How Am I Different? Reinventing Oneself

Why on earth would anyone listen to me?  What makes me an authority?  What makes me different?

These are the hard questions one must contend with when creating your own "brand".  More questions than answers, because there are no easy answers.  I'm very good at what I do, but so are a million other guys (and gals).  The hard part is finding that one little thing about what you do that makes you unique--and run with it.  If you don't have a "thing" then you gotta invent one.  Yeah, right.

"Reinvent yourself."  I'm familiar with the phrase.  Artists like The Rolling Stones and Cher have done it.  A lot.  Madonna comes to mind.  Johnny Cupcakes just told me so--in class.  No, really. 

But what about a guy like me, what do I reinvent myself as?  I'm not sure what I was in the first place.  Don't you need to know where you were to know where you are going?  This is going to take more than a blog post and some chin rubbing to figure out.  Gimme some time and I'll share some new ideas.  Promise.

I'm going to start by sprucing up the ol' blog a bit.  Maybe a new background or a module or something. 

Baby steps.

What's YOUR Draw, Mr. Generic Irish Pub Owner?

What’s Your Draw?

God, I hate those three little words.  If you are a musician, and you are in a band, and you have attempted to book said band at your local bar, you have undoubtedly heard these words.  These days it’s the club owner’s best friend and the working musician’s worst enemy.  It’s their weapon to get us musicians to play for less and less money.  Some booking agents (aka “promoters”, who do anything but) are even pitching “pay to play” gigs, although they won’t call it that.  How do you compete in an environment like that?  Yeah, I know.  “Get off my lawn, ya brats.”

But seriously folks, the cat’s outta the bag and there’s no turning back.  Pandora’s box has not only been opened, it’s been blown to bits.  In short, I believe the explosion of the computer age has completely devalued many of the creative arts.  The explosion of inexpensive instruments and other gear has put all this stuff in the hands of way too many folks who delude themselves into believing they have talent and muddy the water for the rest of us who actually deserve to be seen and heard.

But I digress.

At what point did it become the band’s job to draw the ENTIRE crowd?  I’m sorry to break it to you, Mr. Club Owner, but if the draw isn’t to your satisfaction maybe it’s because your club SUCKS or maybe you don’t do your part and ADVERTISE your business once in a while.  Geez, maybe you could write a press release or something.  Hey, here’s a novel idea: clean the fucking bathroom once in a while.

You won’t even put up the cool new full color flyers that we gave you.  Those things cost money, dude -- money that you just took from me because we didn’t draw.  Sorry man, you have to do more than just open the damn doors and collect the money.  It’s a two-way street.

“Oh, we only made $600 at the bar, so we’re only going to be able to pay you $300”.  Excuse me, if we didn’t play at all you wouldn’t have made squat -- because you don’t have any REGULARS.  Your place was EMPTY until me and my friends showed up.  How do you make money during the week? 

How about you make your place different from the rest of the millions of pubs out there?  What’s your draw, Mr. Club Owner?  You do your part first -- then we’ll talk about “our draw”.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, but the article linked below really inspired me.  Apparently, I’m not alone.

http://www.reviler.org/2010/09/21/bars-have-bands-to-bring-in-customers/

Welcome!  My name is Eddie Rutkowski and this is my new blog.  It started as a school project in 2012, but I'm hoping it will blossom into something bigger, eventually. 

I haven't completely decided what to blog about yet, unfortunately.  I've been a music guy for a long, long time now, so I think I'll run with that.  As to what specifically I'm going to write about, who the hell knows?  We'll burn that bridge when we get there.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to start by sharing some old road stories and other lightweight stuff..  Then maybe we can talk about the changing music business and what a bitch it is to make any money these days.

Anyway, glad to have you on board!  See you on the road.

IT"S SHOWTIME, FOLKS!