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A couple of months ago Jay Keating of the Songwriter’s Association of Washington asked me to do a workshop with SAW. He was wide open as to content but as I suggested a couple of different topics he didn’t seem especially tickled by most. 

Eventually the program mostly came together through me kind of brainstorming broad introductory descriptions, throwing a ton of them at him expecting to have it narrowed down, only to get the response that “yeah, that all sounds good”.

Much like speaking the Library of Congress a couple of years ago, this was an incredibly stressful lead up to something that ended up being a very positive and successful event that once again has me thinking “huh, I guess I CAN just speak to large groups of people”. A decent enough group of people came out to make the small room look packed and I got a decent enough response that SAW has already asked me back for TWO speaking engagements next year.

So…. I’m sort of stressed about THAT now.

In any case, I’m very grateful to Jay for having the vision to see that I might just be able to do this. I ended up writing about a half hour worth of material, to be combined with 4 or five songs and lots of Q&A. Some of it didn’t quite make it out of my mouth (we didn’t get around to talking about touring at all) and we went down a couple of very specific rabbit holes (unions, PROs, inspiration). I’ve included the original text below. 

It’s a LOT. 

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Greetings class – a couple of thoughts before we really get started – if you want to make yourself really laser focus on yourself and your business… gear up to talk about it for a couple of months with a firm deadline. I actually feel this has been spectacularly useful for me.

My friend Dan Magnolia said leading up to this : “Rob has an abundant… expertise in music theory, songwriting, performance, sound design, graphic design, marketing, photography, videography, you name it! This is a masterclass well worth the ticket price. Plus he’s a super sweet dude.”

“Rob has an abundant… expertise in music theory, songwriting, performance, sound design, graphic design, marketing, photography, videography, you name it! This is a masterclass well worth the ticket price. Plus he’s a super sweet dude.”

He threw the gates wide open, but I’m going to roll on a particular course. I don’t know where you are or what you do – so if you want to get specific – if you want to chat songwriting, performance, engineering, tech support with Adobe products, we can do that – but I’ve got a course laid out about where I’ve come from, the importance of where YOU come from, the philosophy and practicality of this as a JOB, touring, our local community and maybe even a little bit about the moral imperative of being a performer.

But it’s loose.

It’s part sermon and part rant, part educational essay – I apologize that I am going to be reading a fair amount of this but – though I’ve taught high school, and I can banter with the best of them, and – little-known-fact – I’m an ordained minister that HAS delivered real sermons – I’m not a public speaker – bear with me.

I’m subject to hyperbole and loose math and I’m not always good at practicing what I preach. I will probably say “20 years” a lot – but in truth, though I really started freelancing as an illustrator in 98 and learning very similar ropes to the ones I use now, I didn’t start playing music seriously till the following year – so you can be all like… AH HA – only NINETEEN YEARS! ilyAIMY formed around then but I didn’t meet Heather till around 2001 and we didn’t go on the road till 2003.

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 [TERMS]

Ahem.

“Are you wondering what it takes to actually make music your life? rob Hinkal is busily working at every level of music in the area to be, create, bring and encourage local music. Come hear from someone who has survived the gauntlet of the local and touring scene at the indie level. You will learn more in one afternoon than you have all year about what performing really is and what it takes to keep doing it.”

(Jay Keating’s advertisement for my talk)

Well, I’m not sure about all THAT.

When Jay first approached me about the idea of speaking to SAW I was kind of… taken aback? Imposter Syndrome reared its ugly head – what do I have to talk about? I threw him a couple of ideas – open mic hosting, fostering an inclusive music scene, sound engineering on the fly … I’ve spoken about my guitar style to HORRIFIED guitar students. I’ve spoken about open mics and the American music scene at the Library of Congress. My mom was really proud. But Jay wanted something a little different – and was convinced that I had something to say about it.       

And for that I’m thankful – cause I totally do. This will be part rant part inspirational speech and part performance. You are welcome to ask questions because when left to my own devices I ramble. But unlike a lot of things like this, when you look for my next couple of dates, they are NOT speaking engagements. They are performances.

I file my taxes quarterly as “artist and musician”. It’s all 1099s and Schedule Cs – and if any of you didn’t keep a receipt for your purchase of this seminar and track your mileage getting here – well, there’s something to talk about RIGHT THERE.

I create steadily, my band ilyAIMY has existed for almost 20 years and our most recent album was written, recorded, engineered and mixed by me. I’ve recorded two other albums this year, I run an award-winning and pretty damned awesome open mic in Baltimore and I’m starting another one next week in Takoma Park. I’m on the board for Focus Music, I’m the Program Chair for the Takoma Park Folk Festival and work with a couple of small venues doing their promotions and booking. I’ve played out 126 times so far this year and won’t QUITE reach 200 by the end of the year because clearly I am a slacker.     

I run a small business that shows slow but steady annual growth. Unlike a lot of people in this business I have a savings account, an IRA, no car payments and no school payments. In a lot of ways I’m doing a lot better than friends who took their parents’ advice to cut their hair, get a real job, buy a damned house and pump out some kids. I bet I’m happier.

But it’s by no means easy. In the process I’ve attended a ton of these seminars where someone stands up at the podium and says “I’ve got the secret, here’s the path! Just buy mah book!” – and almost every single one of these was bullshit. They are busy speaking. Not performing. They’re like someone you go to see because they promise to make you a small business owner who then sells you a small fortune in dietary supplements for you to unload on your friends and family. The only book *I* sell is a cookbook, and there’s no way anyone’s getting rich off of robzpacho and my wife’s habanero dark chocolate crème bruilee!

(Available here in full colour for just $20!)

Unfortunately what you REALLY need is will and luck and sheer persistence and yeah, two of those are pretty much the same thing.

In terms of role playing games, these are the only attributes that matter. Your die rolls will be modified by talent and charisma and creativity – and since we’re bring honest you’ll get bonuses for being hot, having cash and having connections – and a negative modifier roughly equivalent to every year over the age of 22 – but the world is a very, very big place and there IS an audience for you. You just have to track it down and maybe even convince it to give you money.

SO – I’m going to hit a couple of bullet points, and I’m going to encourage questions… I’ve done this for two decades and though I’m successful, I’m not sure that’s the same thing as being a “success” – I have followed a very organic road and made lots of mistakes and though I absolutely believe a certain amount of pain is inherent in our profession and that you’ve got to come by your career honestly – if I can save you SOME of that, I’d really like to do so.

A lot of this starts almost philosophically – but we can drill down into things from there. I’ve been performing professionally for half my Life … speaking? Not so much. I’m sorry that I’ll be mostly reading what I’ve written but I’ll try to keep it interesting –

rob WHO?

In order for any of my experience to apply to you, we want to know that we’re on the same page – or at least – you’ve got to know what page I’M on. I went to an arts high school in PG County while John Murphy was pouring money into the system to desegregate the schools. This background is formative.

He did this by creating arts and science magnets in low-income, generally black neighbourhoods, and then bussing in anyone who could pass the tests. After I got into an engineering magnet and an arts magnet, I chose the art school. My mother was thrilled. My dad rather less-so.

Suitland Center for the Arts University High School gave me a penchant for self-expression and an admiration of craft. From there I went to the oldest art school in the country – at Maryland Institute, College of Art in Baltimore, MD there was perhaps a MUCH larger focus on self-expression than respect for craft – but I met a folksy guitar playing woman with wild hair, and if my mother and father didn’t see eye-to-eye on the art school thing, they were BOTH quite concerned by my sudden excitement over becoming a musician half way through my extremely expensive art degree.

Fortunately, they liked the girl.

We’ll fast forward through almost dropping out. I hopped a train. I was electrocuted. I bought a Volkswagon Bus. I got shot at I got stabbed and I attended the funerals of many friends. We call this Life experience. I DID graduate and then I went and taught high school.

I got shot at some more, quit teaching and was hired to do user interface design for Fujitsu. I re-designed the Toyota intranet. When asked by the CEO if I could do it in leopard skin with chrome trim, I damn well made the entire Toyota intranet over in leopard skin and chrome trim. I wrote some computer manuals, gussied them up primarily with cheesy lightning bolts and in general hunkered down to paying off my student loans – all the while planning to go on tour and to at least TRY my hand at playing music for a Living.  I met my long-time partner Heather Aubrey Lloyd at an open mic in 2001 or so and the rest is arguably history, or at least, available on the bio section of my website.

Enough about me.

[WILL]

why the HELL are you doing this?!?!

And by “this” I mean THIS – I mean, touring artist, making a Living off of original music and art. Why would you do this to yourself? Unlike many things that we can talk about today where there’s always an exception or a couple of different answers, I think there’s actually a right and a wrong answer to this. I’ll make it clearer – WHO are you doing this for?

The answer had better be “yourself” because anyone or anything else is going to lead you to disappointment.

We aren’t going to our deskjobs and moving piles of numbers from column A to column B. We are not selling other people’s cars. We are not safeguarding other people’s stuff, we are not fixing their shit, we are not inventing new toaster ovens. We are taking something deeply personal, our stories, our Life, our soul and we are placing it on display. We are screaming it to rooms full of people many of which will be quite surprised to see us.

Some of us are better at disguising it than others. Some of us use deeper poetries or further-fetched metaphors. Some of us wear thicker skins or better masks, but I don’t think any of us are so divorced from our material that it’s not personal. Ideally we are doing this to a room full of attentive earballs that have heard of us before and are eager to hear our noises – but in the real world, in the bars and coffeehouses, colleges and festivals and fancy weddings that we play – we are like the Spanish Inquisition.

It’s not our due to be listened to. No-one owes us a booking. It’s our job to grab their attention. It’s on us to keep it. It’s on us to carry through and wring some sort of substantive return from those listeners. And the moment you are doing that for anyone other than yourself, you will be disappointed. The significant other, the teacher, the fans, the culture you can’t bear to see extinguished – none of that matters if you can’t close the feedback loop on yourself.

No matter how great you are – someone will tell you you suck. No matter how much you suck, there’s someone who Loves what you do. It’s not about them. It’s about you.

We go through school and it’s easy to tell if you’re doing a good job. You get an A or an E or a percentage or a checkmark. You get a job and it’s easy to tell if your employer is happy. You get a check, you get fired. You get promoted demoted transferred and / or abused.

In music and the arts in general you can sweat and wriggle and wail and shred and people might not even turn around. You can send a hundred booking emails and hear nothing back. You can bare your soul to the backs of a hundred heads and just as you’re thinking no-one gives a damn someone you didn’t know was in the room (cause, you know, you don’t recognize them cause they weren’t FACING you?) comes up and quotes one of your lyrics at you and says “that really spoke to me”. You just never know. In the meantime you need to believe in what you do.

In Nashville they will look jaded but at least they’ve been trained. They know when to clap, but they’ll tip in quarters. In college towns they don’t know about clapping because they were raised on Youtube – but they know how to send you their parents’ money on Venmo. In the bars they know the “cowbell joke” but they don’t know Blue Oyster Cult, and in every fucking town they’ll yell “Freebird” cause they know the joke, but if they’re north of the Mason Dixon Line and / or south of the legal drinking age they WILL NOT recognize the song when you play it.

That’s cynical.

I’m really saying that if you can’t bring your own faith and belief to the table, you can’t ask for those things from anyone else. You don’t have to do it alone, but YOU are the beginning, and you are the end. You are the source and you are where the buck ceases. No one is ever looking over your shoulder to say “you’re doing it right”. You’ve got to do that for yourself. Everyone else will let you know when they think you’re doing it wrong or… my favourite – “you know what you oughta do [find a REAL band and open for THEM!”] – thanks…. But you’ve got to believe in yourself and your path and your art.

It’s not the same thing as being blind to feedback. Ask for help, LISTEN to critique. It’s not the same thing as attaching your self-worth to how your material is received. If anything it’s kind of the other way around. So let’s chat about what we can do to even out the odds:

The Best Advice I Ever Got.

• Thank you Cathy Fink for giving me the concept of an income mosaic. Sometimes it’s the gig, sometimes it’s teaching. Apparently sometimes it is the Speaking Engagement. Find everything you’re good at and try to get paid for it. You can weed out the stuff you don’t LIKE doing later. Or… hike the price.

• Thank you Dar Williams : be memorable. It can be a weird compliment. It can be something bright red. I’ve got a unique guitar which I beat in a memorable fashion and frankly dazzling hair. Don’t be embarrassed to cultivate something that people will remember.

• My partner Heather says “take time to focus”. She meant in my photography but it applies to performance, to temperament and to Life. Take a deep breath and take the moment to adjust, focus, tie back your hair and … TUNE.

• I don’t remember who told me this anymore… but it’s similar to the Douglas Adamsism of always knowing where your towel is. Bring a pillow. Bring YOUR pillow. It’s surprising how much of a difference that makes.

But it’s time to chat up the best advice I never got – and the best advice I can GIVE.

THIS IS NOT A GAME – IT’S A JOB.

You’ve probably all had a job before. You know what that means:

You show up on time, you stick it out till the work is done or you work to the clock. You’re somewhat fairly compensated. If you want to keep that job you treat your boss with respect, you treat your employees with respect. In this job, that means you respect the venue, your fans and yourself. Not necessarily in that order.

Basic stuff – take pride in your gear, your appearance, yourself. I trip up on this sometimes. I’m feeling poor and I don’t change my strings and then they break on stage. I don’t work out. I’m feeling beat down and don’t shave. In the age of social media you are ALWAYS in danger of being photographed and videoed, plus, even if you are doing it for yourself, you owe your employer, fans, band, whoever else – you owe them that respect of showing up looking like you care.

There are nights that you won’t. Care that is. But you act it. You do your best to sound it and look it. Simple stuff. I always have a hair brush with me. If not toothpaste than at least some Altoids. Thayer’s throat lozenges will save your Life.

I generally actually have a change of clothes with me because I’m a sloppy eater and there’s nothing quite like playing a show with a dollop of ketchup that you are TRYING to hide behind your guitar strap!

I learned this lesson in Wilmington, NC when the jeans I was wearing split while I was setting up. Cable cable cable RRRIIIIP testicleeees. Heather. My god. Get me pants.

You will reap what others have sown. Too many performers treat this as a vacation. It’s a toss off. They’re just there to drink and have fun with their friends. Sound people will expect you to be late and venues will lie to you about load-in times because they expect the same, so you WILL arrive to locked doors.

Yes, ladies – the soundmen will talk down to you because you are a woman. Young people? The old people will talk down to you because you obviously can’t have any worthwhile experience yet and old people the young ones will talk down to you cause obviously you’re too old to BRING it.  Give them a reason to remember YOU differently. You can reinforce the negative or you can reinforce the positive. You make that choice with EVERY interaction. People only learn from experience.

Bring your own cable, bring a spare battery. Bring ALL the strings.

Don’t be shy in offering those things to others. Be kind. Be flexible. But if there’s something you need, stick to your guns. I like my own microphones but know plenty of sound people don’t know what to do with a condenser mic in a Live environment. However, we’re damned well going to work on soundchecking that stupid SM58 till it sounds like it should. Besides – *I* was here on time and the doors were still locked.

Just like any career you’re going to need to know enough about other peoples’ jobs to do THEM if they’re not doing them right… we are generally our own sound person, booker, publicist, manager, tour manager, merch person and more – I’ve got to do the venue’s job too?

As independent performers there is very, very little that we can claim NOT to need to know. Have a printed copy of your contract, or email, or SOMETHING. Venues that want to communicate via phone calls and text? I despise you. Type it up and date it. YOU’LL have something to point to.

Records.

Keep good records.

Count your merch before it hits the table so all you have to do is subtract rather than count money and try to remember what was there. Taxwise – as a musician there’s not much that you can’t write off. I know there was a scare about deductions this year. If you’re in an orchestra and use schedule A for your oboe reeds, that effected you. Everyone else? Schedule C.

Rack up your office supplies, your strings, your new mic. Chart your income and decide how and when to deduct the depreciation on your new guitar and the massively different depreciation schedule of your computer. Your cellphone plan, your web hosting package, the square-foot percentage of your home office. The meal you eat with your musician friend, the tip you left at the venue (always tip your servers folks). Quickbooks SE has been my new best friend this year, but for 20 years I used pencils and graph paper just fine. We can drill into that if you like… your SAW membership is tax deductible. Your concert tickets are research and are tax deductible. Where the new laws DO hit us because THIS makes sense – I believe tax prep is NO LONGER deductible – learn to do it yourself.

Sound like a job yet? It really, really is. And it’s two sided. You’re not the only one trying to make a Living here. Remember that the venue didn’t just invite you out to support the arts – they’re expecting to make a profit even after your guarantee. Respect that and everyone will come out ahead.

There’s always one more thing, unfortunately you never get to shut this job down so this morning in the shower I was thinking “oh – if you’re not working on your booking now you won’t be working in four months. And sometimes it’s good to remind yourself of the big, huge, checklist.

Ooh! Make checklists!!!!

And I haven’t even TALKED about performance. We can if you like –

Yeah, I could add to this forever.

Let’s pause for a sec before moving on. I know I talked about taxes, contracts –advancing shows, whatever – if you like we can do a bit of Q&A before I rant about touring!

[Going to California]

I’m TIRED OF WORK – I’m GOING ON TOUR

You save up money to go on vacation. You plan to go on tour so that you can come back with more money than you left with. Sure, things go wrong, but if you start off with the idea that you’re going to lose money, it’s pretty self-fulfilling.

Planning is key. On September 2^nd, 2003 Heather Lloyd and I departed for Philadelphia Pennsylvania with a plan to be gone for months. Then we were going to swing home for a week, go for another several months, home for a week and repeat. We had this laid out for a year. We had BEEN planning for two years. What gear would we need, how would we make a Living, who can we stay with, where do we know people? Oasis screwed up the CDs so we reorganized the pack to bring a printer and CD burner until they could get them to us on the road. Whose car gets the best gas mileage? Mine? I had to teach Heather how to drive stick. Trial by fire in Pittsburgh. Oh my god.

Through careful planning we ended up being homeless for five years – and through careful planning we spent one afternoon sleeping in the car, one night a year in a hotel, but we paid the bills and we never went hungry.

The first time we booked a hotel it wasn’t REALLY lack of planning – it was because the guy was way sketchy when we met him. He was all “uh… see that chick at the bar? She’s drunk and I’m gonna get laid so you’re gonna have to find some other place to crash… this guy here – he’ll totally let you crash at his tattoo parlor but like he’s got to see a guy about a van first and you can follow him but make sure you leave your headlights off”.

Bam. First hotel.

I came home for my grandfather’s funeral. Flew out of Nashville and rode in a car with a young cousin that I’d never met. She’s curious and I’m not good at talking to six-year olds:

“what do you do?”

“I’m a musician.”

“What’s your house like?”

“Well, I travel all over the country and don’t really have a house.”

She parsed that for a sec.

“My church has special soup dinners for people like you.”

No.

No they don’t.

I may not have a house, but I’ve got a PLAN.

A friend of mine who does seminars like this for a Living stated something to the effect that – if you can’t get 50 people to come to a show in your home town you have no business touring. I absolutely disagree. You just shouldn’t do it without a PLAN.

ilyAIMY can’t get 50 people to come see them up in Baltimore, MD without a plan – but we can get it in Baltimore Ohio on a whim. We can get it at the New Deal Café but we can’t get it in the District of Columbia – In Columbus OH we’re lost, in Columbia Missouri we are ROCKSTARS recognized on the STREET and in Columbus IN we pack the bars but struggle an hour north in Indianapolis. Sometimes you’ve got to go to your fans (and you’ll drive for 14 hours and they’ll still complain that you’re an hour away) – but touring is more than just finding your audience. It’s about not exhausting your local community.

It’ll save your soul. Because WE need change too. Travel isn’t for everyone, and as I’ve gotten older it’s harder and harder on my body – but I’ve been to all four corners of the United States, down the west coast of Mexico. I’ve played blue states and red states enough to know that we are all pretty much human. I’ve played coffeehouses and colleges and clothing-optional resorts, I’ve played a SAW event in DC and I’ve played with a saw player in Albuquerque New Mexico. I’ve slept in the desert and in the mud on what turned out to be a toad and in very very nice guest rooms that make me feel inadequate in my own home Life and in college dorms that have reminded me that no matter how bad my own housekeeping is at least we will never host splash back chili parties.

Yeah, Living the dream on other people’s couches.

Nowadays we can afford hotel rooms relatively frequently (if we plan) but we’ve got friends all across the country and when we retreat to a hotel it’s usually more out of choice than out of necessity. Even hostels can be a fast way to chew apart the careful math of touring. We choose gas efficiency over space. We can’t sleep in the car but we get around 40mpg with myself, my percussionist, our cellist – a full PA, clothes for a month, merch and jerky. But other road warriors sleep in their carefully modified vans getting less than half the miles per gallon but with their homes on their back – everyone’s math is different.

Take nights off. You’ll need them. Without them you will get worn down. You will get sick. There is NO HELL like being sick on the road. Understand how your health insurance works when you are out-of-network.

Take time to not just tour but to be a tourist. If you don’t take the time to see other places and meet new people, you might as well have stayed home. If you’re driving so much that you can’t do this, or if your path is a biiiiig zig zaggy line, rethink it.

My partner Heather toured with Dar Williams for a couple of months. My other percussionist, Rowan Corbett, toured as a member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops for a couple of years. No one ever invites me ANYWHERE – but frankly though they made very good money and had a real tour bus and like… someone else did the booking and the venue doors were never locked when THEY got there – it sounded kind of nightmarish.

Get on the bus, get to the hotel, get cleaned up and wear memorable gig clothes and go play the show. Go back to the bus and sleep on the bus. Get to the hotel… ad nauseum for two weeks. Then take break.

They don’t know where they are. They eat at the venue. They sleep on the bus. Rowan made a point of walking to get coffee every day just so he could see where he was. And that was his only chance to explore Austin, Saint Louis, Jacksonville… he had 12 free hours to visit all of Japan!

I urge you not to approach touring like this. Plan so you don’t have to. I stare at maps and WILL points to be closer together. This rarely works. Planning really is the better course of action.

Of COURSE some things you CAN’T plan for. We were on the road in a truck for a festival season because we were touring with Rowan and his gear – so already the money’s divided further – but you can plan for that. The truck got less than half the gas mileage of my Saturn and we planned for that. But this is the summer of 2008. Gas prices hit triple what they had been when we’d left Maryland by the first month in. It was the first time I’d used my credit card in five years and I was PISSED. I didn’t want to touch my savings so it took a year and careful planning to get even again.

Last thing on touring outside of questions : take care of your car and invest in decent PA gear! Remember? This is your JOB! I hate Facebook – but here’s where it’s really useful: one of the biggest differences betwixt people who are successful and people who aren’t? Especially when you’re away from home, you will blow minds by remembering people’s names. Look over the event page and try to refresh your memory on names and faces. Greeting someone by name goes MILES.

Questions or thoughts before our LOCAL SCENE?!?

[BEARCLAW’S MULE or SLIGHT DEPARTURE or the MARC?]

Coming Home.

We musicians can be catty, we can be jealous, and by the nature of our job I am NOT the only person in here with a huge ego.

But you are part of a community. One of the reasons I moved from the visual arts to the musical arts is precisely this.

As singer/songwriters we are performers. By definition we’re not performing in a vacuum. The scene is your friends and fans, the venues you do and DON’T play in and of course the other players in the area. You should know all of the above… because none of them can be taken for granted and none of them are permanent. If you have one favourite venue to play, eventually it’ll close. Your friends will get tired of coming to see you and your fans will move on. You need to treasure the former and cultivate the latter – and the other performers on the scene… sure they are your competition, but they are also your peers and like it or not, we are the only other people in the world who know exactly what you’re going through.

Our community is important. When Heather and I first hit the road we had dozens of actual gigs booked in Pennsylvania, New York, Rhode Island, Colorado… but we still had to connect the dots and any night we had off – including the very very very first one in Media, PA – we hit an open mic. Most nights you’ll hear someone cringe-worthy – but most nights you’ll ALSO meet someone who does something better than you – and if you’re in a new town, every single one of them knows it better than YOU – and they’d Love to tell you about it because YOU’RE a touring artist and they WISH they were you.

The best of these nights are great places to meet other performers, get a couple of connections to the local scene, and meet people who genuinely Love listening to music.

Somewhere in 2008, partially because of that battering increase in gas prices, we settled back in Baltimore.

I bought a bed.

And promptly realized that after having been effectively on the road for five years, I knew NO-ONE.

So – I set out to build something based on the communities we’d met on the road. Not only did I want to gather people around me, but frankly we’d been doing something really cool for the last five years and it was time to make sure others could do the same. I wanted to make sure there was an oasis in Baltimore comparable to Church on the Rocks in Louisville, or Neutral Grounds in New Orleans… Lizard Lounge in Boston… Fiddler’s Dream in Phoenix, Eddy’s Attic in Georgia – the Rainbow Lounge in L.A.… all of these places are waystations to the weary wanderer… and none of them would exist without their tightknit, local community.

Well, really – I learned that none of those communities would exist without the host and the people they’ve gathered together – and sometimes if you want to play the game you’re going to have to suck it up and GM.

I’ve tried to make sure there’s something like that here at home. It’s where I learn new tricks. It’s where I teach them. It’s where I’ve learned to run sound for solo singer/songwriters and 8 piece jazz bands and everything in between. It’s where I polish my patter, my anti-heckling banter and my ability to nab nastiness off the stage before it infects a room. I’ve developed a slightly different performer’s mask as a host – part clown, part confidant, part parent, part non-threatening child.

Not everyone has what it takes to run an open mic. Not everyone should. If we all ran’em no-one could go to them. Not everyone can lead the community. That’s okay. But volunteer where you can. Support where you can. Just even JAM where you can.

You might think you’re above it. You might not have a lot of time for it. But open mics, songwriter associations, weird music groups that need knowledgeable volunteers…. It’s the stuff that keeps the scene rolling and keeps the gears turning.

And it’s served me well. Through it I make a LOT of noise – my name is attached to a lot of STUFF. It gives me an opportunity to make that noise about stuff other than me. I’m making it about the open mic. I’m making it about the scene. I’m making it about my featured artist. I’m making it about Takoma Park Folk Festival.

In theory I talk about enough OTHER stuff that when I finally talk about ME people at least say “oh yeah, I’ve heard of that guy”.

I found out at a seminar SORT of like this that the open mic *I* came up in was hosted by someone who had done it to get his name out there, to get known as a mover and shaker. He built something incredible, but I really wish I’d never found out that that’s all he did it for. Be a performer for yourself. Be a community leader for those around you.

The DC / Metro area is a very mixed blessing. On the one hand we’re very, very saturated.

You don’t want to play a place at the price they’ve quoted? There are ten people behind you that will.

On the other hand, it’s not a New York or a Nashville. Out there there’s a HUNDRED people behind you and THEY’RE willing to PAY to play. You can still get paid here, and paid decently – for a given value of “decent”. At least when I looked into joining a Union recently I realized that I already never make below union wages.

Unions – whole other conversation.

On the other OTHER hand – we’ve got a lot of smaller scenes packaged in here – we’re not just the urban DC / Metro area – we’ve got suburban Northern VA – we’ve got the rural Eastern Shore – we’ve got the DC that’s Metro accessible – and the DC suburbs which are car accessible. Your Baltimore audience won’t come to DC and your DC audience won’t come to Annapolis. By being willing to move an hour (or three counting for traffic) in any direction, we literally have a million people here and a million people there, NONE of which overlap. Do the math. Think maybe only 1 in a thousand people might like your music? I bet your odds are better and that still leaves you 750 people in DC to court. You’ve just got to find them.

Frederick, Philadelphia, the Eastern Shore, go all the way to Richmond, VA. Even on an “I can be home tonight” kind of local level – NoVA, Georgetown, Alexandria, Richmond, Philly, Baltimore, Annapolis, Eastern Shore, Frederick, MoCo there’s 10 distinctly different scenes, each of which can operate differently, have different audiences, different types of venues and slightly different payscales.

Social media technically gives us powerful tools for contacting these people, but we’re drowning in the noise and we don’t have the money.

Jay knows a lot about the mechanics of this. Moving objects capture the eye. We’ve got great tools that can create video ads right here in our pockets – but don’t forget the local businesses and the venue itself. Send out those posters. Have a flier. Have a MAILING LIST that’s not subject to a Facebook algorithm. ilyAIMY has actually turned back to physical mailings in some areas because we’d rather spend $25 on postage & printing to give people something unique to stick on their fridge than a boosted post that’ll get lost in their feed.

Always have something in your pocket with your website on it. I do NOT mean “Facebook something something and if you don’t have Facebook than Instagram something underscore something and if you don’t have Instagram than Twitter at something dash something” … I mean your fucking “.com”.

And I do mean ALWAYS. Because you’re going to sit next to someone on the Metro, or you’re going to be waiting for your coffee, or you’re going to be sitting in the doctor’s office – and outside of little chats like this, when the small talk starts, you’ve got the coolest job in the room.

“I’m a carpenter” “I’m an optical physicist” “I’m a dog proctologist”

“Dude, I’m a fucking touring folk musician Living the dream on other people’s couches! Oregon Allison – she was going by Jasmine that year? Remember her? Yeah – she gave me her TOOTH! Did I tell ya about the time when I was playing on this boat in the Mississippi River and we went to the Isle of Naked Hippies?! TURN RIGHT WOMAN – TURN RIIIIGH!!!! Remember the Alien Queen in Seattle? DUDE don’t talk to ME about taking voltage off a poorly grounded 57! FUCK DAYTON!”

It’s easy to forget. When all your friends are musicians… and you’ve joined SAW and everyone at your support gro- er… seminar– are all musicians… we forget how this all looks from the outside. Roughly speaking – around 40,000 people in America claim to be employed as musicians. I mean, actually say it’s their profession… one in every HUNDRED people is selling real-estate to the other 99, but if you ask 3,000 fully-employed individuals only ONE of them will say “I’m a musician”…. We’re a self-selecting pool, but really – the rest of them are carpenters and real-estate agents and dog psychologists.

My neighbours see me moving gear all the time. They’re always asking me where I’m going, where I’ve been. We forget that we’re fascinating. Be ready for a story, be ready with a tale. We are exotic. It’s a job, but it’s a great one.

Okay – so – I’ve mentioned social media and unions and a lot more in there. The Isle of Naked Hippies is Missouri and these are NOT people you actually want to see naked. Anyplace we need to drill down?

[A Perfect Day]

IN closing 

We are nothing if not the stories we tell – and those are based on the Lives we Live. Traveling, touring – it’s a terrible Living but it is an incredible Life. And it’s not an impossible one. It is hard work and it’s grueling and it’s humiliating. But I don’t think I’m going to regret it.

My biggest take away from playing music for a Living is that people are better than you think. When we first started off it was with a very conscious mission of knitting what we thought of as very disparate people together. We were creating a pen pal system of Americans with ilyAIMY at the centre and in some ways it worked. Red state blue state Conservative Christian wiccan whatEVER. If we’re singing to something human enough and basic enough, we don’t get to write people off on the surfacial topics of our differences.

I said it doesn’t matter WHY we play – why we sing. But I only really mean that it doesn’t matter to the world why we do it – however – IF we do it, and we’ve got the will to go on doing it cause it comes from deep deep inside ourselves, I think we do have a certain responsibility.

I’m not just someone who plays guitar. I’m a white straight male who plays guitar like a beast. I can go almost anywhere. Add my blonde cellist wife and my white straight percussionist and we’ve got the keys to the kingdom. But sometimes we bring our southern black percussionist. And we bring our Asian cop piano player. And she’s Jewish and I’m an atheist. And you put me and that black percussionist together for long enough and maybe you’ll wonder if we’re THAT straight – but now we’re already inside the walls.

You can sing songs about it. In your stories you can off-handedly reference anything you want… you can mention your Muslim roommate and you can ask cops to stop killing black kids. Once you’re inside the gates, and if they’re tapping their toes – their defences are DOWN. Bring it all in and set it down like it’s nothing special… because if we can start conversations rather than arguments… the former can go forward and bring us together. You’ll never win the latter.

When we started touring we did it with the intention of pulling people together and we have done just that. Here at home I’ve built something at Teavolve that’s really special, been part of something beautiful with the Takoma Park Folk Festival – and though I Love touring and I’ve learned to really Love America from sea to shining sea – it’s pointed out something that IS very unique about our local scene. Musically, racially, religiously, politically – we’re one of the most diverse scenes in the country – but in the past several years, things that can’t be unsaid got said on social media and the 2016 election ripped our fanbase apart, even shredded our local scene here. There are people who will never come back to Teavolve because they thought it was finally okay to let their little racist flag fly and – I don’t know how connected it is but a lot of music festivals teetered and the Takoma Park Folk Festival falterered around then too.

We ironically can not go back to a town called Liberal, Kansas because the core of our fanbase there just KNOWS what we think out here in hashtag only black Lives Matter Maryland, and no amount of previous face-to-face experience will tell him otherwise. I Live in Baltimore with a T – we played through the riots in 2015 but there are people who will not accept my eyewitness account that my city didn’t burn to the ground that day.

I don’t know what to do about that yet. We’re rallying, but we can only do that because though we built community for our fans and friends and our future – when that comes apart we can still play for ourselves. It’s like superpowers though. Do something good with it. Be part of the change, right?

Anywho – maybe that was a weird twist. But thank you for bearing with me. Jay, SAW, thank you for having me. Thank you to Victor Litz for hosting – I bought my first bass amp here. It was grey and fuzzy and it was a Fender because that’s what Floyd Pepper had. Your sales person thought this was not a good reason.

Tip your waiters waitresses bartenders and bartendresses.  My name is rob Hinkal – the band is ilyAIMY, the .com is ilyAIMY. It stands for I love you And I Miss You. I have books and CDs, digital downloads and t-shirts for sale – remember this is how I make my Living AND of course I can take your credit card because we Live in the future.

I have a mailing list if you want me to find you again later, postcards if you’re more comfortable finding ME again later. Thank you and good night – YAY US!

That’s my usual spiel, but if you’ve got any questions, thoughts – rebuttals – we’ve got some time for that. Gather round.