GIVE ME THE EXPERIENCE

I got into heavy music because a good friend hauled my ass to a sketchy venue in NJ back in 1994 or so. Into Another, Life of Agony, Biohazard.

If our parents knew where we were at, they’d be furious. That was an experience. A life changing event when I was just 17 years old or so.

And 30 years later I just went to a show with that same friend.

So yes, we’re making videos and writing newsletters and putting out vinyl and tapes, and that’s all well and good.

But there’s only so far that online marketing can take you.

Those social media posts are stacked up against long drives, truck stops, and scary venues as a teenager.

It’s not about the product, it’s the experience.

DO THINGS YOU ENJOY

Saw this on Farrah Storr’s newsletter, an interview with Emma Gannon:

What’s one thing you wished you’d never done?

A Ted Talk. I was nervous for three months in the lead up to it and then came crashing down afterwards post-adrenaline. I’ve come to terms with the fact  I don’t enjoy public speaking in that way. 

What I love about this is the permission to just not do something.

Hustle / freelance / self employment cutlure would have us do everything as a means to promote and market ourselves.

But using the example above, at what cost?

Three months of being nervous? Being distracted with the worry of the upcoming event? Then the crash afterwards, once it’s all over?

No thanks.

Don’t want to start a TikTok? DON’T.

Don’t want to post on Instagram anymore? DON’T.

Don’t want to start an email list? DON’T.

Do what works for you.

YOU NEED A PLAN

@Gen_Erik on Twitter

Love love love this quote:

“What you need is a strategy to grow your fanbase. And as you’re growing your fanbase, you keep making music and improving your craft.”

If you write shit songs and get on stage and notice that no one is interested in what you’re playing, you’re going to make adjustments.

You work on your craft, develop your skills, and learn how to put on a show. This can take years, but that’s how it’s done.

This goes for writers, photographers, artists, whatever!

Goals are great, but what’s the plan?

MEG WHITE RULES

Imagine waking up and posting garbage like this:

The audacity to post “Meg White was terrible” to the entire world is beyond comprehension.

Meg White won four Grammy Awards
She’s in Rolling Stone’s ‘100 Greatest Drummers of All Time’ list
She’s a 3x Platinum selling artist.

You know what most normal people do when they don’t like something? They don’t think about it.

There are 1000s of bands and albums and song I don’t care for. Think I’m going to spend energy and time and effort and mental bandwidth letting the world know?

Nah.

This, though? This new album from Carmen Jaci is amazing, and I just pre-ordered it today (it’s out March 30th, 2023).

LET YOUR FANS KNOW THEY CAN BUY YOUR MUSIC

Last week’s Spotify garbage announcements led to a lot of artists and bands and musicians speaking out in anger.

I get it, I really do, but also 90% of those same artists have multiple links to Spotify in their bio, on their feeds, on their websites (if they have a website)…

“Weird. I only link to Spotify on all my social media platforms and website posts, and yet no one buys any of the music from my Bandcamp because I never link to it or mention it, shhh it’s a secret I guess. So frustrating!”

Yes, I get it… making a $1 on Spotify is hard. But… I make music that sounds like a running dishwasher mixed with a 10 year old AC unit, and…

Like, I am not a full time musician by any means. Most of my friends don’t give a crap about the music I make. But like… my music isn’t available on any streaming service, and I made $30 last month, which is good for some groceries.

Yes, it’d be great if Spotify would pay more, and it’d also be great if people bought CDs like they did in 1998. But that’s NEVER coming back.

Some people value music, and will pay you for it. A lot of people won’t.

Don’t fall for the, “well, everyone just streams music.”

You’re not making music for everyone. None of us are.

So at the bare minimum let your fans know that they can support you by purchasing your music.

SPOTIFY’S STREAM ON MUSIC IS HORRIBLE

Imagine being one of the biggest music companies in the world, host of some of the most amazing music in modern history, and… this (the second one down) is the track you’re using for your big roll out:

It’s not just me, I swear:

Like… HOW is that the sound bed to your big new feature roll out?

Oh, that’s right – when your mission as a company is to replace all human-made music with AI bullshit so you don’t have to pay out to actual humans, this is what you get.

Look – Spotify as an app, a service, all that – yeah, it’s great.

But it’s also the worst.

RUNNING IN THE SEVENTIES

Saw a recent Twitter thread from Jimmy Watkins / Running Punks.

Note: I’ll be so happy when someday I can say “saw a great post from so and so’s blog” instead of Twitter, but hey, we’ll get there.

Anyways, Jimmy / Running Punks was not feeling great mentally, be he went out for a run and had this amazing interaction with an older runner.

The part that really got me was this:

“We had a great chat. He was 73 years old, and we ran 10km in 59 minutes together. The route we took was one I take nearly every day.”

In my peak fitness a few years ago I ran a 10K in about 54 minutes or so, and that’s in my early 40s. I hope and dream that I’m able to run a sub hour 10K by the time I’m in my 70s.

But seriously – read that thread (here) while Twitter is still operational.

WHAT’S THE GOAL HERE?

One of the things I keep thinking we’re all going to “miss” if we’re not all on social media is the immediate satisfaction of posting something off the tops of our head at 10:32pm on a Tuesday night, and then seeing five likes and one person responds with an emojii.

That’s the dopamine hit. The rush. Insert your coin (write something, upload a photo), pull the lever (hit send), and watch what happens.

Over and over we do this, for fucking years. Half a decade. Or more. On different platforms.

We post, we hit like, we reply, and this somehow how keeps everyone coming back.

Because if we post something on our blog (like this), there is no response. I can’t see the immediate feedback, the reations, the comments (they’re turned off), the traffic.

I also think how if a few of us got together and started some sort of “group blog,” posting things through the day that we find interesting, it wouldn’t be enough.

We need to sit there, hit refresh, and see the new thing. The fresh post.

I remember the allure of the Christian message boards I used to frequent back in like 1998 or 1999. You’d hit refresh and there’d always be something new at the top, whether a new post, or a new reply.

With Buzzgrinder in 2001, I thought, “why not put the message board on the front page?” I mean, I thought I was smart shit, but the blog had already been invented! Hah.

But still, with a small crew we posted every hour on the hour, usually from 8am through 4pm, no matter what. There was always something new when you came back because we weren’t on websites for HOURS A DAY like we are now.

And hell, I made a concerted effort to avoid Twitter today and I think I was still on there like three hours total. Fucking christ.

And with that whole, well… websites just aren’t interesting enough to keep coming back to, that’s why we keep being pull back to social media.

Have we thought that maybe we weren’t meant to keep tabs on every news outlet, video feed, music stream, and entertainment stream all day and night?

How much is enough?

We’re already spending two, four, six hours a day on these sites. At what point does a social media platform come along that can match the pull? The rush?

I just don’t think we’re meant to be this connected to the fire hose of updates. I love my friends, but I don’t need to see the coffee they got on Tuesday afternoon, because I’m trying to keep up with 300 other friends, too.

But to what end?

At the end of the day there’s no destination, and the entire journey is made of fast food and cheap jeans.

BUILDING ON YOUTUBE

It’s been fun uploading my mixes to Mixcloud over the years, and I finally got around to building a Goodnight, Metal Friend website. Now I finally got around to uploading my mixes to YouTube, and it’s been fun.

Check out Goodnight, Metal Friend on YouTube.

People search for specific things on YouTube, like “dark ambient mix” or “background music,” so it’s been fun seeing some of these mixes getting 50+ views. And almost 23 hours watched in the last 28 days, which blows my mind!