Monday
If you enjoyed the You-Tube video which Thaddeus pointed out, you can find the main track and much more at the band's web site: Stuck Mojo Media.
As I spent a good chunk of my life on the bottom end of the music business I know what life there is like. Let us just say I never gave up my day job.The cost of instruments, equipment, recording, new strings for each major gig and not to mention the bar tab... make a musicians life a tough one. Even if you do have the day job to live on, you spend your life in deep levels of sleep deprivation. The only thing which keeps you going is the buzz you get from the audience. Please show these guys your gratitude by buying their music or putting something in their tip jar.
Do your part to make sure they can keep doing what they are doing!
I recommend buying the CD. You get a nice signed version.
The album is pretty good actually.
Posted by oliver at April 2, 2007 12:11 PM
It's a business expense. Fun too, but you gotta hang with the public, hang with the bar managers, the people who book, and if you get a bit further up the chain, hang with the A&R guys and gals.
If you ain't actin' cool you don't get a followin' man.
Sometimes I do miss it...
Posted by Dale Amon at April 2, 2007 01:12 PM
Yes, they are quite good. Even apart from the content, most of which I like, they are top notch musicians and really rock. If I walked into a bar and heard sounds like this, I'd stay to last call.
Posted by Dale Amon at April 2, 2007 01:16 PM
Jeez. I wish in my game I could count getting pissed as a business expense.
Posted by Nick M at April 2, 2007 01:20 PM
You're an interesting man Dale.
Rock 'n' Roll to Rocket control !
Good musicians, but thrash Metal has never pulled my chain.
For myself, I always hang with the A&R folk
I havent paid for a drink at a gig in decades.
Posted by RAB at April 2, 2007 02:01 PM
Drinks and sometimes more. I spent a night out in NYC with some friends who were in town touring while I was on a day-job type gig there and the A&R picked up the dinner tab (about 15 people) and were still buying pints at the after hours club somewhere uptown near dawn...
Posted by Dale Amon at April 2, 2007 02:07 PM
Incidentally RAB... the best blues guitarist in Belfast is a Rab as well. Rab McCullogh. A *really* nice guy too.
Posted by Dale Amon at April 2, 2007 02:10 PM
Funnily enough I have a copy of Belfast Breakdown.
Yes he is a bloody good guitarist !
All us RAB's are nice guys :-)
Posted by RAB at April 2, 2007 02:37 PM
Dale said:
If you ain't actin' cool you don't get a followin' man.
Such a shame the reverse isn't true. I spent much of my teens trying to make it in bands. As Dale says, it costs.
These days I play in a wedding band. Sad in some respects, but I still get a fantastic buzz playing live and I get paid well into the bargain.
Posted by Eamon Brennan at April 2, 2007 02:54 PM
Anyone trying to make it as an artist in the music industry would do well to read Steve Albini's exposition of The Problem With Music before they start.
Posted by Johnny Surabaya at April 2, 2007 03:24 PM
That's the spirit Eamon !
I have friends in Cardiff who are good musicians but left it a bit late for a career and play weddings and benefits etc. They are never short of a gig, but it's the buzz they do it for !
Whilst we are on the subject of music, can I get a plug in here for a couple of old friends who are on the telly BBC2, 8oclock Wednesday.
Neneh and Andi - Dishing it Up !
It's a rock'n'roll cookery programme ! but I guarantee that they will be 5000 times more entertaining than Ainsley friggin Harriot!
Posted by RAB at April 2, 2007 03:25 PM
RAB:
Rab is an old, old friend and I've done some digital video of his band playing at the Empire in recent years. Trouble is, I have nowhere to put it on line at present since my old server at UTV went footpads up last year.
I'm hoping that when we get the Wyoming business kicked off, I'll again be able to afford to get myself a private server.
Personally I think music and being an entrepreneur go hand in hand. In either business you have to learn how to survive on next to nothing while you try to create your big break, however long it may take.
It's simply amazing how long you can survive on tuna fish. ;-)
Posted by Dale Amon at April 2, 2007 11:53 PM
I can also recommend buying the CD, it's signed, but it takes ages to arrive via surface mail so get your order in a.s.a.p.
Posted by David B. Wildgoose at April 3, 2007 08:22 AM
I have been in email contact with the lads and they are also rather nice blokes. I played a couple of their tracks on my show Dodging Reality which got a good response. Some of the band members solo stuff is pretty good as well. They are probably the only purveyors of rap-metal I can stand. Their latest is a good CD nonetheless.
Ironic Steve Albini has written a screed against the music business considering some of the dross he was responsible for peddling. I would recommend my pamphlet on the dire state of the UK music scene as well.
Speaking of getting pissed thanks to A&R types. I am off to a showcase gig on Thurs. night in Camden. The last three I went to sponsored by Tourdates.co.uk were very hairy affairs. Good up & coming bands too mind.
Posted by Andrew Ian Dodge at April 3, 2007 10:52 AM
"It's simply amazing how long you can survive on tuna fish. ;-)"
Once I started working in rock touring lights, my cat ate better than I did for years. I only made it because I was young and didn't know any better.
Of course, there's not way that I'd care to live like that again, but I wouldn't have missed it for anything. It really was a damned good time.
Posted by Billy Beck at April 3, 2007 10:53 AM
