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[I started this a couple of weeks ago...and since then Steve has written a couple of blogs with his take on the same issues....Is he stealing from me?? I don't know. But after watching Hedwig last night I think I'm going to have to keep a closer eye on him. ;)]

The musicians life is a hard one. Not only because most people regard creative fields as a hobby rather than a real life job, but also because of our willingness to do everything speculatively in hope that something will eventually come of it. Steve told me once that “we’re our own worst enemies because we love what we do” and that is so true. Now I can hear someone out there now saying…”stop complaining….you may not get paid much but at least you love your job!” Yes, and the age-old saying that you can’t live on love alone certainly applies here.

For many of us, there is no school that can teach what we do. Our work is a mixture of years of real world study, fleeting emotions, tragedy, and hope. Every note we write a piece of history saved from the ashes of charred memories. Every song a blanket woven from future hopes and past disappointments. Yet we are seen as children, refusing to grow up and get a career.

This is never so apparent as when you are managing your own career. You’re expected to have a middle-man of sorts in order to be taken seriously. If you don’t have a label, a manager, a publicist, and a booking agent…then you are obviously an amateur. I get so frustrated constantly explaining to people that I have no desire to be famous. I want to write, I want to perform, I want to connect. I also want to be paid fairly to do these things…but I don’t need a private plane and millions to be happy. I’m happy with train fare and a few thousand extra in the bank.

So as a singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist with 20+ years of experience, why is it that people still expect me to do my job for free? I’m not talking about recorded music here, I’m talking about playing shows and festivals that are patronised by thousands of people.

While I don’t think that anyone has a right to a living just because they are a talented musician…I also don’t think that people have the right to deprive me of a living just because we’ve created a culture that feels that we shouldn’t have to pay for music. The inequity that exists in the world of music is part of the problem here; the whole rock-star dream. Much like the American dream….it’ll just cause you to live aspirationally rather than practically and that can be a dangerous pitfall.

The problem comes when I voice this to others. Unless this person is a seasoned musician…these words will cause me to lose credibility. How can I say that I have no desire for fame and fortune? Isn’t that the reason that one becomes a musician in the first place? To avoid studying medicine, or the law? To avoid being part of the establishment?

Deciding to be a musician is not a quest of avoidance…but a labour of love. There are quite a few assumptions that we need to get over…

1. Wouldn’t it be great if everyone knew who you were?
No, this would suck. How would you ever live a normal life? Imagine having video chat open ALL THE TIME. Think you have lots of people in your life now who like to tell you how to live? Imagine having hundreds of thousands of those, even millions. Nice.

2. It’d be cool to be treated like a rock star all the time.
Again, your record label is happy to spend YOUR MONEY treating you like a rock star and other people will be willing to do the same because they think fame is some magical dust that will rub off on them. Once you’re out of money and hit songs it’s back to being NORMAL. Additionally, being treated like a star doesn’t make you a better musician…as a matter of fact I’d imagine it has the opposite effect.

3. Doing a huge tour across the world is fun.
No, it’s really not. Ask anyone who has done it. Grass roots tours with people you like are much more fun because you’re hanging with friends and leaving more time for exploration and doing it on your own terms. You don’t need to answer to anyone and your schedule is your own.

I don’t have answers for all the problems that exist in our lives as musicians. I do know that I’m beyond happy that I am able to do what I love for a living…but, until we change our thinking about what it means to be a musician I can’t see our lives getting any easier. But I suppose as Al Bernstein once said…“Easy doesn’t do it.”

Hi my lovelies! I’m very very excited to be able to inform you that there are lots of gigs coming up and I hope you’ll attend at least one, if not two and iffen you really like us a lot….ALL FOUR!

#1 Freedom of expression Croydon
Steve and I will both have a 30 min set for this one…I’m sure we’ll play a few tunes together as well!
When: Tue Jul 22 08 08:00 PM
Where: Freedom of Expression @ Green Dragon Croydon, , Croydon, UK

#2 Freedom of Expression…The Perseverance, Marylebone
When: Fri Jul 25 08 08:00 PM
Where: the Perseverance, 11 Shroton St, Marylebone, London, NW1 6, UK

#3. My friend Peter Katz….http://www.peterkatz.com has come all the way from Toronto, and we’re playing a gig at The Good Ship on Sunday the 27th! It’s free to attend…but we’ll charge you to leave. Keep that in mind.
When: Sun Jul 27 08 07:30 PM
Where: The Good Ship, 289 Kilburn High Road, Kilburn, London, NW6 7JR, UK

#4. Another lovely gig at DARBUKA! This time we will again be featuring Lloyd Davis, and then a lovely trio with me, Steve, Steve’s new glasses, Steve’s ego, and ROY DODDS! Wait, that’s more than 3. Actually just Steve, Roy and myself. I think most of you know that I’m all about Roy Dodds and am so excited about playing with him for the first time. It’ll be very exciting indeed!
When: Tue Jul 29 08 07:00 PM
Where: Darbucka World Music Bar, 182 St John’s Street, Clerkenwell, London, LONDO, EC1 4JZ, UK

A dear friend of mine recently wrote a column on a love/advice blog. His general theme was how women blame men for placing unrealistic expectations on them so that they are struggling the rest of their lives to appear young and perfect whilst men are allowed to become paunchy, grey and bald as part of the normal aging process. His consensus was that we give men too much credit. That men aren’t intelligent enough to mastermind such a skillful plan and although they are happy to encourage such “ongoing maintenance”, are not the perpetrators of pristine. He goes on to name women as the ones who place unrealistic expectations on themselves; through a competitiveness of spirit. So ladies, what do you think? Are we fighting a losing battle against ourselves?

I of course disagree with some of Kev’s article. I think men do place a lot of importance on looks. Almost all the women with serious body issues I know were told by a male figure in their young lives that there was something wrong with their physicality. My biological father told me when I was young that I was “fat” and would never get a boyfriend until I lost weight. Another friend of mine had a male family member tell her that she had “fat legs”. We’ve carried these emotional weights with us throughout the entirety of our lives and believe me, they weigh in a lot heavier than what it tells me on the scale. While it’s not the fault of the whole of the male race…I’m sorry boys but I don’t think we can totally exonerate you.

I do agree with Kev that women are competitive. REALLLY competitive at times. No one has ever been harder on me than I’ve been on myself, and I’ve rarely seen a man be CRUEL in the same way I see women be to one another on a daily basis, myself included. Why do we feel the need to do this? Why must we constantly critique the style and body type of other women? I can only speak for myself here and say that I do it because I feel inadequate. I feel some weird sense of guilt that I’m not doing more to make myself look perfect. When I see someone truly lovey, I feel the need to pick at something. It’s a type of feminine psychosis really.

In another way, I feel that we’re just continuing a trend that been going on since the beginning of civilised society. Women as the so-called weaker sex, have been expected to conform throughout history to be the embodiment of whatever trend was meant to personify femininity at that particular time. It’s all very political. What about bound feet? This was considered extremely erotic in the Qing dynasty…but beyond eroticism it limited a woman’s mobility and cause her to be dependent on her family for the rest of her life. In the 1800’s it was whalebone corsets, causing some women to actually have ribs removed in order to cinch their waists a bit tighter. All this in order to compete for a more desirable husband. Today it’s liposuction, breast implants and plastic surgery. We no longer need someone else to take care of us, so why do we still allow ourselves to compete for an ideal that is unattainable?

Because beneath the surface of our society, the perception of physical attractiveness still has a hand in dictating our place in it. I think sometimes people forget that women had to fight for that place (relatively recently I might add), that we’re still fighting. We’ve allowed society to sell us a fantasy that says if we look a certain way that our lives will be fulfilled; while we totally ignore the problems that exist beneath our skin. We’re depicted in the media as sex-objects; yet expected to be chaste according to our religion. We’ve got a lot of issues, and rightly so. Perhaps we could all take a lesson from the following anonymous declaration of self-esteem….

I am me.

In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me. There are persons who have some parts like me, but no one adds up exactly like me. Therefore, everything that comes out of me is authentically mine because I alone chose it.

I own everything about me - my body, including everything it does; my mind, including all its thoughts and ideas; my eyes, including the images of all they behold; my feelings, whatever they may be - anger, joy, frustration, love, disappointment, excitement; my mouth, and all the words that come out of it, polite, sweet or rough, correct or incorrect; my voice, loud or soft; and all my actions, whether they be to others or to myself.

I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears.

I own all my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes.

Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me. By so doing I can love me and be friendly with me in all my parts. I can then make it possible for all of me to work in my best interests.

I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other aspects that I do not know. But as long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously and hopefully look for the solutions to the puzzles and for ways to find out more about me.

However I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time is me. This is authentic and represents where I am at that moment in time.

When I review later how I looked and sounded, what I said and did, and how I thought and felt, some parts may turn out to be unfitting. I can discard that which is unfitting, and keep that which proved fitting, and invent something new for that which discarded.

I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do. I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive, and to make sense and order out of the world of people and things outside of me.

I own me, and therefore I can engineer me.

I am me and I am okay.

Things have been a bit busy around here but I’m finally getting back to updating you on what’s happened of late with sonicbids. Lou Paniccia is a credit to the sonicbids team as he is so on top of everything that’s going on out there and fielding complaints and comments and getting a resolution or at least setting the wheels in very quickly. It must be a pretty difficult position to be in given the controversy of late surrounding their business practices. Lou assures me that they are doing their best to resolve all the issues so please do not hesitate to contact him.

So here’s my original list of unresolved issues and Lou’s answers (quoting his emails with permission) to what is going on with them…

Music ¬ The Sound of Independents and The Indie Music Fund have placed you on Standby. You can view the messages they have sent you in the My Submissions tab of your Submit to Gigs section. Both appear to have you on Standby for this long duration because they wish to keep you on file: The Sound of Independents is waiting for the appropriate program to put you on, and the Indie Music Fund is still generating funds to reach their first milestone. Sonicbids assists you in getting your EPK to the promoter, as well as ensuring that they view and consider your EPK but once there is a notification, it is up to the artist and promoter to begin correspondence (kinda like buyers and sellers on eBay).

He then provided me with email adresses for them.

We talked with the New Music Showcase Television Show (Season 3) promoter yesterday, and they should be updating the status for submissions that are past their status notification due date in the next week or so.

We have not contacted the promoter for GuitarTam Music just yet, because they have status notifications set to get back to artists within 60 days of their submission (this would be July 5 for you). You can see the status notification date by clicking the “Status” button next to your submission under the “My Submissions” tab in the Promoter Drop Box. That being said, I noticed this promoter commented on your blog post.

Considering that GuitarTam was the one company I didn’t take a swipe at in my original post, I can safely say I won’t be hearing positive news about my submissions there. Here’s an excerpt of her comment to me…“Additionally artists that make multiple submissions of the same type of song does themself a dis-service you would be much better served to select two very different styles. I don’t need to hear the 300th singer songwriter submission that has hit my box for the day. I’m sure your turn of lyric is fantastic, but what sets it apart from the other 299 I JUST HEARD…. nothing then skip on to the next one.” Nice. You can read her comment on the first sonicbids post.

So there you go. I really do think that sonicbids is trying to do right by everyone. I also think (speaking for myself here) that a lot of us don’t have time to go chasing up promoters when they don’t respond (she says writing a 2000 word blog). I was on tour 7 months out of last year, I barely had time to answer emails and quickly update my sites. I think that’s what I believed I was paying sonicbids to do. The responses that I received from promoters within sonicbids were little more than form letters. None of them had my name on them. If I had gotten a personal email from the promoter telling me they were keeping me on standby to consider me for future shows then none of this would have been an issue. In turn I would have known I could contact the promoter directly.

Moving on….Amy from Clatter (they’re amazing…go have a listen!) posted a very open and honest response in the original post:

ClatterAmy said:

That’s funny, I’ve been thinking a lot about SonicBids lately. We recently received an e-mail from them saying the status of one of our submissions had been updated. We were declined for something we submitted to in July…2003!!

We actually canceled our SonicBids account last year. After spending over $300 in submissions alone (talk about feeling embarrassed!) it finally dawned on us that it was nigh on impossible to be selected out of the gazillion bands who were submitting entries. Now, this isn’t necessarily the fault of SonicBids; it’s hard to vie for a slot in a large festival or conference no matter how you submit your material. But when we saw that random clubs, including one in our hometown, had listings where you could pay $5-10 to be considered for a show, that just seemed weird. That smacks more of pay-to-play, but what’s worse is there’s no guarantee you’ll even get a show.

What has been irking me this week is that there are a couple of opportunities we’d like to be considered for but the only submission path is through SonicBids. I’ve written to ask if there are other options but have gotten no response. I suppose festivals, clubs, tours, etc. get enough entries through SonicBids to keep them plenty busy so missing out on a few outsiders isn’t any big deal to them, but I find it frustrating.

Well, like everything else in the music business, this is fluid and before long another paradigm shift will push musicians and industry folk into a completely different mode of communication. But I still can’t help but feel a little duped.

ClatterAmy said..

Hey Lo,

Thanks for forwarding the message from the Sonicbids Artist Relations manager. For those who are following this thread, the Sonicbids folk do a good job of making sure any complaints or concerns do not go unanswered, including mine. Their diligence is commendable, and practically unheard of in the music industry (and the world at large, I’m afraid!).

We can’t wait to come back to the UK! We’ll count on you being there!

The last thing I have to talk about is the disappearing comments that Lou made on another site claiming that sonicbids were not being investigated by the FTC. He saw a mention of this on either mine or Steve’s twitter and emailed to say thanks for the heads up…that they were erased due to an overzealous spam filter. I’ve never known spam filters that target already approved and moderated comments, but I am only relaying what I have been told. The comments are now back along with an explanation.
Here’s details if you want to follow up on the sonicbids site as detailed in Lou’s email,

We’re working on a number new features that will fix most of the submission problems we’ve been hearing about. I recently announced one of the new features we’re building to improve the submission review process here:

http://lounge.sonicbids.com/200/

We’re also in the process of checking in with existing promoters to help resolve any open submissions that are overdue for a status update, like yours was. In your post, a good place to direct your readers where they can track our progress on implementing features that resolve existing issues is the new Builder’s Blog we put up (http://lounge.sonicbids.com/category/authors/builders-blog/). It’s one thing to express our good intentions. We know that delivering on them is all that matters. We’re investing a lot of time, energy and money in the service right now, and this is where the improvements will be announced on an ongoing basis.

I still have the same issues I had with sonicbids when I began posting about this but they are trying hard to fix the problems. They are listening folks, so if you have something to say please say it.

Hi lovelies. Thanks for all the feedback on this! So last night I got an email fom Lou P. the artist relations manager for sonicbids. He was very nice despite the very harsh terminology I used in my post. He said that they were going to look in to the 5 opportunities that I’d applied for and get back to me within a few days. I’ll keep you up to date. I’ve gone back and tried to read some stuff from the previous day, doing more research for facts and figures… and have found that some of the things I read on various forums are no longer there. Hmmm…very curious. Please feel free to share your stories good or bad about sonicbids as I think they’re listening.

xoLo.