Wow. So I met an interesting person today. Or rather… someone with an interesting story. I’m not quite sure what to make of it.
A girl came into the shop (17 or 18?) and sat playing guitars for a while, singing some songs with her and her friends. Good voice, solid harmonies from her friends – it was a voice that I’ve heard frequently at the open mics recently but she executed it powerfully. I figure she might be someone I’d invite to my open mics and start to chat with her and it turns out she’s just passing through from New York and she’s working her way down to Hard Rock Café show in Florida… and so I ask for a card instead figuring she might be an interesting person to know more about.
Severn Savage. Justin Myles.
“I don’t have a card. It’s 2013!”
So I ask for her website. She directs me to a Youtube page… I ask “You don’t have any web presence but a Youtube channel? It’s so 2013!” No place online to contact her outside of the comments on the youtube channel, no place to find her schedule, whatever else… “I dumped my management company recently and they kept all of that”. And she mentions that she’s kind of new to all of this, it’s something that I’ve been doing for the last 8 months.
So here’s the story that I’ve pieced together. There are a couple of news articles from December of 2012 to back it up. Basically, this young singer/songwriter plays a song in which she spoofs a Taylor Swift song with different lyrics giving a funny look at the breakups that Swift always sings about. Somehow this goes viral and before she knows what’s happened she’s received about 850,000 views. Yeah… over three quarters of a MILLION views.
A booking company with a heft roster assumes they’ve spotted the next Big Thing and snaps her up. She’s smart and maintains ownership of her material (though her response to my question was that “I was smart, I copyright everything before I let it out in public” – which can STILL be signed away in the small print of a complex contract – so she might merely THINK she still owns the material…) and gets catapaulted into some very nice venues, opening for big artists – for the next five months or so she’s doing amazing stuff. Then she “catches wind” that the label’s not really happy that she’s not making them enough money and so, nipping any sort of “firing” in the bud, approaches the label about a mutually amicable break up and steps away from her management.
All fine and good – intelligent and mature. Good ride.
And then she tries to use her email. And tries to update her website. Transfer her domain. Use her Twitter. Facebook… everything’s owned by the management company and they are NOT turning over the keys. Her youtube channel (since it’s what she owned going in) is the only thing she’s still got and her views are steadily declining – so that current videos only have a couple of thousand views each (still admirable for a young artist, but 1/400 of what she’d launched her short-lived 1st career with).
And so I don’t know whether to envy this brush with fame (she’s got more total views and youtube subscribers than we ever will) or to pity her (because they’re all waiting for her next Taylor Swift tune with funny lyrics). She’s got a killer voice and she’s a beautiful girl – but I’ve seen a couple of artists that had it made and then had it unmade – and they never seem to be happy with their careers again. They’re bitter about the tiny shows, contemptuous of the other artists on their scene and generally hold the entire candle of their life up to that brief moment in the spotlight.
(I started writing this a couple of days ago)
And partially inspired by the above, I’ve spent a LOT of time thinking about progression on this trip. We stay with an old friend who is a little crazy, a lot talented. One of the most intense people I’ve ever met and a man I admire like almost no other. I will always be nothing but a kid next to him.
He’s latched into music through the What Cheer? Brigade which seems to split it’s time betwixt orchestra-bombing median strips and other anarchist pursuits and playing huge festivals and being taken on tour with artists like Nine Inch Nails. He’s latched into professional illustration through doing album covers for big indie art/rock bands. He’s latched into the art world by simply being one of the most intense, spectacular visual artists I’ve ever met, shifting mediums every couple of years but always working in labour-intensive areas like embroidery, pen and ink, collage and cut paper and keeping his obsessive imagery edgy and frightening but with a joy of form that comes from really, really, really being able to draw. He surrounds himself with his work and the leavings of dead animals and the flotsam and jetsam of a thousand antique thrift store finds. His environment and work has shown a steady evolution – but I’m not sure that’s the same thing as progression. He’s constantly fighting the same battles – like many artists are – treading through similar subjects and struggling to pay his mortgage as he rockets from good times to bad times and back again.
DeJohn at Old Bowie Town Grille. Paul Loether and Richard Weil. A woman we met once in Wilmington, NC many years ago dropped through my open mic last week. Welcome Kim Dicso’s project Folkstar. Her guitarist, Sue Cag was bad ass and paired with Kim’s powerful vocals it made for quite a punch. (At the Old Bowie Town Grille in Bowie, MD)
We drop by another old friend from college to find that he’s purchased a house, completely rebuilt it while learning the skills he needs as he goes along. He’s got twins that came home from the hospital two weeks ago and he’s in danger of never sleeping ever again. They aggressively tag team their parents’ sanity as first one twin caterwauls while the other naps and then, refreshed, the second one takes on the job of announcing his displeasure with the world while the smaller one takes a break. His work has gotten more and more elegant over the 20 years I’ve known him, but to support himself he’s had to take a part-time job delivering mail, even as he receives commissions from City Hall and Neil Patrick Harris.
Quinton Randall! Gino Abellanosa.
Last night we stayed with a friend who’s coffeeshop opened at around the same time that Heather and I started traveling –we met one another through random chance looking for a snack while taking a long-cut. He and his wife have progressed from coffeehouse owners to bakers and cooks. She’s constantly adding new projects and the venue is constantly being reimagined and added to. The coffeeshop outgrew its first space and moved to a bigger one. It outgrew that and they built a patio which the whole street was able to take advantage of. The whole town has upscaled over the years and they’re growing again, retaking the second storey, adding a dog biscuit bakery and ice cream… 10 years on and his family seems happier, the town Loves the venue, the business is doing well – and he seems exhausted but joyful. Who knew this rock and roll dj was a baker at heart?!
A really wonderful surprise – an old, old friend from college and one of the original members of i love you And I Miss You, artist Sonny Roelle performs a couple of his old i love you And I Miss You tunes and a new piece from his current band, The Sentimental Favorites. The man’s a genius. It was absolutely fantastic to see him and a really, really welcome surprise! Heather would like to inform you that she rocks. I would like to inform you that *I* am the one that rocks, because I took the rarest of all photos: the one that shows all three of Heather’s tattoos!
And tonight we stay with another baker who we’ve watched flail as a touring musician – also succeed as a baker. They’re opening their first place very soon thanks in part to a successful crowd-funding effort after years of working the local farmers markets and she seems happier than I’ve ever seen her. As above though…. Exhausted.
And so we see all these people doing these marvelous things. We’re doing marvelous things. Tonight I’m almost as happy with my job as I’ve ever been – we’ve played two beautiful gigs one after the other, both filled with people that we Love. Fans doesn’t cover it – these are all people who we know relatively well, who we enjoy BEING around and we’re so flattered that they Love our music as much as we enjoy playing it for them. We’ve eaten delicious food, the weather is perfect, and even a massive car repair bill (my car’s in the shop as we travel in Heather’s, and getting one’s clutch replaced is brutally expensive) can’t get me down.
Tonight we played Rick’s Music World again after having played it last five or six years ago. It’s just an open mic but it was a really great time, the talent was exquisite and varied – from students plucking their way through blues scales to spectacular performers whose voices threatened my SANITY… and we made a lot of new connections and renewed old ones. Over the course of the last three performances we’ve booked three gigs, and it’s one of those rare moments where it all truly feels non-stressfully self-sustaining. i.e. it feels like a career OUGHT to feel.
Maybe it really DOES take ten years to be an emerging artist. Look at all of us, finding our way. Of course, who knows what tomorrow brings – there isn’t much surety in this profession – but we know that crashing with a baker means breakfast with baked goods, and sometimes that’s all the surety you need.
