Supporting these is our “Why?” much as supporting infrastructure is our “How?”. If you can’t stop to think you can’t do it better than before.

This is about not just raising up some of us, this is about all of us. This creates hope and from this joy. Your need to stop violence across the world to within communities and families could reduce too.

This is about humanity’s purest potential.

To quote Jeff Goldblum in the movie Powder “Maybe one day our humanity will overtake our technology”

Cheers,

Tom

Thank you for reading! Please follow me and feel free to surf around my blog! 🌅

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A creative professional’s take on Universal Basic Income

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Among the first political advocates for the Basic Income idea were conservatives.

I have been listening and reading as much as possible about this idea and the weirdest of wierd facts is the number of non-leftist types that are behind it. I mean, Andrew Yang blasted it into public consciousness with his one thousand dollars a month promise, but it was certainly around prior to that!

It was during the Nixon administration that the idea was first tabled (after the second bill of rights anyways). I mean, Nixon!

Milton Friedman, the guy behind the “no free lunch” wanted a work fair idea for workers that would endure working class people never slipped below the poverty line.

The first point to make is that this idea has actually been around in one form or another since Utopia by Thomas More in 1516 and then Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man in 1791. And now our former Conservative Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney has advocated for it. It’s been backed by tech giants like Elon Musk, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey as well as activists like Noam Chomsky and Robert Reich.

I’m not as great at coming up with financial details to combat the frequently asked questions like “hey, I don’t want to turn into a member of the former Soviet Union!” I can promise you that neither do I, but I’ve never been great at the intricacies of tax and the economy so I have to defer to someone like Scott Santens who works on this stuff full time, has a blog on Stitcher called The Scott Santens UBI Enterprise and has a FAQ on the front page of his website at http://www.scottsantens.com

You can also check out some deep dive podcasts on NPR (which I completely appreciate leans left, though not always) Anyways…

Is Universal Basic Income too Utopian to Work?

Universal Basic Income – Why and How?

These are just from a search but there is lots more, with a growing bi-partisan advocacy.

The “why now?” couldn’t be more clear. We have had a blast from how things can change suddenly. Just like the potential effect of automation, robotic or just in terms of how our civilization advances, we have experienced how the financial rug can be suddenly pulled out from under you.

For myself this happened ten years back, with continued changes similar to Covid. I remember a manager at the McDonald’s that I worked at, the same one where I was once taken into the office to go over my 100% Medical, Dental and Life Insurance, saying “well, you’ll get your 40” referring to the 40 hours a week that of course every full time employee gets.

This wasn’t generations ago; this was the mid-nineties. This was back before I had the twin kick of stomach issues, hearing loss and arthritis that threaten to shut down my ability to do any non creative job at all.

One of the buildings I clean now is a side contract, but it used to be my main one at 10 hours a night. Now it’s about an hour and twenty, full of empty, cobwebbed vacancies. One of the main offices in that building will be going on the 28th so I have asked my employer if there’s anything else out there because that location will end up being less than a half hour a day. Back in those nineties you could not be brought in for anything less than three hours.

So I think it’s fairly clear, especially now after Covid, that things are not like they were in the 80s.

I don’t believe that UBI would reduce incentive to work because we are no longer generalists like we were. Imagine an interviewer asking you now “why do you want to work here?” and you just saying “Oh I applied everywhere, I just need a job!”

Yeah, you’d be out the door quick.

UBI would give everyone the keys to the drivers seat of their own lives. It gives everyone the ability to say “I love this…I want to work here!” or to refuse work that is exploitative. Money is essentially value and it would give a sense of value and belonging. You get this when you do a busking set. No, it’s not “all about money” but when you make that first twoonie ($2 coin here in Canada) you feel better. You dont feel like a shlub. You feel like your life is right and you are appreciated. Financial lack creates stress, anger and division. It says that you are competing with everyone around you. This is further compounded by the bragging you see on social media of all kinds, even if it’s not meant to be.

Aren’t we supposed to do the things we want to do as if money wasn’t an object?

For myself I think it’s clear that I would want to work on music, but I absolutely want to take it beyond that. I want to study creativity on a deeper level in my leisure time and report back to everyone here. I want to take what I’m singing about to the next level. At present I have from essentially nine am to about one in the afternoon in which to incorporate everything. I am a cleaner so I have tried making use of YouTube premium and podcasts to learn while I’m working, but of course that’s not the same thing.

“You can’t do the job if you don’t have the equipment” – Paul Ironhorse, War of the Worlds

I have been a full time artist before (I still play professionally, but was also making money full time as a pitch writer through Canada Media Fund) and I can tell you that without even a second’s thought that artists have more than enough actual work to do to take up the classic eight hour day. In a previous blog I talked about Bjorn Ulvaeus of ABBA who spoke of being “an eight hour guy.” I need to put at least two hours a day into my principal instrument bass (that’s being generous) and then at least an hour into keyboards, guitar, drums and voice. So were at six and I haven’t even touched composition of any kind, which is not unusual these days. Then there’s promotion, research/reading, exercise to make it so you can at least get on stage as an older performer. So were at nine hours approximately.

I work every day. I have a wall calendar where each day has a blue dot for when I’ve practiced and that includes Christmas. This is because I am made to feel that unless I’m taking it to the next level I have financially no chance.

I am absolutely certain that I am not alone. I do believe this is the thing behind many of the crazy Instagram posts where people attempt to go viral. I might be another “dime a dozen musician” but if i am then i certainly not alone.

I like what one lady said on Twitter about UBI…that has only been echoed by not just Scott Santens but this article on the possibility of a creative and cultural renaissance…

https://www.mic.com/articles/125420/basic-income-studies-higher-minimum-wage-and-living-wage-creative-renaissance

Presently Canadians are being harrassed by fraud that tries to make use of the idea that they are in trouble with Service Canada which is undoubtedly about the Cerb benefit and how they are “in trouble for doing it wrong.”

What if we all got that money? All of us. Regardless of reason.

Wouldn’t there ability to make people scared drop through the floor. Most crime comes from fear.

“Constant fear of scarcity, aggression as its child” Sting

There’s the fact that income dictates health, and that health dictates income in a circle which you learn about in the first term and first year of sociology 100 at the University of Victoria.

If everyone is protected from the “Wolves at the door” that Roland Orzabel refers to on his Tomcats Screaming Outside album (a reference to his Tears for Fears successes keeping him in good financial stead) then people in poverty are not just more easily preyed upon but they dont feel the need to desperately take some kind of action. This is one I know about only too well. Like I mentioned in my song Precipice from my album The Goldblacks (of which I also blogged about previously) if feels like your life is on Niagara River floating past Goat Island towards the brink. In a state like that people will of course do anything.

Hell, they’ll even write a blog about it.

Thank you for reading. If your interested in this please share this blog or any other media you find the most compelling with your network.

Cheers,

Tom Pogson

If you are interested here are the links for Canada based petitions…

https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/petition/details?Petition=e-2821

http://www.leahgazan.ca
(If you are interested in the Guaranteed Livable Income version)

http://www.ubiworks.ca

Working with Headphones

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“To can or not to can THAT is the real question!” Hamlet

Sure, we use headphones to record but the question arises if you should just always use them?

The sound in the headphones is so focused and if you get good ones then they are really great for one of the most important things a musician does…transcription.

Transcription is basically learning a song by ear. Now here they are really good because you are not competing with local background noises and you are right inside of the engineer’s mix as it were.

I am practicing, writing and recording in a apartment as well, so for me they are great as I dont live alone and sometimes I want to work early or late. Cor songwriting they can be quite good in that kind of environment because you are literally creating within your own little world.

I use a Zoom L12 mixer and multitrack which is pretty intuitive and I did record my first cd on it. I’d say it’s only two weaknesses are that the effect you chose for that song is the only onboarding affect you get. You should vary effects per instrument preferably so I also use a few other exterior pedals and keyboards often have their own onboard as well.

There is, of course, different recording software out there like Protools and Reason but I presently dont have the money or time to invest in them. I do want to but it will sadly have to be later.

Where headphones fall a little I think is for the organic feeling of creativity and for rehearsing for a show. Especially for guitarists (and bassists like myself) you want to get closer to the feeling of not using them and the amp is part of your sounds creation. The headphones give you a sense of security that is going to be lost when you hop stage. I have found that as you go from headphones to not to rehearsal to gig to recording studio the stress naturally rises with the highest at a live recording. So for these you want to practice as close as you can get and leave the headphones for more coming up with ideas or study.

Getting ready for a show on this Friday out in Langford, British Columbia so my practice quickly popped through the other instruments before staying on bass. And yeah I did the exact same thing, standing…using a mic…no headphones…everything to recreate the same environment. You dont have to stand too but I find it does just for going over your set, give you that same angle that changes when seated.

So have a look online for what is good and within your price range. I use Audio Technica M40s which have a great sound and durability.

Thanks for reading!

Cheers,

Tom

Not a weekend warrior I swear! 😜

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Cookeilidh the Celtic Band : Me, Woody Wilson, Kim and David Cook

I know! Day three and I’m already out lol! Still here, I swear!

Spend extra time today gearing up for this show on Sunday and then a show next weekend at the new water tower in the Western Communities here in Greater Victoria. Been very lucky to have a situation where we can do these socially distanced reduced audience shows this summer so I want to make sure I do good work.

One thing I found was how working on drumming has had me focused more rhythmically on my playing. Seems silly but I swear it’s like different musical things have you focusing on different things. When I started playing bass it was like I was a pointer spaniel every time I heard the bass in the song do something.

If you are over hear definitely come out. If not follow our Facebook, our Instagram or head to our main site at cookeilidh.com which has lots of links, clips, photos and more!

Thank you for stopping by!

Hoping to write tomorrow even it’s short like this one!

Cheers,

Tom Pogson 😊

Starting Songwriting Somewhere

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Just DO IT! – Shia LaBeouf

We all start somewhere. And we are all not that great when we do. I started actually really late. I have had songs on the radio a few times which got me Socan membership here in Canada but I certainly didn’t start at 8. Not real songs anyways…

My first instrument was bass which is still to this day my strongest instrument and the thing I get hired for the most. I presently play in the celtic band Cookeilidh which I’ve been in (when I wrote this anyways) as of about 2006. Nobody is actually sure. We started so gradually and went through a few changes so nobody really knows exactly.

Anyways who’d write it down? Wierd…

Songwriting always seemed like lead guitar to me, something that was like “super talented genius” types only. But being a bass player I think slowly introduced me to how it actually was pretty reachable. And oh yeah, at first everything was pretty clunky and simple. That one on the top was one of my earlier, but that was one of the good ones. I think the first one was called Passages and it was described once as a “Car on square wheels”. Not really complimentary. I did have one song called Take Me Higher though which is now on my first album that I wrote back then in about 96 and it worked. My production of it wasn’t amazing but it was my nineties open stage winner at the time. How did I write it? It was lyrics first, it was guitar chords that seemed to work in church and other than that it was so simple and basic I though it obviously wasn’t any good.

Lots of songwriters I’ve played bass for are like that by the way. Everyone discredits their best songs because I think of how easily it comes out.

Playing guitar for came from a bass teacher who said I should use a chord instrument of some kind and my mom had this discarded classical guitar so I learned all the basic chords from a book. The church thing came when my first thing of playing bass for them switched when the guitarist left and i was thrust in front of the congregation. They were forgiving (hehe) but it got me to learn the basic open chords and basic fingerstyle fast.

The main thing is to just start. The story of famous musicians who literally learned on the job is almost a cliche and as a bassist I can give you multiple accounts of proof that you are never to old to try. Songs are great fun and have the effect of being like a sound and words version of a diary like “where I was then.”

I have just tapes and tapes (autocorrect fought me on that. Yes, tapes!) of my music from back then. These days people are using more computer software to mix songs but I still use a Zoom L12 multitrack which is just the digital upgrade from how I used a four track tape recorder. You had to use the good tapes to get the full four tracks and you heard stuff backwards when you flipped it over which was wierd but fun.

Anyways I got to get ready for work and I’m totally pushing it. I’m going to see how these posts go. Thank you for reading!

Cheers!

Tom

Taking a break

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I’ve been working on my usual two primary fronts now for ages and I’m one of the few who the current situation didn’t effect as much.
My day job is as a cleaner and the contracts got reduced but more spread out so there’s no lack of leaving here.  I’d say the main thing I miss is coffee shops. 
Two of these posts were written in them at the very least and they have been great for escaping my environment here to consider options, challenge myself and more importantly, focus.
When I’m there I’m not as surrounded by the little details of things that beg and behoove my involvement.  My first television pilot Bass Line was written entirely at the Starbucks near the intersection of Gorge and Tillicum here in Victoria.  As it was a comedy and I was the most influenced by Ricky Gervais at the time I had this thing of leaving first thing in the morning (my then-girlfriend and her kids would be asleep in our bedroom and livingroom so turning a light on was not an option).   Going with my influence I would then put on the Office Theme, the original Rod Stewart version of Handbags and Gladrags, as I walked past all the morning commuters to where I would be working for the next few hours.  I had always used cafes as escapes but this cemented it as my office.  I did have an office  with my former cowriter as well and I genuinely miss that little spot we had in downtown Victoria.
Anyways today is the first day I’ve had off, due to the Victoria Day long weekend since this thing began.  I am doing final edits to the Quiet City novel which I’ve been working on slowly for a little under a year (though parts of research and the idea has been around since before Bass Line in 2013.  As I said on here how content creators should create content during this lockdown I have been trying to put out song a day on Instagram (tompogsonmusic).  I sometimes do them on Sundays but this is usually the dead day for that, though maybe that has changed as the idea of days has.  And without Cookeilidh I have been primarily focused on music study so I’ve been using some online sources to improve at keyboard and of course bass guitar.  There’s been some songwriting as it just happens organically but I’ve not wanted to push it as it’s so easy to make music about the most obvious subject.
I still maintain my belief that this whole thing is the natural world’s shot across our bow.  I think it’s more one part of a whole, which can be solved.  If we didn’t feel pressure to achieve, be number one, conquer seemingly everyone around us, whether a single soul, a corporation or a country maybe we wouldn’t be creating the pressure which has us pushing our luck.  We keep adding pressure until something breaks.  This doesnt work. 
Anyways, steering away from my politics I feel like creatively I’m finding my own threads musically and as a writer like finding what my groove is with more certainty and what sounds like me.  I’ve been listening back to my work and putting it into playlists and finding what has actually worked.  I mean I like everything from hard rock, industrial and electronic to Sibelius, Kurt Weill and Shubert but there is a sound that is my natural home.  Havent done as much livestreaming lately as my devices aren’t up for that but that’s fine.  I am curious to see how different things will be after all this is over. 
I dont know if I’ll put out an album soon as I have done Goldblacks (over in the Music section  click here for more on that ) and might put out just singles.  I wanted to do that album to prove to myself that I could, but its interesting as Depeche found their groove during the creation of A Broken Frame, and I think in some ways I did the same.  From it and beyond I know what works and what won’t. 
I also have my really out there vanity project called Song of Devotion which is script based onto the most controversial and dramatic part of the Depeche Mode story from 1993 to 1998 but that’s just when I’m between edits.  I like the creation process for screenwriting but I have had enough negativity in the production processes to stop a train so I’ll see how this goes.  If fully fleshed out I might bring it so someone but theres the question of who with something like that.  Due to its subject matter it could not be small budget so I would have to be connected to someone with serious firepower.  Not sure about that, but it is fun to work on anyways.
Fun is hard, which reverts right back to the political side again.  Artists shouldn’t feel like their activities are based on what has the most financial potential.  I should be able to suddenly start using watercolors without thinking I’m on the wrong course.  After the death of the legendary Florian Schneider of Kraftwerk I watch a documentary on that scene and the level of out of box thinking that led to them, Tangerine Dream and Krautrock and eventually synth-pop like DM was incredible.  This included a non musician artist who formed a band stating how he didn’t like melody as it “grows in your head like a worm”.  Some of these supposedly crazy things are how real change happens.  Instead of trying to catch up to what’s happening now, like singers tried to sound like Eddie Vedder in the nineties, your better off starting it from scratch on your own and finding your trail.”Go the other direction, your chances are better”
Anthony Robbins Cheers,
Tom

You are not a straight line.

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Aslan is not a tame lion.This one applies to the divine if you believe in that but you dont have to. I’m not wandering into that. Half because trying to influence a choice on people’s beliefs is pointless up to being thoroughly moot, and part because that’s not my focus.It’s on you.I’m a bassist. It was my first serious instrument to any extent and it’s the breadwinner instrument in most things that I do. It gets me in the door.But i also went to Uvic and switched from music to writing.Record scratch. What?That’s right, the music side of University of Victoria’s Fine Arts program wasn’t working for me, especially with how limited my position in it was, but with the encouragement of a literature professor…writing seemed interesting. I went from this to screenwriting and working in film for a while, all the while playing bass.Songwriting which I slowed at back when I was gearing up to play classical bass reamerged after my filmmaking time came to a close, especially with the International open stage of LiveMe, Instagram and so on.Still playing bass? Yep. Still writing. Well, I think that’s clear. So am I just getting this down between scales and arpeggios on my Fender? Nope.I’m doing something totally crazy I haven’t done in a while. I’m on a bus to hike Mount Quimper which is way out above the Sooke Potholes Park. Why? I saw an image and have wanted to do this for a while and I’m going to record a cover up there.Passing the Luxton Fairgrounds as we speak. I haven’t been out here since I was getting ready to cycle across Canada back in 1994. I hadn’t played bass yet.But you see, it’s ok if you haven’t got the plan yet or if you explore. This is what gives you a richness of life and soul.

Enjoy!

Little clip from the top…

The creative person you become made simple.

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I read a friend’s post that was a eulogy for a creative mentor and about the advice he was given. First thing I thought was what advice I would give.

You are the sum total of your daily focus since you started.

There, that’s the condensed soup version but I’ll expand, and keep it short as my time is limited too.

Practicing, working at it, “showing up to the page” or whatever you call it is how things move even incrementally from where you were to where you are. It is really easy to run yourself down, thinking anyone can do what you do, and other kinds of self taught. The truth is you are raising your own kid in your playing (writing, painting. I’ll stick to music from here on and just insert yourself into that as needed). You’re so close that you dont see how much you’ve grown since you’ve started.

The most important thing is for it to be daily, whatever it is. If you can do hours that’s amazing but even if its 30 min do it daily at the same time.

The reason for this is that you are building literally in the day before. I’ve been trying to push for more time with guitar and I’ve been working with chords I never had memorized before. That’s because I did them two days ago, and then yesterday, and then today. Saying I cant during the week but I’m going to go crazy on Saturday just isn’t the same.

Also, not only do we all compare ourselves to that other person, but we do it totally unfairly.

As a bassist, for instance, it is so easy for me to be jealous of guys that can slap and pop and tap crazy notes all over the place or look at a piano player doing a blues shuffle like out of a western until I realize…

I dont listen to that stuff to begin with!

So of course my practice doesn’t focus there. Now I can do some as we all need to do fundamentals or what’s needed, but all of this is about creating and enjoying.

Your joy is what you are harnessing. In songwriting I get that rush of following the conception of the idea and what comes out is a mash of usually what I like to begin with.

Even if you dont sound like the person who inspired you, fear not, their influence is in you now.

Now, in every sense of the word…

Play

Cheers,

Tom

🙂

Learning from Baby Elephants

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The age of the city zoo and the animal based circus is or perhaps even has finally drawn to a close. That is for the best, but that’s not my target here. I’m more interested in talking about learning and creativity.

They can teach us something very valuable here which I’ve recently ran into first hand.

And yes, in their little way these adorable youngsters and there gentle grownups have an interesting story to teach us.

Ok, it sadly involves the circus. Sorry about that, but best share the idea while we know of it.

When a baby elephant is outside of the big tent and waiting between travels, what the circus people would do is take a big stick and drive it into the ground. A rope would be securely fastened to this and the other to the elephant. The baby would not be able to pull it out and learn eventually that it had a certain space it could move, but that’s it. Eventually it stopped trying to strain on the rope.

What’s interesting here is that the Elephant’s training stayed that way. So in this way the animal fully believed that it could never escape the rope and stick, despite the obvious fact that this huge creature could now either just pull it easily or take one foot and crush it to twigs.

The metaphor is clear and I’ve certainly experienced it as a musician. I’ve come back to artists and songs that I had thought “nope, i could never come close to doing that” but I’ve not noticed my own growth.

The recent ones for me were those first artists I got into like Queen and Bruce Hornsby whose music just seemed to complex for me. I avoided them until recently when I actually found myself playing them.

I can now here what I couldn’t before. The same guy with the same instrument.

As a bassist I get this from watching (and I’m by no means suggesting I’m now his level) the video “Jaco Pastorius – Modern Electric Bass”. I’m still in awe, but when he goes over concepts I can hear what he’s saying with far more clarity. Even some of his more elaborate parts I’m hearing the idea behind it or how it works. It’s not just this ingenious blur.

I dont mean to toot my own horn, because you do it too. You’re doing it now. You’re reading a blog, when long ago you sat there mouthing an alphabet. We are all growing, in fact that is a requirement of life. We are so close to ourselves that we don’t notice. But outside of reading you more than likely have things in your life, which may be creative ones, that are in the same boat.

As person explained, I think it was Tony Robbins, imagine what you can reach is a circle, like perhaps range reached by a rope? But then something falls just outside that circle. You strain a little and reach it. Your rope just got longer now. Then another one happens, and another.

How do make this happen? Just keep going. Show up to the page and look for those things that challenge you.

You may be still trying to pull that stick from the ground, but dont worry. Just keep working at it. Your growth won’t be denied.

One day you’ll give this old circus a run for it’s money.

Have a great weekend!

Cheers,

Tom

🐘

Band Survival Guide

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So you’re finally going to do it! You’ve been playing and have decided to get in a group and the next step will be under the lights. The lights might be a cafe or a senior’s home or a friend’s living room but theres no need to be nervous.

Trust me, it’s all about having fun. I have been working in the same band for over 800 shows now so on my end I’ll try to get you started.

We’ll do it as a top ten, so here are my top ten suggestions to the applause.

Gear ready?

Now imagine you have some but when you’re just getting going you want something simple and reliable. Try everything you want to bring before a jam or gig and make sure theres no wierd noises. Bonus hint : No patch cords from pawn shops. Super cheap gear will always get you. If it’s super cheap you will not want to know why!

Oh Hungry? Hang on…

I got this from my mom who tried doing a gig after a dinner. Yeah, it was rough. You want to wait two and a half hours between your last meal and your gig and make the meal light but with decent protein. Classic peanut butter or almond butter is my favorite but then I dont have allergic so aim for light. You want to feel relaxed and light and able to sing fully.

Imbibe after.

This actually comes from working with some pro filmmakers. Especially if you are a bassist or drummer stick to beer and weed at the end of the show not before it. Especially with my last bit of advice which I also follow if someone gives me a beer I can actually make it last 2 hours. Melody players are better for this but for rhythm players you want to be ahead of the beat and not behind it.

It’s about time.

“Rhythm is the whole deal” Jaco Pastorius. This is something to bear in mind both playing but also about your musical life. Putting in time practicing at your most creative time (morning person versus a night owl). Being on time. For a small show my band will show up 30 min before and 60 minutes before a big event where you need to connect with people like the sound person. Early is fine as you can settle into it. Late ain’t fashionable.

Practice

Now we all to a degree know this but you should more importantly practice the bands material on your own between jam sessions. I use a Sony recorder which then loads into the computer so I can pull up any tune we’re doing and make sure I’ve got it down. Even if you’re great you need to be there for “shots” or hit the right chord on that one beat when the drummers kick comes down. One great player said it “if i dont practice for two days i know it. If i dont for four days my audience knows it.” Heres my harshest advice though…abandon ship if the rest of a group only practices at rehearsal. My band isn’t like this but ones in my early days sadly were. This doesn’t get better. You’re better off with people who take their craft seriously.

Attitude

Dont worry, this ones chill, which is the point. Bring a fun vibe to the game. Take it seriously on your end but be supportive and have a laugh. Your great attitude and the fun you’re having will rub off and they’ll feel it out there too.

As Billy Joel said “theres a job, there’s a gig here.” Some stuff you have to do in a band isn’t playing : setting up gear, hauling equipment to and from vehicles and stages, interacting with public, organizing things and even helping with things not in a musician’s role (like moving a table when you get to the venue, or setting up chairs). I remember seeing Martin Gore of Depeche Mode helping their opening act in set up with things like winding up cables. Egos stay outside. Many hands make a light load.

Marketing point I was told ages back…never talk the band down. I understand being self effacing but too much makes you sound like you really think it’s not worth their time. If people ask what’s happening dont ever say “Nothing…”. Instead tell them how you’re going into the studio soon…you got some new sounds you’re trying out, even if the studio is your friend’s living room and the sounds is a delay pedal-doesn’t matter. If you’re not into it why should they be, let alone pay for your art?

Stick with it. The greats ground through it too.

Speaking of Martin, lots of bands like Depeche Mode had absolutely terrible public debuts. ABBA’s first performance fell flat and Sting’s first review in a local paper said that “If the Police get a better singer they will be great!”

Just because it’s not perfect now doesn’t mean it won’t get better. I remember lots of well meaning people voicing shall we say concerns that it wasn’t working for me. That rarely happens now. I’m the same person but I’ve practiced, performed and kept showing up for years.

Creative 1 + 2

This is a classic which falls in sync with attitude. The basics here is that in the creative process you have :

Stage one.

– anything goes, bring every idea you have to the table.

Stage two

– take all the ideas and make them into a work.

For us it’s great to just apply this concept to rehearsal where there is lots of creativity happening. Try your weirdest ideas out and try what ideas are pitched from the others as well. Not just in playing but in how to run the project. There are so many things you can do that as one music business mentor said

If you run out of things to do, your doing it wrong

How you look

I’m not good at this, but fortunately others in the band are, which helps. Take how you look seriously in terms of what you are presenting to the world. While the sound should speak for itself you want to look like you are meant to be there. Look into things like basic design or color theory, or have someone you trust go with you on what looks right for what your doing.

How you look 2

Easy one I got from a friend and it’s a simple lady one, but try to look up. An old saying is never turn your back on the audience which is sometimes true, but try to find parts where you dont have to shift position on your instrument and look out there. I sometimes look above them or sort of dont focus on one specific person, but you will find what works for you. It also helps with posture which helps with both resisting injury but also for vocals. Not only that but like with attitude, it sends a strong signal.

Well that’s it, and like I say this is more a loose guide but I hope it helps.

If this did help and you go huge, send me tickets for the west coast Canadian leg of the tour.

Cheers,

Tom