James Moore's Blog, page 82

So Yeah – There Is A Music Industry Illuminati

So I’ll be honest with you. There IS a sort of music Illuminati. It’s a little nebulously defined, but you’re going to have to realize, if you want to get anywhere in this industry that there definitely are powers that be that you don’t know about and who don’t especially want you to know about them, simply because they can do their jobs more easily that way. This manifests itself differently in different sectors of the music industry of course (I think, for example, we are collectively starting to realize that the same handful of people write all of our hit songs) but oftentimes it can get a little more epic in scale, and perhaps even a bit more malicious.

As I write this article I am preparing to go to Hellfest where I will attend one of the most significant meetings for this ‘music illuminati’ (At least in the metal world) It’s certainly meant as a fairly clandestine thing (I was told to not bring anyone with me) but I wouldn’t go so far as to call it especially nefarious. For obvious reasons I can’t tell you the day or location, but it’s certainly happening. I will see old friends and hug a bunch of people and ask what they’ve been up to. We aren’t going to be plotting who we will destroy or who should make it big in the next year or two and who should get signed to what label. Except that we totally are – it’s just not as openly capitalistic and evil as I just made it sound.

The thing is – there are a ton of people trying to make it big in this industry, so it makes sense that after a while we are going to find ourselves in something of a circle jerk. As much as you might want to help out the little guy, it’s incredibly rare that the little guy is actually competent and worthy of making decisions that actually matter in the music industry. The few people who actually can do stuff are of course going to be friends – and we are going to talk to each other and talk about which people are actually of merit and who we should be looking at working with as we move forward. It’s simply a way to create a more streamlined music industry experience and it’s going to end up helping out the collective in the long run. We don’t have time muck about with amateurs, we want to consult with each other and help to make sure that the bands who truly matter are the ones who get to go out and make it in this topsy turvy world of ours.

Of course now you might be wondering, “How do I get invited into this musical Illuminati?” and the answer is: you don’t. You have to just keep working, showing your worth and not expecting one of these people who can actually make shit happen to reach out and pull you in. If you are lucky you will be able to charm someone and become a part of the club. If not – well then – you are going to need to re-evaluate your place in the world of music. That being said – I have never met anyone who has seriously worked at this for years who hasn’t been able to get pulled ino some of these discussions, even if they aren’t given any direct power. Everyone I know in the music Illuminati (Though admittedly I am not super high up) got there because of the work that they have done and who they know – if an idiot like me can get there, then eventually you too.

Don’t get all vindictive about this Illuminati either. Quite honestly, they probably have your best interests as a fan at heart. Why? Because they are fans too. Or at least they were. Yet people like you, being annoyed that they couldn’t be decision makers ruin it for everyone because it means an Illuminati has to exist. The music industry – as DIY as it can be – really relies on people who get shit done. If the Illuminati folks brought everyone into the fold not nearly as much would happen and we would all be suffering from it – as fans. It’s simply come up that this is the most efficient way to handle life in the music industry, and I don’t see that changing any time in the near future.

In fact – given the power of the internet I think the industry will probably end up more stratified. With more amateurish labels and scams being crafted every day those who have power become ever more secretive. They don’t want their information being leaked and they don’t want to have to deal with the perennial frustrations that these newbies will vent on them. Instead they make a point of driving forward with a grimace and reminding themselves that no matter what the struggle, they are doing this because they love it.

When I go to this fancy barbecue next weekend me and my buddies will probably joke about this article. But deep down we all know it to be true. WE have created a very exclusive club for ourselves and we are using it as a way to drive forward not just our own interests but (ideally) the interests of the collective. WE are fighting for something that our modern economy is basically trying to destroy, and it’s not a question of having the mos troops, but the best. Sure someone will try to crash the party to ‘network’ but that’s because they don’t get it. It’s not about networking, it’s about building a better tomorrow for musicians – and this might be the only way to do it.

Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.

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Kesha Is Zen: One Metalheads Journey To Peace Through A Pop Goddess

There is a certain zen to Kesha. I mean yes, she’s my favorite pop musician of the last twenty years and many a late night drive has been fueled by her party hearty sound, but that doesn’t make her any less of a Buddha. After hundreds of listens of her albums, EP’s and various deep cuts though I’ve started to realize that maybe there is something more to why I love Kesha. I mean, she’s clearly got a whole lot more than other pop princesses. I’ve crossed paths with extreme music fanatics across the globe who sing her praises and remember her as ‘something different’. Now as I prepare to buy tickets to see her perform this summer I look back at my love affair with Kesha and try to analyze why I fell for her in the first place.

See, I wasn’t always a Kesha fan. In fact, there was a time at the peak of her popularity where I absolutely hated Kesha. I simply couldn’t take her message at the time. I mean I was a lame 14 year old, but still, I utterly rejected all that she had to offer. That being said, when I consider the type of people she appealed to in that period I don’t especially regret that I spent late middle school and early high school listening to Darkthrone rather than obsessing over a woman who so many billed as a mere pop princess. The fundamental issue with any pop musician is that people are shitty and if you’re a serious fan of music in general you’ll have a hard time accepting the music when you have to deal with godawful fans.

She won me back over when reading about the frankly terrifying rape case going on around her right now. I decided to listen to Tik Tok, the hit single that made her a queen of American radio and I was immediately won over. This was not the pop princess I had been sold. In fact, Kesha is far more of a punk rocker than anyone truly gave her credit for. Her songs aren’t about wild nights at the club, they are about drinking yourself into oblivion and then forgetting the consequences. Kesha is not a woman who does things by half measures or who merely falls in love for a night while twerking on some dude, she is a veritable goddess.

I think the lasting appeal of Kesha is that she knows what she wants and is not afraid to get it. She couches this in a very heavy metal iconography (Just look at the pentagrams and cult symbols in the video for “Die Young”) and a sense of Herculean struggle. Every night is destined to be the best night ever, every party the craziest yet, and the faith that the next night will be even better is rock solid. Her desires remain fairly straightforward though – hell she even outlines them for us in a song titled “Boots & Boys” She also has an obsession with gold Trans Ams but she has a song about that too. Rather than the nebulous search for ‘true love’ or ‘the perfect life’ Kesha is a fast taker. Sure she periodically cuts someone at the knees for betraying her, but that’s what happens when you run with a wild child.

That doesn’t get to her zen though. Her zen is best seen in the songs about partying, or even in the ones about hangovers and the aftermath, like Back In Wonderland. We see that for Kesha, life is all about living in the moment and though we face our struggles we can always fix them with a dose of Jack Daniels and a hot guy. Sure one day the party will end (As Back In Wonderland shows us) but for now all that matters is the beautiful life. I know that might sound weird coming from a dude who writes so much about death metal and planning ahead, but sometimes you need Kesha to tell you to get your head out of your ass and just enjoy the moment and forget the consequences that tomorrow might bring.

It might sound overtly pretentious and super silly to be referring to the woman who sang “VIP” as a Zen master – but the more I look into it the more I find it to be true. The only thing that seems to truly bother Kesha is betrayal, and she has a solution for that. In her own words, “Some shit is about to go down.” Maybe she is too attached to her emotions at times, but so is every boddhisatva, she’s merely doing her best. The fact that she can spend so much of her time reveling in  Dionysian displays of luxury while confident of her place in the world makes her a far more enlightened human than I.

See, Kesha has singlehandedly been able to encourage a change in my psyche. While I still can be really anal and stressed out a lot of the time, she has taught me that sometimes you just need to go out and splurge on a Trans Am. She has taught me that I need to embrace living in the moment and sometimes saying ‘fuck it’ and traveling to Vegas for a long weekend is just something you need to do to preserve your sanity. Kesha teaches us that nothing is permanent so we might as well embrace the madness of the day to day. I don’t know if she’s a Buddhist, but I certainly think that she might ave a thing or two in common with the Whirling Dervishes of legend.

Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.

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Dealing With Post Tour Depression

Post tour depression is a really interesting thing. After three weeks of the stress on tour you find yourself longing for it again after a few days for some stupid reason. Even though weeks turned into years on the road and you thought you were going to die you can’t wait until you get to go out again for no other reason than that tour still seems simpler than regular life. As much as you might hate the late nights and early mornings at least tour means that you don’t have to deal with all the usual torments that makes life in this industry such a nightmare for so many. Touring is a different sort of torture and it can be easy to lose track of it.

As a band manager I charge the industry standard of 10% of the gross. This means that every day when we tally the previous nights earnings I know exactly what I made. When I come back to my day to day life consulting for bands and writing my income becomes a lot less quantifiable, but a lot less unstable. While I certainly make more per hour when I’m at home, being on the road provides a certain comfort. There is the knowledge that I am currently in the process of making money and unless I get physically sent home I can pretty much guarantee that I am going to end up getting paid. It’s weirdly reassuring and it means tat you only really need to be focusing on touring rather than all of the madness that comes in day to day music industry life.

That being said tour is not always fun, I have a ton of articles about that. I’m not trying to say that tour is fun, merely that it is a lot more straightforward. And when you are stressed out with the day to day bullshit of having a music industry office job then sometimes you long for the road. Hell, the time zone issues alone have me going to bed way later than usual, and considering some early morning meetings I have coming up this is going to be less than ideal. Sure I’m getting enough sleep and am not locked in a van with a bunch of sweaty dudes, but at the same time, my life is infinitely more complicated when not on the road.

Maybe it’s a Stockholm Syndrome type thing. I still haven’t ruled that theory out. Alternatively the road could just be that much better than real life, but I somehow doubt that. I think ultimately the reason that we get post tour depression is that even after years on the road there is a certain romance to touring. Every night there are new people, old friends, and attractive girls. Then you go home and it’s like “Oh, well uh, what else do I have to dig?” It’s hard to sink back into normal life because you find yourself no longer driving forward like a machine. Again – you get exhausted and it sucks, but it’s the mechanical drive that is going to keep you fresh faced and excited for the new challenges that this industry will launch at you when on the road.

Meanwhile on the home front it’s just people constantly flaking on you and the knowledge that no matter how hard you work you are still going to have to deal with people screwing you over. On tour you can move on to the next thing, after all the next day you will be a few hundred miles away. One asshole doesn’t necessarily have super long term consequences. At home you have to fix issues over the long term. The road provides a certain freedom, it forces you to embrace the impermanence of the human condition and reminds us why we do this in the first place. It’s easy to get bogged down at home, we need to circle back to that vital freedom.

I’m having a hard day, perhaps that’s why I felt compelled to write this article, but I genuinely believe it’s so much more than that. Musicians across the globe have complained about post tour depression. It’s hard to go from something exciting and vicious back into the fairly bland ether that is normal life. It has its place to be sure, regular nights of sleep and no travel is good for the psyche but man the road sure is fun. Now I have to spend a week sober and make sure I didn’t accidentally break myself on tour, but that’s fine, because ultimately the wounds that I bear are the wounds of love, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

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The Moment That Tour Broke Matt

Editors Note: Going back to this article I realize that this was about the moment touring broke my spirit. Enjoy.

You’re not going to get as much work done on tour as you thought you would. That’s just a brutal reality. As we close down on this tour, with a mere 33 hours to go, I find myself embracing some important closing thoughts. I mean, half completed closing thoughts. The fact of the matter is that any thought I have right now is barely coherent and swamped under days of malnutrition and lack of sleep. I guess on the plus side that means I’ve lost weight. On the downside it means I’m going to be choked out by the devastating knowledge that the second I wake up on Sunday morning I’m going to have to put my nose to the grindstone and play some serious catchup. In other words the true costs of touring come not just during the tour, but also after.

On Sunday morning I am going to wake up, grab a beer and then get to work. I know day drinking isn’t ideal but, hey, it was supposed to be my day off – I have to celebrate it somehow! I’ve already sorted out dozens of meetings that will be taking place in the next week, and this is nothing compared to the mountain of paperwork I’m probably going to have to plow through as we register everything that happened on this tour. This tour taught me once again why the manager and tour manager tend to be two separate people. Managers tend to have way too much on their plates – they can’t take all the time that touring requires.

The issue with touring is that when you are tour managing you end up taking way more time than you expected to take care of the band. This sometimes happens because bands are basically children. It’s part of the perpetual struggle of being an industry professional. You are relying on people who are traditionally on drugs and depressed. Artistic types basically use that as an excuse to be flaky and annoying. That’s why so many bands end up falling through, bands just don’t know how to be responsible or smart. Thus, your tour manager is going to end up super stressed out, because he’s trying to balance two separate worlds.

It’s this war between the worlds that makes the tour managing job so difficult. It’s the having to fit a strict schedule with people who will dawdle and waste time when you’re exhausted. One day maybe I will get to tour manage a band who like to be on time, but as for now it’s going to be a challenge, and so I’m no going to be able to get as much work done as I would like. I’m not trying to bitch about this, I was expecting it going in, it just feels like far too often we grind away to help people who aren’t going to appreciate all that you have done for them. But again, that’s just the tour managers lot in life, perpetual pain.

What this stress teaches you is that Kesha was right – all that matters is the beautiful life. You have to learn on tour that even if you are supposed to be the responsible one you need to live in the moment. No matter how long a drive or how late you are to a show there is at least something you can dig, be it a Def Leppard song on the radio or a really good local beer. The best days of tour aren’t necessarily the ones with the shortest drives, the most girls or the best wifi, but rather the ones where you are most tapped into the tripped out zen of touring. That magical moment where you sit down, vibe out, and let go of the traditional stress brought by this lifestyle.

Cultures of opposition,serious physical trauma, general stinkiness… these are all things that touring can curse you with. I am way to tired for any of this crap, and yet I keep doing it. I’m genuinely unsure why too. Everything about me is sticky, and the money, while okay, is not great. The weirdest part is that I know that I will be out doing this again in September and I’m kind of looking forward to it. The beautiful life is what we are all here for. It’s a circus and no one wants to go home and it’s up to you to stay on board this crazy train.

Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.

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Boredom And The Psychology Of Tour

One of the thing that people don’t tell you about tour is the crippling fucking boredom. I mean, I know that everyone says tour can be boring and that’s part of what makes it so hard, but guess what, take however hard you thought it was and quadruple it and add a healthy dose of bad smells and self hatred. Now you’ve started to get a sense for the pain. Even if you pack a ton of things to do and are good at sleeping in a car at the end of a three week run you are going to need even more entertainment, believe you me. Humans were not built to spend as much time driving up and own the East Coast as I have, and after a certain point the bland sameness and punishing hours in the car leave you a slave to boredom of a sort you thought previously impossible.

Going into this tour I thought I was set. I brought like six or seven books, my laptop, my phone and a willingness to nap. As it turns out, those entertainment options get a little bit stale after twenty straight hours in the car. Car chargers are great to be sure, but there is only so much that I can write in a given day before I go insane. On a similar note, I also can only read for so long before it starts to really get to me. You really need wifi to do most of the work you want to do and being stuck in the same spot for hours can punish you. You can only do so much on your phone – especially when you have a limited data like I do. As it turns out, when you are tour managing you also don’t have a huge amount of time at the venue to dick around on your computer and get shit done, so you find yourself starting to drown under just so goddamn many hours in the car you guys.

So how do you deal with it? Well one member of Tengger has worked out a little area in the back of the van where he can play his chanzy (A traditional folk instrument) and a few others just use their unlimited data plans to read stuff on the internet. Naps too are a big one. The hard part is that after a point being cramped in a tiny vehicle your body starts to break. Your body hits a demented wall, there is no actual way forward that is comfortable because you can’t help but to be tired, bruised and broken. Yet it’s the boredom that’s starting to slowly grate at my sanity and make me question why I’m alive in the first place.

It’s funny how it’s the things you don’t expect which kill you on tour. (The cramps are another thing that have started to punish us, especially as we drive through Atlanta with four more hours to go in this frikking drive) I rarely get bored at home so I figured it would be the same on the road. I thought since I’m so good at keeping myself occupied when I’m by myself (And not just through intense masturbation) I should have no issue when the van with five other people to talk too. Boy was I wrong. Not that any of those things aren’t great, but after a while you just want to stay in and chill out. After all – boredom is a psychological torment on tour that is on par with any physical one that gets worse with the lack of sleep.

Perhaps the greatest addition to the boredom comes from the fun that is traffic jams. We are currently in one by Atlanta and it brings me back to that old question, why does anyone even bother to go on tour? Boredom sets in and you feel your brain starting to rot, I guess the simple goal is not to break down crying, but even that can be a little hard. I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone (Myself included) has had their own private (Or not so private) moment of weakness. In all honesty I kind of doubt that it’s the lack of sleep really punishing people (Though that is certainly a factor) and more the boredom that is killing us.

In other words – that’s going to be your biggest struggle when on tour. It’s going to be the thing that makes you want to die and wonder why you signed on to this in the first place. Especially when you don’t listen to your manager an turn a ten hour drive into a twelve hour one. This entire thing is painful and tiring, and while we certainly all are working towards changing it we need to embrace the pain and realize that it’s this that makes tour tour just as much as any crazy stories that eventually might arise on those beautiful drunken nights.

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Weezer make another album called Weezer

Somehow with each new album Weezer get more formulaic, but twice as weird. Their tenth album, self titled and deemed The White Album, is no different.

If their self-titled debut, The Blue Album, was the classic and its follow-up, Pinkerton, was the deep fan favorite, then their third, also self-titled, The Green Album, would be the perfect blueprint with which to continue. Weezer have made basically that album every couple of years with some curve balls thrown here and there. There’s no rating these albums after the first three. They’re just all forever tied at fourth place, indistinguishable from one another.

Now, The White Album isn’t a bad album. It’s ten more Weezer songs by Weezer. It’s a situation where using the bland, descriptionless term “good” actually applies. A for effort. Nice job. Good work. We’re proud of Weezer. We admire Rivers. We’re just happy they’re still going. Weezer always get their gold stars. But, it probably won’t often call to be heard in the middle of the night. Red, blue, white, green. For Weezer, it hardly matters what color it is anymore.

Cuomo, guitarist Brian Bell, bassist Scott Shriner and drummer Patrick Wilson stand on the beach for the light whites and greys album cover. The White Album is definitely Weezer’s feel good California dreamin’ album. Something that might kick off a drive to the beach. It fades in and fades out with the sounds of waves cresting, seagulls in the sky and children playing. The sunshine peaks with first song, “California Kids.” Cuomo sings about the aftermath of moving West. “All your own friends / Chilling back in Boston / You never forgot them,” he sings. It’s a jumpy tune unmistakably Weezer complete with background ooh-wa-oohs and one of the best on the album.

The two strongest tracks are the first two singles. On “Thank God For Girls” Cuomo’s teenage nervousness rises to absurd, sweaty heights. It opens on a chilling organ with punchy piano, an instrument featured much more than usual throughout. The song’s chorus falls down with a three-man harmony like the Beach Boys locked in a garage with no AC. Cuomo sounds manic, running out of breath, spewing lyrics about cannolis and the battle between Adam and God over a rib that leaves Adam a lonely dweller of the world. It really hurts, but in that weird Weezer way you just can’t put your fat finger on.

The other great song is “Do You Wanna Get High?” a late-night drug tale. It’s Weezer slow-chugging classically with deep syrupy guitars. Cuomo asks the title of the song over and over like he’s leaning, leaning and about to fall on your carpet. “Don’t need no dinner tonight / I took a trip to Mexico / And scored a hundred count,” he reassures everyone.

The other songs are fine songs, but somewhere past 50 on the all-time great of Weezer’s catalogue. “(Girl We Got A) Good Thing” and “King Of The World” are super duper tunes. They’ll make you wanna walk in the sunshine kicking your foot out in front with each step. Cuomo moans for a beachbum babe over a constant guitar crush on “L.A. Girlz.” He belts out the lyrics so hard that it lacks all feeling. That strained frog-in-the-throat vocal he hits gets more and more unnerving. Then on the piano laden “Jacked Up” Cuomo’s falsetto hits the chandelier. He works within his own range, I’ll give him that. Keep fighting for rock and roll, Rivers.

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Talking To Your Booking Agent: A Guide For Indie Bands

So I’m going to preface this by saying I’m extremely grateful to our booking agent, they have done wonders for us that we never could have pulled off on our own You’ve got to honor them and admire all that they have managed to put together in a very brief period of time. That being said – there is quite bit I wish I knew going into this, lessons that come from working with a booking agent are often learned the hard way, not because the agency is bad but rather you need to figure out what is going to work for your sanity. While you almost need a booking agent to get anywhere in this day and age, you still need to be aware that even as they push you, you should be willing to push back.

Remember that your booker is mostly trying to follow the money, and oftentimes they aren’t hard touring musicians themselves. They might not fully process what a ten hour drive can mean for the morale of your band. Especially on the tail end of an already brual tour. This is perhaps the most important aspect of working with your booker. You need to make it abundantly clear that you have limits as a human, and putting a ten hour drive on your second to last day of tour is probably going to kill you. I mean maybe it won’t, some of the more experienced touring bands can pull that kind of stuff off, or have drivers who are able to take care of them. But the odds are, if its just you and your band in a 15 passenger then you are going to want to reduce the amount of van time you’ve got to the bare minimum.

Another thing that you need to be really pressuring your booker for is hip venues. I mean obviously you can’t tell what the cool venues are in every town, and not every venue you want is going to be open on the night you want. However, you should, as much as you can, research the venues that you have holds on. Some places just aren’t cool. Others are in a weird part of town that is geographically isolated from hipper neighborhoods. If you have local friends be sure to get their opinions too. Not every night will be a home run, but twisting arms just a little bit should see you working your way into progressively cooler and more sympathetic venues, venues that know how to take care of bands and who maybe, just maybe have that legendary built in audience helping to boost your merch sales.

This is only scratching the surface though. Your band is well… yours and your problems will be your own, unique and brutal. That’s part of what makes the booking agents job so hard, there are no typical bands, most people have all manner of weird requests. While it might be helpful to be as flexible as possible you also need to remember that it’s your safety being called into question, not the booking agents. You need to periodically be willing to stand up, not for tiny anal things, but for things that matter and which could have a direct impact on the future of your band and how you find yourself progressing in the years to come. You should never find yourself risking life and limb just to play a crappy show in a C market town.

Of course addressing these things with your booker can be a slightly tricky process. Obviously they are already under a lot of stress and a fair amount of it probably stems from your band, even if you are doing your best to work with the booker. This is one of those times where not being anal most of the time will cut you some slack when you need to be anal for a few things. The booking agent should be aware of what you are willing and unwilling to do. This isn’t always going to be apparent, it’s the fine art of human negotiation that you will constantly be struggling with in this industry. When it does work out you find yourself enjoying decent guarantees and getting sent out with a smile on your face time an time again.

As in all things in music, this is a collaborative effort. You are dealing with some of the most powerful people in the industry, simply because they are so few and far between. However, the odds are you’re not going to be their most difficult client, especially if you try to be polite and respectful and show your eternal gratitude for the very special thing that they were able to put together for you. Balancing your needs is important, and I would emphasize prioritizing those that deal with safety. It’s easier to get people to work with you if you approach things from that perspective too. Ads things continue to get better you will find yourself ever deeper in the industry and more capable than ever of working with your agent to get something triumphant going.

Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.

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Sanity And The Tour Manager

I’ve posted a few times in this blog about the status of my tour with Tengger Cavalry. I figured now as we enter the home stretch I owed you beautiful people an update. I’m currently schlepping across the desert to get into Austin, to give you some context, we just exited Orange County. Things are… while not bleak perhaps, certainly getting there. (Editors note: The drive ended up taking 26 hours) We are well rested though, we had a lot of time to chill out in Los Angeles and had some beautiful times on the beach, and best of all managed to get out of each others hair before we have the real nightmare begin on what promises to be a frankly epic journey across the country. We will be kissing the beautiful waters of the Atlantic in a mere 123 hours. We need to start preparing ourselves for all that will entail.

Journeying across the country in just a few days, really only as merch guy and tour manager feels distinctly different from doing it as a musician. If you’re a musician at least there is some sense of accomplishment ever night and you can hide in your green room. Being the merch guy and tour manager means that you need to face a nine hour commute on six hours of sleep and then work a full shift at a retail job, followed by negotiations for thousands of dollars. That’s not really something that sane people can do, and people wonder why the road has traditionally been a den of depravity. This whole experience has made me wonder who really has the hardest job in the tour bus on the day to day.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to devalue what the band has done, they are killing it, getting along with each other nicely, handling long drives without complaining and generally kicking ass across the country. In fact, one of my favorite parts of this tour has been watching them get progressively better with every day we spend on the road. It makes me truly excited to see what these guys can do as they continue to evolve. After all, once this tour is over they have another five or six weeks of touring lined up for the rest of the year. They are only going to get better from here. That’s simply how it works when you are transitioning to be a full time touring band striving to take over the globe. It’s a hard life, but one hat after a little while starts to make sense.

Despite all this rambling, I still haven’t given you a proper update on the tour. I don’t want to reveal too many numbers or anything, but I will say that things are going significantly better than I anticipated and it looks like we are all going to be making money. The band might have set their expectations a little too high, but that’s what bands do. They are almost required to set their expectations too high. As a whole, things have been moving along nicely, trucking across the country for ten hours a day is a weird way to see it but it gives you a truly unique perception of the world. Running around on a schedule seems like it would be stressful, and in many ways it is, but still – you’ve got to embrace the beauty of it, otherwise I guarantee you will go insane.

I feel like sanity has come up a lot in this particular essay – and it should. Touring is all about preserving your sanity and remaining someone who the rest of your band can stay in a van with, no matter how long you need to drive forward for. In many ways touring is more of a personal test than anything else. Obviously the interband relationships and friendliness between members is something you need to work on but it’s the personal struggle of touring, the individual fatigue and the need to help maintain morale that really is going to get you moving towards something sustainable and productive for years and years to come.

So yeah, now it’s our time to get stuck in traffic in the middle of the desert and wonder who the hell is trying to get anywhere on these godforsaken highways. I never thought I would truly understand Shakespeare’s image of the blasted heath, but now that I look onto these mountains that just seem so brutal and forgotten it suddenly all makes sense. Traveling the country and checking out the different states has been fun thus far, and now with 122 hours left on the road, it’s easy to see why people are willing to power through, despite the pain and isolation.

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Touring The West: What You Need To Know

Ah the West. That beautiful land where thousands migrated over the generations, and still do in the hopes of a better tomorrow. There’s been a lot that I’ve learned now on the most brutal part of our tour (I blame crappy routing) but now that we are in the West the good friends we meet and make in this land of milk and honey are worth the punishing drives. I always forget that the West coast is geographically one of the most beautiful parts of the world and the inhabitants know it. It’s easy to get lost in the beauty out here, but its of course the people of this blessed land who you want to find out about and learn how to market your tours to.

The first thing to realize about folks on the West Coast is that they are chilled out. Chilled out to the point that it will drive Easterners crazy. I remember sitting in the bank the other day while the woman at the till spent twenty minutes counting our money. The prevailing attitude here seems to be ‘We’ll get to it when we get to it’ and if you try to pressure them, they will snap back at you. While on the one hand this can be reassuring in stressful situations, it’s also more than a little frustrating when people just don’t feel the need to get back to you, or seem to think that showing up an hour late to something is no big deal. The few times I’ve had serious issues with West Coast people shit got weird fast. You need to be ready for this mental and emotional break. It makes me wonder if maybe there’s a little something more to this California air then we were initially told about!

On the plus side is the fact that the people here tend to be significantly more affluent than in other parts of the country. Where in the Midwest I met people who sold blood plasma to go to the show, the West Coast generally has a lot more cash to hand and that can significantly boost merchandise sales. I know some bands who actually will mark prices up on their West Coast because the purchasing power is so much higher. I’m not sure if I would go out and do that, but I can certainly understand why a band might be a little more comfortable charging $15 rather than $10 a record, especially if the tour is West Coast only. Taking advantage of this affluence through increased merch sales and oftentimes higher guarantees is a key aspect to progress touring the West Coast.

Of course this affluence is a double edged sword. Gas tends to be a little higher here (Except in Oregon, God bless Oregon) and food generally costs a fair bit more (I’m looking at you 10$ burrito). As for hotels, you can pretty much forget it, it’s brutal. These are things that make the touring out here quite a bit more difficult. I mean, the costs aren’t prohibitively higher, but you definitely need to be aware of this difficulty when tackling the west. The higher prices are going to have to be a core element of your planning. Sure rich folks might dump an extra $200 at your merch table, but if that extra money is just going straight into your gas tank then you need to question if it’s truly worth it.

The final point I’d like to raise about these Golden West coast highways is that by Thor are they LONG. I know that if you want to hit secondary markets and stuff you can probably shorten the drives to four or five hours between stops, but typically you are looking at least a few ten hour rides. This can be fine because bonding with your bandmates is fun and enlightening, but still, it’s brutal. The added problem of actually GETTING to the West (With Tengger Cavalry we had a day off to move from Denver to Seattle which was… not fun) doesn’t make things any easier. You will find yourself going in exhausted into one of the hardest parts of the touring experience. I know that tour is supposed to be about long drives and short nights, but still, be safe guys!

At the end of the day, the West is an amazing place to tour. People will just give out with you and there doesn’t seem to be too much pressure to force anything brutal. That being said, folks come out here to ‘make it’ and you need to be ready for that kind of ethos when you start touring. It can seem that everyone, especially in Southern California, is only in it for themselves. A higher level of professionalism and dedication can be required, and diving into the West can at least initially be daunting. Still, as I drive along here and take in these stunning vistas its suddenly worth the lack of sleep and crushing despair, we are here for the fight, and the West brings on a wonderful challenge.

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Improvise, Improvise, Improvise: The Music Industry In A Nutshell

Improvisation is the word of the day. Actually, it’s been the word of the day for the past ten or eleven days that I’ve been on tour, and it seems like it will only become a more important word as I continue down that gorgeous Golden Highway down the West Coast. Improvisation while tired. Improvisation while drunk. Improvisation while dealing with a girl who doesn’t seem to want to detach herself from your lips. These are all things that you are going to have to deal with on the road. So what is a man to do? Tour managing is one of the most mentally challenging things that I have ever done, and my aility to improvise has been crucial.

That’s why touring bands tend to be made up of very chilled out dudes. The successful ones, and the ones who have a good time on the road are the ones who are willing to just kind of feel it out and take it as it comes, see where the wind takes them and move from there. They know to follow their schedule and that then everything should be okay. The people who don’t know how to improvise and aren’t really willing to deviate from their schedule are going to have a really hard time with this whole thing. Being anal is important, but when things get rough, you need to be ready to change. It’s rare to find true balance, and on any given day I might err on either side of this spectrum, as will most other people, you just need to keep on keeping on.

Of course – if you are the improviser of the group you shouldn’t let people take advantage of you. When people see that you are flexible they are going to take advantage of that and try to show up places late known that you are going to be willing to try and work around it. This balance is crucial and incredibly difficult to deal with. No one wants to have to be the compromiser, and yet if you are someone of importance in this industry then you are inevitably going to have to step up to the plate at some point and be that guy. No one truly appreciates this craft and few people are going to try and help you with the challenges this task provides. As it has always been, part of the day to day struggle of the industry is dealing with the egos of rock stars and the business oriented side of the industry.

People are always going to be difficult, especially with the little sleep, sore hineys and short fuses that tour life tends to foster. If you’re a musician on you it’s the being kind to your stressed out tour manager and taking care of your bandmates that matters. When you’re exhausted and act bitter to people you’re going to hurt yourself in the long run. You need to realize that when on tour stuff happens, and a lot of times you won’t be making quite as much money as you would like. Odds are that that stuff is due to musicians being incompetent children. Guess what – no one is making enough money anyway. The willingness to improvise comes out under stress, but it proves the enduring importance that these kinds of things will always have.

There’s a reason regularly touring musicians tend to be really smart people. Every night they are dealing with a separate set of issues unless they have an amazing tour manager. Hopefully you can cut your teeth working shows and playing shows of your own before going on tour – trust me it will help. The more experience you have with underground music the more you will find yourself capable of dealing with the day to day struggles of road life. I feel like that is exactly why I have so quickly come to enjoy this lifestyle, despite how stressful and boring it can be. After all – what else are we trying to do but to save the world?

So keep on keeping on. Expect the worst and be happy when that doesn’t happen, that’s how I live my life. One step at a time, stressed to tears and terrified of pretty much everything. Guess what, it’s only rock and roll and it doesn’t matter. We are just dust in the wind, staying together and finding our freedom through he good times and the bad, in love with the bloody brutal energy of an industry that harvests our passions and oftentimes only spits out misery. I know that sounds melodramatic or whatever but screw it, we have no other choice but to carry on and see this bitch through until the end.

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