To get better at playing live you need to play live.

Part 81



    I am sitting home and waiting for UPC service guy, while writing this. I have had a forced break from all the promotion work for the past few days, due to loss of internet connection. As a result I managed to fix my bicycle, that has been on my to do list for a long while and instead of working all hours of the night I actually caught up on some well needed sleep:-). In a way good timing, as I have one of the busiest weeks of Sliotar's calendar ahead of me. St Patrick's day gives us all an excuse to have a party and no one does it quite like Dublin. Sliotar will be holding court in the Porterhouse in Temple bar, we call it a Sliotarpalooza. We'll be there Thursday 15^th 6-10pm, Friday 16th 6-10pm, Saturday 17^th 6.30-1am and on Sunday from 4-11pm. Of course on top of this JPKALLIO.COM is rehearsing intensively, getting ready for our first stint of concerts in 2012, photo shoots and all the other promotion. So busy to say the least:-)

    Many musician friends of mine after hearing about Sliotars schedule have said with a sigh “oh I wish I could do that”. So I thought to shed a bit of light on few so called secrets (only people who don't know this, or refuse to believe it call it a secret) and home truths, while I already feel sorry for my fingers;-). I am fully aware of how lucky I am to be playing in Sliotar and get to play live as much as I do, to travel all around Europe playing some amazing gigs and also some not so amazing... But here are the details of the so called “secret” recipe of how Sliotar got there. I would say the number one key to the bands success and longevity is our residency in the Porterhouse, this has given us an opportunity to play live every week for the past 16 years, out of which 12 I have been there. This has made three musicians in to seasoned pros when it comes to performing live. People often ask me if I get nervous before a concert With Sliotar? No I don't. Sometimes if there is lot of hanging around I get anxious, but not nervous. I have gotten on to stage in front of nearly 3000 people or played on live TV and as long as that unit is around me, I am right at home as we have done it literally thousands of times. And I am not saying this here as to boast, I am trying to explain that to get to the point where you can step on front of any audience without having to deal with nerves, you just need to do it a lot. And with Sliotar we did, we took any gig we could to get the name out and to play to new audience. We still do this on tours if we are in a new territory. And still today my best bit of advice to any band is to play live as much and as often as possible. When no one knows you, it is not a time to pretend you're a rock star and to think you are better than this or that gig. And unless you have done those 100 or so pub gigs where you got comfortable playing with each others live, you are not ready for that big festival stage. Everybody wants to skip this and just get to do those big gigs, but it is a learning curve and there is a big reason why you need to do it. Big festival stages are where the cracks show, so make sure you fix them first before you get up there. Personally I think the sign of a great musician is when you can get on a stage, have a crap sound, everything that can, will go wrong, but you still deliver a killer concert. You need to learn that your personal needs and comforts are not important to the audience. Once the show starts, you just get on with it no matter what happens. We have had everything gone wrong with Sliotar over the years and when it does it makes for a tough gig! But you get on with it. We have had problems with power in some areas of Eastern Europe where the power supply just wasn't steady enough and kept knocking out our front of the house speakers, we have had paraffin sprayed all over our instruments by the guys doing a fire shows before us (there was no one coming near us with a cigarette that day), we have had every imaginable situation go wrong with the drums, kick pedals falling to pieces, cheap rental kits hardware collapsing, Des having to wedge drums against each others and taping everything together, but still doing a kicking show, we have had broken tooth, foot, ribs, ligaments, torn muscles, squashed knuckles, blood... lots of blood, food poisoning, serious chest infections, high fever, nervous breakdowns, electrocution... And still, the show always went on. Sixteen years a go if you would have thrown one of these things at us, we probably would have freaked out and the gig would gone down the drain, but now we just get on with it. And that level of confidence in your self and in your fellow band members only comes from playing lots of live shows. So play at any given opportunity anywhere!

    As to JPKALLIO.COM, we are still quite new band. But surely my and the other guys past experience should make it a breeze to get to the same level of confidence? No! We still need to get used to playing live together as a unit, we need to get used to covering each others backs when everything goes down south, we need to get past our individual needs and start thinking as a unit, that's what bands are made of. This is why we set our selves the 100 concert challenge in the first place:-)

   So there you go, sorry for once again running away with my rant, but hey... Now for a few bits of quick updates. Well as I mentioned in the beginning of this post, Sliotar will be celebrating 2012 Paddy's day in the Porterhouse here in Dublin from 15^th to the 18^th of March. Also this week good friends of ours and a brilliant band Mike Got Spiked are playing an album launch show in the Industry (downstairs in the Mezz) on the 15^th of March. These guys are brilliant! Check out their new video





    JPKALLIO.COM has a busy April planned as well:-) here is the gig list so far: 4^th April Sweeney's, 13^th April Adelaid bar, Sligo, 19^th April Submarine Bar, Crumlin, 20^th April Slaughtered Lamb in Swords. More on the way;-)

    So that's a lot to digest for this week, hope to see you over the weekend and back here next week. Happy St Patrick's day every one!

   J.P.

Dreaming to play festivals?

  Spring is in the air, even though it can't really decide weather to rain or shine. But that's Ireland for you. When the summer gets closer, musicians start to dream about summer festivals. For many musicians playing live is the goal and to get to play a festival in front of hundreds, if not even thousands of people is the ultimate dream. This is also why so many festival organizers get swamped with emails, demos, press packs, EPK's etc. We all get so exited about the idea that we just push our stuff down their throats. Do we ever think what the powers that be, the artistic directors of the festivals actually want? Sure there are some festivals that have very specific application process and if they do, great. Follow this to every little detail. The best way to get them to ignore you is to send in a half filled application. Now here's the thing, I have actually played lot of festivals in the folk scene over the years with Sliotar and other bands I have been involved in. I have got to know some of these festival organizers. And I know how they work. Now this would not go for every festival, obviously. But some of the basics are the same. I won't be sharing the details of these festivals, as I would upset lot of people who have been very good to me over the years:-), but all of the festivals can be easily searched on google.

  But lets just say, one particular festival, who's promoter has booked some of the biggest international acts in the past and in his later years came back to his roots by starting a folk festival. I had a chat with him after Sliotars set on this particular festival, and I was asking how they select their bands. And here is the bad news for all of us sending hundreds emails every year... This particular festival only books bands through recommendations from people who they trust. Even if you send them the fanciest press pack in the world, it makes no difference, and believe you me, they get truck full of press packs every year. How did we get in to the festival? A DJ who works at the festival was touring with us six months earlier. He watched us concert after concert, and only at the very end of the tour did he mention the festival and said he would would recommend us. His word was all it took. Now we have played at the festival twice, and last time we had two concerts on both days of the festival, which is very rare at this festival:-)

  Another festival that Sliotar has worked with for years, the promoter does try to listen to every demo he gets. If he happens to like particular act, he will check out videos on YouTube and he would expect to find several. Or if he happen to hear a band live, which was the case with Sliotar. Even then, you work with their conditions. If you start the negotiations by demanding sky and the moon, he will just laugh out loud. You see these are festivals that offer you a guaranteed crowd, and a big one! So there are lot's of bands competing for the places.

  Also there are one of the biggest folk festivals in Europe, who have three people working full time for them, traveling and scouting out new bands... Now that would be a nice job:-)

  The music conferences are also a big place to get discovered, but they take lot of work to get in to. Usually you need to fill in an application forms which include, among other things your gig list for the following year... How many of us work a year ahead in our bookings? And music conferences are not payed gigs, you cover your own costs, flights, accommodation etc. But you need to think this as an investment for the future.
I am not trying to discourage you from trying to get to play festivals, but for the love of god don't make it your number one priority. I think if you contact all the festivals you'd like to get to play, and ask for their submission policy. Many of them wont get back to you, but some will. And when they do, provide them what they ask. And then move on. Concentrate on doing smaller shows and lots of them, this is what most of those bands on the festival bill have done for years before got where they are now. At the end of the day, festivals book bands that will bring in the audience, can your band do that?

  J.P.

A&R and Festivals, oh yeah and Merry Christmas

http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=2365

   Last week I went on bit about how music business is more about hard work than luck. I thought I'd look little bit more in to this as there are lot of us out there dreaming about the big break. First let’s look at the record company "thing" and how it has evolved in the past, let’s say ten years. I still get blown away how bands and musicians still believe everything works the same it did twenty years ago. So let’s look in to few major changes in the business that so many people seem to be in denial about.

   I mentioned the word A&R quite few times last week. A&R stands for Artist and Repertoir. It is a department in a record label. Depending on a size of the label, it could be just one person, even the only guy in the label, or it could be a team of people working for a major label. They are responsible of finding new acts and back in the day helping the artist to grow in to something that the record label would be interested in signing. There has been times when these people have changed music, but most of the time and I'd say 99% of the time, they have played it safe and in return actually made record companies loose money in the long run. Good example is the end of the Disco era. Every record company was signing as many disco acts as possible and throwing out albums. As a result the general public got tired and the retail stores send back millions of records. Well, we all know any of these commercial booms in music don't really have any longevity. Some of them came from underground, and have returned there and have their own loyal following. For example metal, punk, ska, rockabilly etc. They never went a way; they just dropped out of the limelight. But then there are those manufactured genres, teen pop, boy bands and what have you, that didn't have enough substance to start with, that hey will just fade away. All you might get from them is reminiscent revivals that just smell like money making machines, but then again, that’s what they were to start of with.

   The big twist here is that now that we have the internet, Facebook, twitter, YouTube and all the hundreds of other sites, hard working artist can build a name for them selves. It's not easy, but then again it never was. As a result record companies are luckier than ever before, even though they'd like to say other wise, they can pick acts that have already build following, sometimes international, they have worked on their music and played it live extensively. This is good news for the artist and the record company, but not for the A&R guys, as their job has become, well... unnecessary... This leads me to the point I am trying to make here once again: if you expect a record company to pick you up, guide you by the hand and pay for the ride, it is not going to happen!

   The other point that I have come across are the festivals. It is like that magical idea of a concert that you get to do in front of a big crowd and it will go down in history... OK I'll give you this: I have played with Sliotar somewhere near enough of 100 festival concerts all around Europe in the past 10 years or so. Some of my best musical moments have been on those festival stages. But it took us lot of work and shitty pub gigs to get to play those festivals. And I have talked to a promoter I know through Sliotar, who works with big acts and we were talking about festivals. We all would love to go and play festivals abroad, wouldn't we? Well here is the thing. Between flights, hiring a driver, putting the band up even in cheap accommodation, food, equipment rental etc, and your band is going to cost the festival about €2000. Is your bands name on the festival program going to sell €2000 worth tickets? Heck, if you could do that in your home town I'd be impressed. But isn’t the festival organisers supposed to take risks and introduce the audience some up and coming bands? Well here is some news for you, most festivals in 2012 are trying their hardest not to loose money! The overhead of running a festival are huge. In Ireland it is actually probably even harder due to massive public liability insurances.

   So what are we left with in this modern music business? Well I'll tell you, an opportunity like never before. If you know your music is good enough, get it recorded, bring out EP, full album or what ever you prefer and make videos for them, be inventive, and show some of your personal creativity, play gigs, lots of them. I still believe the best thing any band can have is an addictive live show that news about it will spread like wild fire. If for one year you pack up clubs full of people who can't get enough of you, I'd be pretty sure you will have a festival organisers looking to talk to you :-). Just don't forget, the word "Business" is there for a reason, you might be playing music for a bit of fun, but most people in the business take it very seriously.

   Now, it is that time again, holidays are upon us. I'd like to wish you all on behalf of JPKALLIO.COM happy holidays. I'll be back next week, so the wishes for New Year can still wait :-) Have good one every one, hope you get some time to rest and stuff your self with some good food.

   J.P.