Feeling unmotivated?

Part 92

  I am back in Dublin after Sliotar's first tour of the year. I love touring, but as much I love coming home.

We had our first rehearsal with JPKALLIO.COM in few weeks yesterday and it was good to be playing again. The contrast between going from the Sliotar world to JPKALLIO.COM is quite big, to say the least. But that's what makes it fun for me:-). Now we are playing a concert in the Sweeneys basement this Friday, so come along.

  I was reminded of something during the week by a good friend of mine. In the past playing in all the bands that I have, I noticed that I do go through fazes of being more motivated. I think it is very natural thing that you can't keep your energy and enthusiasm at the same level all the time. Sometimes you need a break, you need to take distance to get re focused. I would say most musicians go through this from time to time. Does this mean you are weak or a bad musician? Well, as long as you get the job done, no. We all need to charge batteries from time to time. I also find that when I have quiet time like this, I very often come back with guns blazing and full of fresh ideas. I look at things that used to seem impossible and now they seem possible. I notice things where I was stuck in a routine and take a fresh approach to them. If I was only starting out, I could possibly mistakenly take these unmotivated times as a sign of failure and quit all together, but now I know better. It is just my minds way of finding time to refresh and get going again. Obviously band like Sliotar this would be harder to do as we play live every week, but you just get on with the concerts for few weeks and find the time to enjoy the world around you for a while. And sooner than you know, you'll be back up again. I do find though that these motivational dips can be effected very much by your band mates, stale gigs etc. To my delight this year I have been full of fire as Sliotars new album has kept me busy and our tour schedule for the year is busiest I can remember. And with JPKALLIO.COM the addition of Patryk in the band has given me a big lease of life and April was one of our busiest months ever. But somewhere in the future when all the dust settles, I know there will be a time I'll feel like I need a bit of a break, and when it comes, that's just what I'll do:-)

  So next time you feel your band is not going anywhere, just allow your self to take some distance. Later you will come back to it with fresh eyes and ears.

J.P.

Stick with it.

  Week two of Sliotar tour got me thinking about persistence. As I have mentioned in the past Sliotar has been on the go for past 16 years and I have been in the guitar duties for the past 12 years. Through out that time I have had good times and bad times. Played some great concerts in front of big audiences, but also played in horrible conditions with only hand full of people. When things are going great it is easy to believe in the band, but if things are going bad it is easy to loose faith. Even though mostly it has been great, there were times when I did not see any future in the band, especially my part in the band... I was contemplating something else to do, even quitting music... Now I am very glad I stuck through it.
   The biggest secret in success is sticking with it through thick and thin. No one said this was going to be easy, but if you give up, you fail. If you stick with it, there will be a time you will be rewarded. It might not be today, it might not be this year. But the time will come. There will be times you loose faith in your band and feel like giving in. These are times you just need to put the head down and struggle through. Something will come up and things will start looking much brighter. But also remember you're not in it alone, unless you are a solo artist of course. Every one in the band need to be willing to stick with it as well. If you are the only one who believes in what your band does, it might be tough. And in this situation it would be time to sit down and have a chat. In my experience, musical differences and unrealistic expectations are some of the biggest stumbling blogs of any band. Personality clashes you can work on, as long as both parties are willing to do so. I still believe you can teach person skills, but they got to have character. This is something you cant learn.
   So where am I now? I could not imagine my life without Sliotar. I do want to pursue other things, like JPKALLIO.COM, writing this blog, sound engineering... But Sliotar will be a big part of me for a long time to come:-)
J.P.

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.

How to make sure you won't get booked again

  So here we go, I'll get the rant out of the way first. In the past seven months we have done 15 concerts. In these 15 concerts we have done anything from battle of the bands to show case nights to organizing our own concerts. And as lot of you know through my experience with Sliotar and other bands I have played in over the years, I have done well over thousand concerts. So I have seen a lot and I know how hard it is to get band of the ground. Here is one thing that has been bugging me lately: when a band takes a part in any kind of show case/band night, I would expect them to stick around and listen to the other bands. And believe you me I know some of the music would not be up to every ones taste, I don't have much tolerance for out of tune guitars (get a tuner and get your guitar intonated!) and bad timing (Practice with a click), but suck it up, they are in same situation you are or were. Ok, you might have to get up the next morning early to work, but first of all you can talk with your band mates and some of you could stay, if some of you must go. Second, and do I have news here for you, if you seriously want to make it some day, I mean make your living out of music, you will need to learn to get by with very little sleep. Let's repeat that one just to make sure you got it: Being a full time musician, you need to learn to get by with very little sleep! Six hours is a good night sleep for me. Now in all fairness, about once a week I do pass out for nearly twelve hours... But You get my point. There is always some excuses and sometimes they are more valid than others. So just stop and think about it the other way around. Think what you would want the other bands to do while you play? Musician’s talk that's how the word goes around and to be honest with you, what I've seen in the past year, this is what separates the frustrated amateurs from the pros.

  Let's look at this from a different perspective. As I mentioned there above, we have organized some of our own gig nights, and helped other organizers to book bands as well. This is something I have big plans for, and will be doing more and more. From a gig organizers perspective, unless the band has a genuine reason, I mean if you have a important festival gig the next day and a long drive, that's fair enough. But if I just see the band come in, play their set and run off, because it's well past their bed time, you can be sure I won't be booking them any time soon. And if you think I am the only one who thinks this way, I've talked to few organizers and it is one of those things that register at the back of their mind. They will remember the band that stayed till the end and checked out every act. You might think here, what does that have to do with music? Everything! You expect other people to support your band if you don't support others? Anyway, enough of that ;-)

                                         Thanks to Will Bury for the photo.

  So we had a busy week :-) JPKALLIO.COM played twice in Sweeney's. Wednesday was the Music Medium Live night in the basement. As the regular readers of this blog know we've been there few times before. They are a small group of people working hard trying to do something for the music scene in Dublin and slowly but surely they are building momentum, once again proving that hard work and persistence does pay off in music business. They run a Singer songwriter night in the Sweeney's on Tuesday nights, Juke box slot showcase on Wednesday nights, FissionFriday once a month upstairs in Sweeney's and they are just starting another night in the Mezz on Sundays. So if you are looking for a gig for your band or solo act, get in touch with them, they are really nice people as well :-)

  On Saturday night we were back in the Sweeney's, upstairs this time. Weekend nights in Sweeney's are busy, so we had a hopping gig. This was number 15 in our 100 concert challenge, slowly but surely getting there ;-) Also on both gigs it was great to see so many familiar faces, we are making friends on the way.
The next concert at the moment is the Rocktober semi-final in the Fibbers on Saturday the 19th of November. The standard of this competition has been very high, so it will be a great night of music. I think we need to pull out few extra stops for this one ;-)

  In the mean time, we have decided to go and record few tracks in the Trackmix studios, so in few weeks time we'll lock our selves in there for few days and we'll see what comes out of it. We will be bringing camera with us and try to document some of the stuff while we're there. So before that we'll be rehearsing our backsides off. Oh yeah, and we need to agree on the songs we want to record...
So that's enough for this week. Hope you managed to get through the autumn with out a cold; I'm trying to shake mine. Have a good week and I'll be back for more next week.

  Oh nearly forgot to mention:-) The Halloween is on its way. I am taking few days off and going to Warsaw for the long weekend, but there are some great concerts around during the Halloween weekend that deserves a mention. Our friends the Pimps and Gimps are playing in the Harbour bar in Bray on Sunday the 30th of October, so head over there for some quality punk rock. Also the EHT promotions are running a fancy dress metal night in the Pint and our friends 9thlife will be on the bill along with loads of other great bands. Hmm... how do I get a feeling you might find Qra at the Harbour bar and Sebastian at the Pint;-)

J.P.