What does it take to be a musician?

  What does it take to be a musician today? I think fifteen years a go if you asked me that question, you would got completely different answer than today. Back then of course in my young naivety I thought I knew everything... No I know heck of a lot more, but still I would openly admit that I have so much more to learn. Back in the day it was all about the music, nothing else than the music mattered, and of course i knew how to best play it... Now I know that the music matters, and I need to practice every day more, but that is not enough at all. I have had to learn how to manage my own career. I have had to learn how to run an cottage industry. I have had to learn how to record albums, as the studio time was out of our budgets. I have had to learn how to design CD covers and how to prep them for printers, as graphic designers were well out of our budget. We had to learn how to organize tours, budgets, travel arrangements, advertising, design websites, social media, video editing, Poster design. We had to learn how to get by with only few hours sleep, several hours drive in a crammed car and at the end of it set up a sound system and do a show with a big smile on your face. And this is only scratching the surface. You need to have an attitude, where nothing is impossible, just sometimes something that no one has done before. I have also learned the hard way, that if you want something done your way, learn to do it your self. And always build a good team. What I have got to do with Sliotar in the past six years is not far from a miracle, but a miracle that took us lot of hard work. And by this hard work I mean the kind of hard work where you spend every waking minute on something for weeks. Something that every one told you could not be done, but you just kept going. I know there are those old stereo types of sex, drugs and rock and roll, where musicians all just party all the time. But maybe next time you see something like this, you might consider the possibility that the musician might just had weeks worth of work culminate in to one night, and I think it would be only fare to let them blow off some steam. There was a time in my young days, when I wanted to concentrate only on music...Ahh those were the days... Little did I know about the learning curve I had a head of me:-D. So as you can see, if you just want to play music, I would recommend you do it as a hobby, but if you are willing to spend most of your waking hours thinking about every little detail and aspect of your career and you are not shy to work extremely hard year after year, being an independent musician can be one of the most rewarding jobs out there:-)
 So today Sliotars hard work once gain is bearing fruit in form of Sliotars fifth album Fine Friends:-) Here is a sneak preview for you: Tinkering on the bridge by Sliotar
 For more info go check out www.sliotarmusic.com
It is miles apart from what I do with JPKALLIO.COM, but that's what makes both bands so interesting for me.
   Talk to you next week:-) J.P.

On a shoestring project part 44

  The rain is beating its subtle drum beat on my window while I write this. It's always a bit of a dull after show like the Whelan's. But this time I hardly had time to sit down. But that's the way I like it anyway:-) Here is a video from the Whelan's concert.


  Now we got an extra gig next week in Sweeney's. It is the Juke box slot night and it is the basement venue. Also our good friends who we used to share rehearsal room with, the Casement ghosts are playing with us:-) We are really exited about this one. For those who don't know them, Casement Ghosts are a Punk rock band . I have been helping them out recording a demo in the past few months and I must say, they have some kicking songs, be sure not to miss them. Also on the night there will be Ivan St.Leger, Tom White and WillBury, who we are looking forward to hear on the night. Come along, the show starts around 8pm and it is free in:-)

  And the week after that on the 14th we are back in the Pint, but we'll talk more about that next week:-)

  So let me talk a little bit about attitude towards modern technology in music. What I mean here is particularly in the punk rock, metal and all us distorted guitar and pounding drum loving rockers. We embraced the Myspace when it first came along, then it was a must to be there! Now it is gone... waste of time, one of the worst sounding music players out there and why did they change it in to a pop up? Anyway at the time it was powerful tool, and helped loads of bands to get around. Then came the facebook and twitter... Yeah they might not be the coolest things in the world and we love to give out about them, but for a musician they are tools. Use them! We got our first bit of negative feedback few weeks ago when I was emailing radio stations, but to be honest with you this was more entertaining to me than anything else. In the email I send to the stations I tell them bit about us, send them a link to our music and in one part I explain how we embrace the DIY ethos. I have set up automated signature in my Email (You should do this as well! Check out WiseStamp), there is links to our website, facebook, twitter, youtube and myspace. The reply I got went in the lines of this: “DIY Punk on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube! When are you gonna sell out at Wal-Mart?” Well... you can't please everyone can you? So, lets go back to the world of making cassettes with our boom box, sharing them with our friends, few posters around the town before our gigs. Rocking it out and being so anti-establishment on Friday night, but back to nine to five on Monday morning. Now don't get me wrong, nothing wrong with nine to five, or having bit of fun on Friday, but criticizing bands for trying to get the word out there? Oh yeah, and the radio station in question has facebook, twitter and youtube pages;-). For musician social media is a tool, a means to connect with your audience and build a following.

  But in general, as you might know the response from radio stations around the world has been unreal! As I said so many times before, most of these people are music fans and like to help out new bands, so one negative mail against over 30 positive? I can live with that:-)

  Here's something light from the imagination of our drummer Sebastian:-)

  Now, the rain has changed to sunny blue sky:-) Better go out and enjoy it, we don't get much of it here in Ireland:-) Back for more next week.

J.P.