Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Reality check

Blog 53

  So the second year, here we go! I'm just back from a short break on the north coast of Poland. I had a week of sunshine, beach, sipping cold beer and making funny faces to a four month old baby. So as I am sure you can imagine, I am pretty relaxed at the moment. But I knew I had a big work load waiting for me here in Dublin, which I was actually looking forward to, but I do miss the sunshine...

  Our birthday bash is getting closer, Friday week, to be exact and if you want a sneak preview whats coming up, The 9thlife who will be playing on the night, are playing in the Pint this Thursday. You should check them out!
We are really looking forward to the show as JPKALLIO.COM has had a bit of a break from the live shows. We have few more dates booked for the rest of the year, but I am playing this bit safe as Qra has few hospital visits next month and until we know that his back is ok, we'll concentrate on rehearsing songs for the album. I am the type of person who rather does things than over analyze them and wonder if I should or should not do something, so holding back can be tough for me, but I'll still rather be safe than sorry. Making sure Qras health is OK and he can play any shows in the future is our priority number 1 right now.

  But as I mentioned this before, we do have some tough decisions ahead of us about the recording of our first Album. These are the same problems most bands face. Will we record the album with our own equipment, or in a studio? If we decide to go for the studio, I know for sure that the album will take much longer to finish, just because of the finance, or lack of it. In the other hand I can understand that especially Sebastian is worried about the drum sound on the album. This is something that many bands fail to get right in their rehearsal demos, but still with little bit of knowledge(and microphones, leads and stands combined with your usual recording set up) it can be done. But by recording the album by our selves, it would give us more freedom, time and room for experimenting. In a studio it is always a race with time... But I would like to hear your thoughts on this, as we will be sharing the process here with you guys. Would you like us to record in Studio and share with you what goes on in there, or would you like us to record the album by our self and go through the process step by step?

  This actually brings in mind another subject. Money! This is something that has some sort of effect on all of our lives, weather we want it or not. But lets just look at this for a second from a musicians point of view. I'm sure most of you think Money should not get in the way of music, but it does play big part on things. The very least in my mind what band needs to do to exist is to play music and to do this you need a rehearsal space. I would say the usual going rate at the moment in Dublin is €50 per session (usually four to five hours). If you want to take your band seriously, you want to be rehearsing minimum twice a week. So do the maths, it does add up pretty fast. Then you have all the equipment you need, even the basics. If you want to record some of your tracks that you spent endless hours rehearsing, studio don't come cheap. When you get your demo out, and get some concerts, you do need to get to the venue with all your equipment, another cost. I am not trying to scare any one here, but you do need to be realistic about all this. If you play in a band that plays original music (not just covers), you do need to accept that it is an expensive hobbies, which will take lot of your time and only has an microscopic chance to lead to career. Once again let me tell you, I am not trying to scare you, but I've come across so many websites selling you the short cut and telling you how you can do this. If this is so, why only so few of the thousands of bands out there “make it”? Well, persistence and hard work definitely do come in to the game. Most bands fail because they give up.Life gets on the way, work, family... and yes, money... But if you really do love playing music, let me ask you one question: what would you rather spend your little extra cash that is left after paying your bills? So what I guess I am trying to say here is if you rather spend your money on your music than for example holidays in the sun, nights out in the town, new car (even second hand) etc, you might just be on the right track;-)
J.P.





Glory to the World - Single - J.P. Kallio

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