NHT Blog

From late afternoon last Wednesday to late last night I drove a combined total of approximately one thousand miles, immersing myself in the Pensacola Beach Songwriters Festival in the Florida panhandle.  For those of you that have been reading this blog and/or listening to my weekly “Now Hear This Entertainment” podcast long enough, you know that I’ve been attending that event for many years.

While the names will be withheld to protect the innocent, as the saying goes, maybe they shouldn’t be, is my thinking here.  Don’t misinterpret this as public shaming.  It’s just that you have to wonder if that’s what it’s going to take for more accountability in podcasting.  Or maybe I should say, a greater level of respect for the medium?

Over the weekend I was having a conversation about hearing music that you identify with a certain period of time.  It could be generational and/or it could be a specific occasion or maybe something you were going through.

If you can’t see it, it doesn’t exit. Right?

I learned more than my fair share about the importance of mental health in 2016. I lost my best friend, drummer, and bandmate of over nine years. As a musician, we jam with different people all the time, but we rarely find that one “musical compadre” – that person that knows a level of us no one else understands, sees a side of us no one else ever will, and feels our feelings like no one ever has. That was my drummer, Terrance.

Back in the 1970s there was a TV commercial for Life cereal where two kids didn’t want to try something new, so they got Mikey.  Spoiler alert: he ended up liking it.

I’ll be the first to admit that it’s really easy to find your comfort zone and just kind of stay there.  My dentist is often heard using the old expression, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Today is Labor Day here in the United States.  While it’s supposed to be a chance for people to just have a weekday off in acknowledgement of the labor that we all put in on an ongoing basis, think about people at, say, supermarkets and restaurants who are still working today anyway.  Thus, I’m writing a blog as per the usual every Monday posting schedule that I’ve kept up for what in a few weeks will be eight years.  However, I’m giving myself a little bit of a break by this week writing something a tiny bit off the usual path.

We’ve all seen before with blogs or newspaper columns or even magazine articles that we read where from time to time the writer or the editor will say that they’re “emptying out the mailbag.”  And while yes, I by all means welcome your feedback anytime (on the blog, the podcast, or anything else you’d like to have a say in), today I’ve decided to empty out my toolbox.

If you receive the weekly e-newsletter that I send out each Wednesday, you saw that last week I led off the August 17th email by saying that I just might’ve met my match.  I was referring to having been told before that I’m “the hardest working man in show business,” yet the guest on Episode 444 of my weekly “Now Hear This Entertainment” podcast that was being released that day is just not stopping at all.

Creators – whether music, podcasts, or otherwise – already know how challenging their business is in the first place.  You don’t want to make the hill even steeper to climb by surrounding yourself with people who are going to get in your way of reaching the top.

The other day I saw a social media post from someone who runs a well-known business that’s a service provider to the podcasting industry.  I was shocked to read that he gets emails on a regular basis that none of us want to get even once.

Approximately ten days ago when I did my “Promoting Your Music Career” seminar at the 2nd Lake Martin Songwriters Festival, I got to a point where I was specifying some resources that the attendees could use to try to get more bookings.

While I cited eight different websites, the truth is that there are certainly lots and lots more.  BUT, you don’t just get more gigs from online destinations that you check periodically.