Day 144 of ANNIE B.'s D.I.Y. MAGAZINE (Post #7)
Well, earlier this week, I booked 2 more gigs at the Klavier Lounge in Germantown - they are gigs where I play mostly covers, but hey, it's better than waiting tables!!! I also got a gig at The GAP for their Born To Play campaign which celebrates their 100th anniversary or something cool like that! This is not a paid gig, but hopefully it will bring some exposure since they are doing a big ad campaign to hype up the whole thing!
Today, however, I did not do much for my career, in fact, I am a little behind, especially when it comes to Artbeat! I had a family crisis late last week and I am still working on resolving the crisis, but it will be resolved in the next few weeks. I was up at 5:30 this morning to get some flyers and a promo kit to "Darlin" Nikki Janzen, the opener for Artbeat. Then off to pick up my mom & deal with the family situation all day today. I got home around 3:30 and needed a nap. In the meantime, I am now blogging on a computer that is sitting on a desk that is so full of papers and projects in the middle stages, it's hard to keep everything straight.
So, here I am , trying to refocus, as I wrote about last week. The band is not rehearsing this week, due to people out of town. But we will resume next week Monday, and we are now looking for a bassist. Two interested players responded to my craigslist ad, so I will investigate this week.
Just wrote a new song tonight, perhaps another that will be pitched to someone like Katy Perry, or maybe we'll keep it and make it work for S.U.M. or the other project. It's too new to know what needs to happen with it.
I did have a meeting with HeyWhatever.info yesterday and they are now handling my websites for Annie B. and for Artbeat! They should be able to make Artbeat's online network a reality before July 31st, so I am VERY excited about that! I found out about the company through Jim, the owner of the Coach House in Big Bend. He uses them for his website, and they seem to be very cool people! Totally excited about the new relationship!!! They are not only going to build my websites, but they will help in marketing & bringing in traffic - which is really more important than the site itself, in terms of what's going to help you sell products online. Please look out for www.annieb.net soon!!!!!!!!! Yay!!!
In other activity, the GAP store I am performing at in IL is very excited about the Aug. 20th show, and 15 sampler CDs for all store employees are being burned as I blog. Still undecided as of right now if I am bringing the full band or what. The sampler CD consists of "Everything", "You and Me", and "The Shining Light". I know that "Everything" is not a acoustic song, but we will be doing an acoustic version of that song at this show for sure.
I need to run off and drop off some quarter-page ARTBEAT flyers to Scott Berendt right now, so I will sign off for tonight...
Until my next exciting blog, have a GREAT evening, and keep loading your gun!!!
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Day 135
Yes, here is where I post my activities and goings-on as a successful, be it "small-time" Midwest struggling singer/songwriter trying to "make it big"... hoping to give some insight to other struggling musicians and help them on their way, while they also may be able to help me on mine... it's about working together and your network of friends that will play a big role in your success. And, so, since my last blog..............
Guess what?! Shut Up Marie is now reforming in the Midwest (and I am sure you can guess how excited I am about that!!!) Woo-hoo!!! So, we started working on the songlist for this year's new album and I have found that this band actually has 2 different types of songs... and these two types of songs probably should not be on the same album, or people will be like, "What the hell kind of band are you guys? What kind of music do you play?" So now the band has to split into two different bands. Crazy, I know, but we will have musical and stylistic integrity with each project, which is very important. You don't want to be all over the place with your music. That's one thing I have learned throug the years. People like to know what you sound like, so they can "get into" it. They can't "get into" something that is all over the board. They would not know what to "get into". And they want to be able to explain you to their friends. They can't do that if you don't really have a well-defined sound.
So, as a result, "What Do You Do" is getting reserved for major label artists only. We'll be pitching it to the likes of Kelly Clarkson, Jewel, Michelle Branch, etc etc etc. It does not belong on any new album of mine this year. It will be one of those exclusive unreleased tracks that maybe you'll get to download after it's been re-recorded by some big pop/adult contemporary artist. (Unless you go to my MySpace page right now and get it before it gets removed from my profile.)
Shut Up Marie will remain intact, and there will be a new band project. Some sort of funky-folky-moody-gritty-cowboy-acoustic thingy... a direct descendant of my solo/acoustic stuff. Not much like S.U.M. at all. But fun, for sure!
In other news, Milwaukee Artbeat is coming along swimmingly. I have a TV appearance scheduled on FOX6 news here in Milwaukee on July 29th at 8:15am, and a radio interview on 91.7 WMSE at 2pm that same day! Woo-hoo!
This week I had an epiphany. It's actually a reiteration of what my manager has been telling me for some time now. I have to get a better focus on my goals. I have been all over the board with my 3 (now 4) bands and all the other projects I have going on like Artbeat, the duo with Scott Berendt, and etc etc etc! So, I am trying very hard to find out how to get that focus. It's kind of like what I had to do with the band... find out what the thing is really all about, make sense of it, and then start working towards only the most important & worthy, solid goals. Making sense of the music and making sense of how we can market it and make a good solid album... it just had to be broken up into two pieces. That ultimately will add more "projects" to deal with, but at least it's will just one band.
So, this epiphany came from this dream I had last night - I met this very small, young, blonde-haired, blue-eyed man who was an extremely successful magician. He did this big show somewhere and he was out in some lobby after the show and he was doing a little demonstration and he looked me right in the eye and said "If you want to succeed, you have to pinpoint where exactly it is you want to be, and start putting all your focus and energy towards that one point. You have to pinpoint that one little square millimeter in the miles of surface area out there and put all your energy towards it, and that's how you will jump-start the huge success you desire." Well, those words perhaps were not the exact s spoken to me in my dream last night, but it was something along those lines.
What I took from that is how I got all these things going on and how I need to just start focusing on the one thing I desire the most... my new band and my new album being recorded this fall. If I can make just that my focus and put all this amazing energy towards it, and keep putting more & more energy in that one little square millimeter, pretty soon the thing is going to explode, right? You can't keep putting all this energy into this one space or this one thing... pretty soon the thing gets overloaded and explodes!!! It's a real, scientific, quantum physics thing, I guess... the energy that we project and how it affects the world we live in and the lives we live.
So, I guess I am kind of going through a little transformation. My next few weeks has to be spent refocusing and getting a grip on how to put that energy into the band & the new album. Does that mean I have to give up all my other projects? Do I have to give up Artbeat??? (That would be a shame!) It's been kind of tough since my relocation to Milwaukee. Most of last year was spent managing everything that has to do with my parents, and I still spend lots of time doing that this year. But this year I kind of jumped into so many projects just to get back on my feet as an artist here in Milwaukee, get into the music scene here, and get a grip on Milwaukee. But now it's kind of become too much, I would hate to say I bit off more than I can chew, but I sure need to take a look at things and refocus.
Wish me luck!!!!!
Guess what?! Shut Up Marie is now reforming in the Midwest (and I am sure you can guess how excited I am about that!!!) Woo-hoo!!! So, we started working on the songlist for this year's new album and I have found that this band actually has 2 different types of songs... and these two types of songs probably should not be on the same album, or people will be like, "What the hell kind of band are you guys? What kind of music do you play?" So now the band has to split into two different bands. Crazy, I know, but we will have musical and stylistic integrity with each project, which is very important. You don't want to be all over the place with your music. That's one thing I have learned throug the years. People like to know what you sound like, so they can "get into" it. They can't "get into" something that is all over the board. They would not know what to "get into". And they want to be able to explain you to their friends. They can't do that if you don't really have a well-defined sound.
So, as a result, "What Do You Do" is getting reserved for major label artists only. We'll be pitching it to the likes of Kelly Clarkson, Jewel, Michelle Branch, etc etc etc. It does not belong on any new album of mine this year. It will be one of those exclusive unreleased tracks that maybe you'll get to download after it's been re-recorded by some big pop/adult contemporary artist. (Unless you go to my MySpace page right now and get it before it gets removed from my profile.)
Shut Up Marie will remain intact, and there will be a new band project. Some sort of funky-folky-moody-gritty-cowboy-acoustic thingy... a direct descendant of my solo/acoustic stuff. Not much like S.U.M. at all. But fun, for sure!
In other news, Milwaukee Artbeat is coming along swimmingly. I have a TV appearance scheduled on FOX6 news here in Milwaukee on July 29th at 8:15am, and a radio interview on 91.7 WMSE at 2pm that same day! Woo-hoo!
This week I had an epiphany. It's actually a reiteration of what my manager has been telling me for some time now. I have to get a better focus on my goals. I have been all over the board with my 3 (now 4) bands and all the other projects I have going on like Artbeat, the duo with Scott Berendt, and etc etc etc! So, I am trying very hard to find out how to get that focus. It's kind of like what I had to do with the band... find out what the thing is really all about, make sense of it, and then start working towards only the most important & worthy, solid goals. Making sense of the music and making sense of how we can market it and make a good solid album... it just had to be broken up into two pieces. That ultimately will add more "projects" to deal with, but at least it's will just one band.
So, this epiphany came from this dream I had last night - I met this very small, young, blonde-haired, blue-eyed man who was an extremely successful magician. He did this big show somewhere and he was out in some lobby after the show and he was doing a little demonstration and he looked me right in the eye and said "If you want to succeed, you have to pinpoint where exactly it is you want to be, and start putting all your focus and energy towards that one point. You have to pinpoint that one little square millimeter in the miles of surface area out there and put all your energy towards it, and that's how you will jump-start the huge success you desire." Well, those words perhaps were not the exact s spoken to me in my dream last night, but it was something along those lines.
What I took from that is how I got all these things going on and how I need to just start focusing on the one thing I desire the most... my new band and my new album being recorded this fall. If I can make just that my focus and put all this amazing energy towards it, and keep putting more & more energy in that one little square millimeter, pretty soon the thing is going to explode, right? You can't keep putting all this energy into this one space or this one thing... pretty soon the thing gets overloaded and explodes!!! It's a real, scientific, quantum physics thing, I guess... the energy that we project and how it affects the world we live in and the lives we live.
So, I guess I am kind of going through a little transformation. My next few weeks has to be spent refocusing and getting a grip on how to put that energy into the band & the new album. Does that mean I have to give up all my other projects? Do I have to give up Artbeat??? (That would be a shame!) It's been kind of tough since my relocation to Milwaukee. Most of last year was spent managing everything that has to do with my parents, and I still spend lots of time doing that this year. But this year I kind of jumped into so many projects just to get back on my feet as an artist here in Milwaukee, get into the music scene here, and get a grip on Milwaukee. But now it's kind of become too much, I would hate to say I bit off more than I can chew, but I sure need to take a look at things and refocus.
Wish me luck!!!!!
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