Joel – Year in Review

April 1 – The Year In Review

This will be a lot longer than usual, as it’s a summary of the first year of my two-year attempt to make enough money (or at least show definite progress and continued positive trajectory) to keep being a full-time musician.

I should asterisk that, but the way I see it the temp job (helping grade ISTEP papers for a few weeks) that Amy & I are M-F-ing at is just a little extra pocket cash, like selling instruments or M:tG cards, et al. But it has been a very slow winter.

So, exactly 1 year ago I took the plunge into full-time musician status. I thought I knew what I was doing (which was the alternate title for this piece). I knew virtually nothing. I had talent, including the ability to teach and to lead a band, but not much else. It was actually worse than that, as the four months before had seen the crashing & burning of both The Future Retros (Jan 1, 20111) and the first time I’d had to cancel a gig (Feb 14, 2011) which effectively broke up Amy’s & my 9-year partnership. Cathy & I hadn’t played together in a long time; the S&G show was running toward a zero-dollar period, and there were no bookings in sight. I did not know how to run my recorder, did not have the right gear or backups for playing multiple venues, and had never played at a Farmer’s Market. I had no replicating, packing or imprinting gear. Outdated (2 bands ago) web site, no media presence, and had not had name in Nuvo or played major club for ages.

The money has barely come in enough for me to cover up through this month with an ever-increasing (since I began paying it) budget amount, but I need cash to pay for May. So that is the only part that’s not anywhere close to up to speed yet. But in all of the other areas, there’s been so much progress it’s almost up to “crank out merch, drop promo packs, finish complete EPKs, and publicize, publicize, publicize. A year of solid PR with some concrete backing and there will be a guaranteed year three.

So here’s where all of those other pieces stand right now, on the anniversary:

Overall

• I now know a lot more of what I’m doing, what’s a time-waster, what are good time investments, what I can do great, and what causes me real difficulty.

Acts

• The Future Retros are up and running, not only better than ever, but able to do four completely different acts:
  • The Alternative/’80’s show can be done as a 2-setter, 3 with enough originals and a couple oldies thrown in
  • The Classic Rock/R&B show is full night.
  • The Originals show can go two sets.
  • Add RBS – The Country show can do 4 sets
    • Working on Eagles sub-set for Country or S&G style work
• Joel & Amy are now an established and respected musical duo with a unique sound, doing any songs from any of their projects from Indiscretion through Cyan Aura.to The Future Retros and additional songs unique to their duo (Act 5).
• Joel & Robert are adding to the S&G show and trying to get last year’s lucrative bookings on the schedule again (Act 6).
  • Joel & Robert also can do a 2-set Originals and a 2-3 Set Standards act (Act 7).
• Joel & Cathy can now do both a solid Jazz Standards night and a 2-set Light Rock act (Acts 8 & 9).
• Joel can now do solo gigs (although none are currently booked) (Act 10).

Bookings

• The S&G act hit the Artsgarden
• The J&R Standards act hit the Mel
• J&C hit the Mel
• J& A hit Birdy’s
• TFR hit the Mel
• J&A, J&C, J&R all hit Farmer’s Markets
• J&R (S&G went around the State on a Coffee Shop tour
• TFR hit the American Legion
• The Country project played a private party as a “pre-debut”
  • Future Bookings:
    • Joel & Amy – Hosting Birdy’s monthly open stage through end of the year
    • TFR – Three Moose Lodge Gigs through September
    • Starting to apply to Festivals & Libraries (Amy’s help w/Festivals)
    • J&C booked at Artsgarden
    • Country act booked at Artsgarden
    • Several places under 1^st/2^nd contact currently

Recording

• Have learned all the basics of my TASCAM and recorded dozens of tracks for promo kits
• Recorded a complete, start-to-finish CD of Cathy & me (each track a single live take).
• Recorded – and was able to do a mix fix – Il Troubadore’s new CD (recording in 1 day; the mixing/mastering/one track fix took a lot of time, but sounds great).

Gear

• Traded or sold over a dozen pieces to get the right back-ups,
• All gear fixed except back-up 4-string bass (Hofner Beatles-bass!)
• Enough gear to play off battery-powered system (e.g. Farmer’s Markets)
• Replicator, Imprinter, Shrink-wrapper
• Enough software to begin creating songs for Rock Band (Act 11)

Web Site

• Redesigned, updated, still in process, but with weekly blogs, audios, videos, excerpts, pics, calendars, etc. for several of the key acts
• Working on a final overhaul which will give one-click EPKs for all 10 acts (not the Rock Band project, which is separate and non-performing).

Media

• In Nuvo (Amy & I running the Birdy’s Monthly Open Stage)
• In Nuvo (playing the Mel several times)
• In Artsgarden media (for various acts playing the Artsgarden
• Have begun a Facebook/MySpace/YouTube presence
• Started investigating other media as well

Am I where I wanted to be and thought I could be one year in? No, but my expectations were unrealistic. Have I now got everything in place? I think so. With Nancy doing the Web Site (shout out to Nancy, yay! Thank you!), Amy actively participating in the business (and keeping me from bogging down, shout out to Amy, yay! {Kermit-like arm-flapping for the ‘yay’]) and Robert, Steven, and Cathy poised to help with bookings/merchandising/PR/advertising/media, at least in a small targeted way, everything is ready to go. Bottom line: If I make the same amount of progress this year as last, all of these acts will make money. And 11 acts making money each month should, by end of the year, be enough progress to add Year Three.

Joel Conner

Tagged: Careers, Music Business

Posted in: Artistic Living