John Wicker.com

This is my last day on my current day job.

As musicians, the stereotype is often to call your daily means of support as your day job, implying that your real vocation is your musical life. I even posted about it a while back. And in my case, I feel called to perform, to stand in front of an audience and show them a little piece of my soul.

But I also have responsibilities and obligations, none of which I regret by the way. Well most of them at least. Student loans are a never ending pain in my ass.

And so today, I am leaving my fifth job in four years, and moving on to something new. That sounds like a lot, but here’s the breakdown:

Last Indy Job: 1 year, the contract dried up after political crap started happening
Versailles: 7 weeks, I left after they literally gave me nothing to do
Downtown Job: 6 months, they cancelled my contract when they figured out they didn’t know what they wanted me to work on
Ship Job: 2.5 years, what a hot mess this has been
New Indy Job: Starting on Thursday, high hopes and all that

As Semisonic pointed out a few years ago, every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end. So I’m moving on to the next beginning.

I’m getting back on the musical horse, a little ahead of my own schedule, but none too soon. Whether you are joining an existing band, or trying people out for your own band, at some point you got to do an audition.

I’ve done three auditions in the last month, and I’ve also been involved in auditioning potential band members. There are a couple of things you need to be aware of when you’re prepping an audition, because trust me– you DO want to prep.

Prep a list of 3-6 songs you’re going to perform during the audition.

You don’t want to be on the hook for thirty songs, and you don’t want to hang around for two hours if you aren’t feeling the group. If you can’t get a specific list of songs nailed down, at least get the usual set list the band works from. Make sure you have a couple ofthese songs down really well, and be sure to work them into the session.

Work your material backwards and forwards

Don’t show up and start asking what chords are in the song, or what key a song is in. Seriously- I’ve seen this happen, and it never ends well. I think it’s okay to bring a lyric sheet with you if you need it for vocals, but don’t expect them to provide the lyrics for you.

Make sure your gear is working, and know what you need to bring

Treat it like a mini-gig (read some of my previous tips here) and make sure you have what you need. But you probably don’t want to bring every effect pedal, two guitars, or every cymbal you own. Bring the essentials, know how to work with your gear.

Be honest

Be honest about your musical interests and goals. Be honest about how often you want to practice, how often you want to play out, and anything else that comes up. If you’re not up front now, it will come out later. If you can’t stand country music, don’t act like it’s cool with you if 2/3 of the set list has a southern accent. Don’t hang with a group that parties too much for your taste. Don’t hang with a band that’s full of people you don’t like. Don’t waste everyone’s time and effort- putting a band together and getting tight takes a lot of work.

You’re auditioning them, too

Sure, you’re there to show them what you can do. But you have to pay attention to what they bring to the table, as well.

Pay Attention to Intangibles

Getting along with each other, having similar interests and goals, being on the same page musically? Those are obvious… But what about rehearsal space, gear and equipment, booking ability, regular gigs, a local fan base, free studio time, or all the groupies you can lay hands on? Any of these things might be what seals the deal for you, or for them.

Be Confident. Don’t Be Desperate.

Know your abilities, do the best job that you can, and have fun. Don’t ask how you’re doing every five minutes. If you make a mistake, acknowledge it and then stop mentioning it. Don’t act like this audition is your last chance at the big time.

And Last– Have Fun

Be Ready to Handle Jerks
Jerks come in all flavors, from the funny guy who yells “Freebird” during every break between songs all the way up to the drunks who jump up on stage, start fights or trash your gear. They are a part of performing and one that you’ll need to have strategies to deal with. For “Freebird” guy, learn part of “Freebird” or even the whole thing. Radiohead doesn’t play “Creep” live very often, but when they do, it’s usually at the start of the show, and it shuts up everyone that was going to yell for it all night long.

Learn some gentle comments and comebacks. Use your sense of humor and get the crowd on your side if something happens during a set– “Yeah, I remember when I had my first beer…” is a great line when some yahoo is mouthing off. Go to YouTube and search for “heckler” and you’ll find hundreds of videos of comedians putting hecklers down with a variety of techniques ranging from the gentle and subtle all the way to angry shouting matches and physical confrontation.

One on one, be nice but firm. Some people are never happy and some people are always looking for attention. Sometimes a jerk will be go back and forth between a complete asshole to being your best buddy. Other times they’ll be jerks one night and not even remember it happening the next time you see them. If you can’t work it out with your jerk, you might just have to walk away or excuse yourself.

Back up your bandmates– if you see them getting cornered by somebody and they’re having trouble handling it, walk over and tell them you need to discuss the next set, or that their keyboard sounded funky during the last song, or that their mom just called. Anything to give them an excuse to get away.

And if things actually get physical, watch out for each other. If all else fails, you’ve got lots of heavy shit within easy reach– don’t be afraid to use it if you absolutely have to.

Don’t Become a Jerk- Be Straight
I’m not talking about sexual preference here– I’m talking about using chemicals. You DON’T sound better when you’re drunk. You AREN’T funnier or better looking when you’re stoned. Take your performance seriously. Most people don’t show up drunk for work and most people don’t go to work and get drunk while they’re doing their job.

When you’re messed up you don’t have the same judgment and fewer inhibitions. Wanna know what’s not funny? A drunk guy telling a joke that he just KNOWS is funny. Having good judgment is key to playing a place more than once, earning new gigs, and making sure the audience is on your side. Keeping your self in check can be the difference between being the “cute guy from the band” and being the drunk loser who hits on every girl at the show.

Don’t become the jerk that your band mates have to prepare themselves for. And if someone comes to you to talk to you about your recreational activities during a show, listen to them and take it seriously. No one with a chemical problem initially believes they have a problem.

What you do after the show is on your time. Don’t use the time provided you by the audience and your band mates to chase your personal demons. Save that shit for the VH1 special.

Help Tear Down and Load Out
The show is done, the crowds have filed out, and everyone is tired. You’re coming down from the rush, you’ve been playing for four hours or more, you’ve done a sound check, and set up all this gear, and you’ve driven halfway across town or across the state. You’ve been at this all day already.

Tearing down is often akin to running into a wall– everything is going great and then WHAM! Now’s the time to work together and get things done quickly. Many hands make light work. Tearing something down is always easier than setting it up anyways, so suck it up and get it done.

Some bands don’t even split the money until everything is loaded up and ready to go. It’s hard to ask for money when you’ve sat on your ass watching everyone else schlep gear out to the truck for the last half hour.

Wrap it Up Already!
This is the last post in this series (finally!), and here are a few parting words: Work with your band mates, remember that you’re there to do a job, treat people with respect, and have a good time. It will pay dividends down the road.

Facing the future means facing change. Looking back, most of the change I have feared in life have worked out well. I must not fear change.

People ask me what I do, and increasingly these days I kick out some spiel about my day job. Things have been very up in the air with my job, and the time to make a change has definitely come. But all of this activity revolving around my pay check has left me focusing more on what I do to make money than what it is that I do.

In our world, we’re expected to identify ourselves with our jobs. I am a cop. She is a doctor. He is a teacher. They are plumbers. We go about the daily work that we do as if it defines our existence. For people that love what they do, for those that are both talented and lucky enough to make a living by also doing what they were meant to do, well… perhaps that person truly is a doctor or a teacher or a plumber.

I have been lucky enough to make choices about what I do for a living. Having made those choices, I have more of myself invested in my vocation than a guy who has no options. But I also choose what I do outside of my daily work, and those choices are at least as valid as the decisions I make about my vocation, if not more so.

I am defined by what I have done and the choices I have made. I am defined by my priorities and values. I am defined by what I choose to do moving forward and by what I choose to do right now, at this moment in time. I am a husband and a father, a musician, and a guy that has a day job.

To my way of thinking, life is a series of moments and encounters which are all focused through the value that you assign to them. Things will come and go, people will enter and then leave your life. You will grow and change, and your priorities will change as well. At this moment, I am no more that scared kid entering his first day of high school than I am the guy who was almost forced to decide between the lives of his wife or his first child. The past does not determine my future and my future does not define my present. I am what I choose to be, at this moment.

I do not choose to be my day job or my vocation. A bird is more than a feather. A guitar is more than its strings. I will not forget these words lest I become something less than what I am.

So what do you do?

I’ve played with a lot of different people and in a lot of different places over the last few years, and it seems like there are some common practices that people follow when they’re playing out. It kind of sounds strange to think of rock and roll having a set of rules, but if you want to play with someone more than once, and especially if you’re going to be playing with them a whole lot, here are some tips for getting along, getting paid, and getting asked back to play again. The first part of this series part one is already online.

Be Nice
If you hire someone and they treat you like shit or act like an asshole, would you want to hire them back? Of course not! That applies to the bar owner or whoever is paying you, and it also applies to your band mates.

As a musician, you’re at a show to have fun and be adored, but you’re also there to do a job. Handle the audience with respect, make announcements if you’re asked to, talk up how great the bartenders and the waitresses are every chance you get. Pimp the drink specials or the appetizers, or offer up a toast if you can– anything you do to increase sales for the owner will get you moved up the list of bands to invite back, and if you make friends with the employees you’ll have an in there as well.

Requests
Take requests if you can, and if you can’t play what they want, tell them you’ll learn their requested song for the next time you play there. Offer up alternatives. “Hey, we don’t do Brown Sugar but we do Honkey Tonk Women– how’s that?” When you play the request, mention the name of the person that asked for the song.

And when it comes to making dedications for particular songs, bring up stuff that a lot of people will identify with– play songs for all the baseball fans, or all the redheads, or whatever. Whenever I play “Some Kind of Wonderful” I ALWAYS dedicate it to the ladies in the room, or all the blondes, or something. Play one song for the blondes and then do the next one for the brunettes. If you have a big crowd, you can even make up events to celebrate. “We’ve got a special couple here tonight celebrating their seventh anniversary. They wanted us to play a love song.” Anything that gets an audience to applaud and be happy is going to go a long way towards ensuring they enjoy the show, and that’s a good thing.

Birthdays are a special opportunity– learn “Birthday” by the Beatles or some other appropriate song so you can whip it out at a moments notice. Be sure to announce the birthday before or even during the song, and play it up any way that you can– the person with the birthday will either love it or get embarrassed, but their friends will eat it up. Either way, you’ll be remembered and you just might find the birthday person turns the tables on one of their friends at one of your shows later on.

Build a Fan base on Nice
A following is built one person at a time, and being cool to the people that come to see you and the folks that hire you goes a long way. Personal connections, whether they’re based on an actual interaction or on an emotional reaction a listener has to the music that you play, are the way to build a fan base.

My son has been taking piano lessons for better than two years now, and though he’s been working with music the entire time, we realized last night that he still can’t actually tell us what the notes are when given a simple piece of music.

I’ve also been wanting to read music– I used to be able to read simple stuff but then stopped working with it. Actually, that’s happened more than once if I stop and think about it. So I’m going to be working on a set of flash cards which present a staff (and a clef) along with a note, and then the note in question notated on the back. I’ll make it available for download here, and depending on how well it goes, I may add additional sections that deal with key notation, different types of notes (eighth, half, etc.), and whatever else I can think of.

Keep your eyes peeled here, and let me know if there are other sections you’d like to see added!

Child Star. Singer. Dancer. Entertainer. Recluse. Eccentric. Alleged Child Molester. Icon. Beloved. Reviled.

These words, and hundreds more, all describe Michael Jackson. A man who is known the world over, so much could be said about what happened to him, the choices he made, how incredible his talent was, how strange he was, how misunderstood he was. I’m not the person to say any of those things, really. I wasn’t ever a big Michael Jackson fan, but the first album I ever bought was Thriller. When Mtv premiered the full-length video for Thriller, everyone I knew was in front of a television. His music was the soundtrack for an entire decade.

His personal life eventually overtook his musical career, and somewhre along the way, I forgot about how talented he really was. I saw a bunch of his videos on Mtv this evening, and each one that came on reminded me of the things he did musically. He created music videos that were works of art and not just promotional material. He worked with Eddie Van Halen, Steve Stevens, and Slash, and the live videos reminded me just how great he was as a performer and entertainer. All of the weird shit aside, this man had chops, and he has a tremendous fan-base.

Rest in peace, MJ.

I’ve played with a lot of different people and in a lot of different places over the last few years, and it seems like there are some common practices that people follow when they’re playing out. It kind of sounds strange to think of rock and roll having a set of rules, but if you want to play with someone more than once, and especially if you’re going to be playing with them a whole lot, here are some tips for getting along, getting paid, and getting asked back to play again.

Be on time
Nobody likes to worry about whether or not you’re going to show up. Walking in at the last possible minute can lead to ulcers, gnashed teeth, and excessive sweating.

Life can sometimes intrude, so if you’re going to be late for some unavoidable reason, pick up the phone and let people know what’s going on.

Bring Spares
Whatever you play, bring back up parts. Strings, reeds, picks, cables, straps, cords, power cables, drum heads– they can and will crap out on you at the worst possible time. Have something handy to replace them if you can.

If you can, bring along a backup instrument, and make sure it’s on hand and ready to be played if at all possible. It’s much better to grab your backup axe than to cut a set short so you can change strings. Some will say that you should be able to carry on when strings break, and you should. Other times having the spare will be the only thing that will save the show– if your keyboard stops working it isn’t like you can whip out a screwdriver and a soldering iron and fix it between sets.

Be sure that you’ve got whatever tools you’ll need to make quick fixes as well. A spare set of strings or a drum head is useless if you can’t get your fancy floyd rose unlocked or if you left your drum key on the desk by the front door.

Share
If somebody is hurting for something they forgot or something that just quit on them, and you happen to have one on hand, don’t laugh at them for being unprepared. At least now until after the show, that is. Throw them a spare cable and get the show moving again– and if it’s not an expendable item or a throw away (I’m looking at guitar strings and picks here) then be sure you get it back at the end of the night.

Work Out the Money Before You Get Paid
Work out who is going to get paid what before you arrive at the show. Most bands do an equal split, but some don’t. If someone provides all the equipment they might get two shares. An equal share might be set aside against expenses– rental gear, recording, merchandise and so on. There might be an agent’s cut or there might be an extra taste for the person who brought in the gig. You might be coming in as a last-minute replacement expecting a full cut only to find out you’re getting something entirely different.

Figure out all of this stuff before the money gets handed out. Nothing can kill the buzz of a great show faster than arguing over money.

Help Load In and Set Up
It has been my experience that drummers need the most time to set up, followed by keyboard players, guitarists, bass players, and finally the singer. Of course, we’re not mentioning that someone has to set up the PA gear, or that you might be playing more than one instrument or playing and singing.

Drummers usually have to carry the most gear, but it’s usually bulky but not super heavy. Bass players have the heaviest amps on the face of the planet. Guitarists might have a guitar or two, plus amps and effects. They get off with stuff that’s mostly light, but you have to be careful carrying it around because you don’t want to break the neck off of your Les Paul. Keyboard players tend to have delicate electronics and they usually don’t have the good sense to buy a hard shelled case for it.

And whoever handles the sound? Mixers, power amps, monitors, sub-woofers, mains, multiple 50 and 100 foot cables. And don’t forget the lighting rig, if you have one.

So you’re all set up and ready for the sound check? Great! What about everyone else? A lot of people are kind of callous about helping someone else out, but when it comes down to it, you’re all gonna sound like shit if the sound guy didn’t have enough time to get everything set up and skipped the sound check.

Offer to carry stuff, run cables, set up lights and mic stands, tape up set lists, whatever you can do. Even if you’re not physically capable of lifting heavy stuff, running cables from mics, monitors, speakers, and so on can still be a big help. There are always a million things to do, but many hands make light work. My last band could load in and be ready for sound check in 45 minutes, with every bit of the gear I talked about. When I played Rupp arena last month, it took more like two hours because we didn’t know each other well enough to have a system down.

Look for more tips in the next article in the series.

I was doing pretty well on last weeks list, and I was already making some mental notes about what to move on to for this week.

John Lennon said that “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans”, and truer words have not been spoken. On Friday morning, a personal issue came up that was problematic. On Saturday, that personal issue became one that was potentially life-changing. I will be posting about this here but I’m holding off so that I can get a handle on everything, and so that I’m not making continuous updates that go back and forth in a frantic attempt to keep things up to date. Full details later, I promise.

So for right now, dealing with the Problematic Personal Issue will be my thing to do for the week of June 15th.

I want to talk about an issue near and dear to my heart today, and that issue is confidence in yourself.

I have self-confidence issues from way, way back. Traumatic childhood, tough time in school, blah blah blah. Everyone has a sad story to tell, and to be honest, there’s probably a little bit of a loner or an outcast inside of every person that has gotten up in front of someone to play rock and roll– on some level, this music appeals to the rebellious folk who want to lash out.

So whether you have big-time issues or you’re the most confident cat in the club, at some point in your journey things are going to get to you. Maybe you had a bad gig. Maybe you had an argument with your girlfriend or were sick. Maybe you’re struggling to make an impact, to get signed, to get paid, or even to get a gig. Everyone has those moments where we think “Why am I doing this? Why would anyone want to actually come see me play? Who am I to think I’m something special?”

My favorite one is the old standby of “I’m never going to be as good as [insert super talented person] so what’s the point?” Everyone has had that thought once or twice– hell, I have it once or twice a day. But guess what– Bruce Springsteen wasn’t as good as the Beatles back when he started playing. Stevie Ray Vaughn didn’t have the chops to compare to Hendrix when he picked up his first guitar, and I’ll bet he probably didn’t have them even after five years at it. But both of those guys, and all of the other big names in the pantheon of rock and roll, did the same thing: they stuck with it.

I get the down on myself feeling a lot, especially right after a gig. I’m a perfectionist to the core, and if things don’t go as well as I’d like them to it really gets to me. I’ve done gigs where every rehearsal was awesome but then when I got in front of a microphone I couldn’t hit the first note. I’ve done gigs where everyone says we did a great show and all I can think about is how I messed up the lyrics, or stepped on somebody’s solo, or how the one of the comments or jokes I made between songs fell flat. After my best performance ever, I was still driving home thinking about how I was a little flat at the beginning of the first song, and then fumbled a lyric in the fourth one.

When I first started playing guitar seriously, I was in high school. I had a friend in school who had a band, and I thought he was a phenomenally talented musician. They played in front of real audiences, they knew their material, and they were TIGHT. We graduated the same year, and one day at our graduation rehearsal, he told me something that I remember to this day: “Dude, you’ve been playing guitar for what, two years now? If you aren’t good after six months, or really good after a year, you never will be.” Kind words, indeed. I told him to shove it up his ass.

But that comment stuck with me. I kept thinking about it every so often when I practiced, and even more so when I messed up a riff or struggled with some technique. And eventually, I internalized it and gave up playing. So I listened to a punk-ass kid and that kept me from doing what I really love for about 15 years.

When things are getting you down, if you’re frustrated with your progress, if you discover you’re actually human and that you make mistakes, don’t give up. When someone tells you you’ll never make it, think about them while you practice and hold it in your heart the next time the crowd goes wild when you finish a song. Keep moving forward and always take the positives from every situation. It doesn’t matter if you have a setback– learn from it and keep at it. Ask anyone who is truly successful and they’ll tell you that 10% of their success is due to talent and the other 90% is all hard work. That means that even if you’re a talentless hack (and you aren’t), you can still be better than 90% of the people out there when you work at it.

Keep working it. Keep a positive attitude and remember that a mistake is really just an opportunity to learn. Believe in yourself even if no one else does, and when you make it, your success will be all the sweeter for it. Don’t let them get you down!