Ok, two more videos from Super Art Fight VI and then we’ll move on. This has been a fun way to introduce some of the songs that are being recording in the studio for the next album, Boneslinky! So far I’m really siked about all of the new material.
Bitchmade!
“Bitchmade!” is sort of like the flip side of “Big Fist.” It started as an old man’s first person lament against the modern-ness of today’s male. I get in these crazy moods some days and record demos that sound like this:
In the video, you’ll see that we’re launching kazoos out into the crowd. This gimmick spawned from our children’s band The Hilltop Hightops, and has ended up being a staple of our Flute Squad “office parties.” Mike “Cap’n Mediocrity” Bennett, confessed to me later in the night that he had accidentally nailed someone right in the face with a kazoo. So, yeah, if you come to a show HEADS UP.
TRAM
“TRAM” is one of a few genre-bending tracks on the new album. It’s decidedly non-rock in an album full of pretty hard rock tunes. What’s missing from the live version is this sweet Coldplay-meets-MIDI piano track. TRAM is definitely a NEW new-tune, meaning we haven’t played it out for too long. We’re still working out some of the kinks.
Alot of people have already asked me what the fuck this song is about. I think it’s a bit self-explanatory. It deals with our obsession of Disney, Epcot, Dire Straits, and the phenomenon where wild amusement meets order.
Just wanted to share some videos from Super Art Fight VI with you guys , I’ll be revealing a few other videos on this blog this week. I’m taking this opportunity to explain some of the songs that will be available on the next album, Boneslinky! in a few months.
“Show Us Your Boobs (Buy Me A Beer)” is a song that’s been around for a while. It’s probably the one song that was worked out exclusively in and around the live setting. Rather than our typical cheap idea demo–>play it live—>record it for real method, this song was actually written during the process of playing shows. Like most of our songs, it is one that started out as a joke about the ultimate crowd participation. After repeated attempts at coercing the audience to either:
a.) Showing us boobs
or
b.) Buying us beer
we have ACTUALY seen like, I dunno, 3 boobs and have received the equivalent of a round of beers. In fact, most of this boob-flashing, and beer-giving happens after the show is over. Many people, ACTUAL WOMEN, have told me they love the song, but feel a bit weird about actually showing their tits in a bar filled with 30 people. The lack of beer is just laziness or cheapness I suppose.
Just wanted to share some videos from Super Art Fight VI with you guys , I’ll be revealing a few other videos on this blog this week.
“Big Fist” a song from the upcoming album, Boneslinky! takes on unbridled testosterone-driven rage, one of the comic themes that has become common within The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad, and a theme that is revisited again in yet another song from the Boneslinky! set. I’m a fan of “Big Fist” for the hyper-chromatic riff that runs through the chorus.
As for Super Art Fight, it’s safe to say that this show changed our perception of how great playing live could be. Along with a ton of press and a ton of people showing up, Super Art Fight was a great example of how to partner with an enthusiastic group of people and, for a brief moment, become the center of attention. It’s my type of show. Instead of sitting through three other bands with no good place to escape, there’s a wild circus sideshow vibe with plenty of random things to look at and listen to.
Sure, it’s convenient to blame the sound guy, the fucking cockwad drummer, your mom, or any number of people for why things went wrong at your last show. But that sort of misses the mark, doesn’t it?
This post is dedicated to showing YOU (I mean you, Mr. Reader) how to analyze your own egomaniacal pitfalls when it comes to playing out live.
Guitar Players: Playing at a small/medium sized venue like Charm City Art Space does not call for a full 100 watt Marshall stack. You crank that thing past 4 and you’re basically going to blow out everyone’s eardrums (including your own) and piss off the management, because 50% of the crowd is going to immediately walk out the door.
Plus, dude, see that little black thing pointing at ONE of your 8 speakers? That’s a microphone. It takes the sound coming out of your amp and brings it to the mixing board. Then, the sound guy/girl (the person paid by the venue specifically to make you sound good) EQs the signal from that microphone to get rid of your shrill ice-pick-to-the-brain tone, and sends the resulting, now moderately pleasant audio to speakers that are much bigger and more balanced than your little 12-inch Celestions.
But if your amp is so loud it’s overpowering everything else in the room, the sound person can’t do shit aside from scream at you the entire set to turn it down. And the rest of your band (aside from the drummer, who we’ll get to in a second) is going to be pissed that nobody in the audience could hear anything they were singing/playing.
Drummers: Why do you need 6 toms and 8 cymbals for a show at The Windup Space? It looks ridiculous, it’s impossible to mic, and it just annoys the bands before and after your set who have to wait 30 minutes for you to get that crap on and off the stage.
Believe it or not, some people actually manage to play perfectly well (i.e., better than you) with one tom, one snare, and one cymbal:
Drummers (you get two): If you’re playing in a place the size of a coffee shop, why are you hitting your kit like you’re in a stadium?
Play softer.
If you can’t play softer, use brushes instead of sticks. If you can’t do that then put some muffles on your drums and cymbals. And if you can’t do that then you shouldn’t be playing the gig. Go home.
Bass players: I understand that you need big speakers in order to get those low bass notes. But with the shitty acoustics of most venues, nobody can hear the notes you’re playing, no matter how loud you turn up. So don’t bother; you’re just adding to the mess. Make it as loud as it needs to be for you to hear it, and call it a night. 99% of the time the sound person is going to take a DI line straight out of your amp into the board, and control the volume from there. Trust the sound person. They know their crappy space and how to get the bass to be semi-audible. If you’re trying to overpower them with your amp, they’re just going to turn the DI down, and now all of your attack and clarity is gone and you sound like a big pile of muddy turds.
Vocalists: We all feel bad for you. You’re the only “instrument” that most of the audience gives a shit about, but most of the time we can’t hear or understand a word you’re saying. And if we can by chance hear you, in all likelihood you’re singing out of tune because your monitors won’t cut through the drummer, guitarist, and bassist without feeding back, so you can’t hear yourself. Sucks to be you. You should probably fire your band.
Key Takeaways: Once you’ve recognized the problems of your live setup, it’s time for each band member to analyze what they can do individually to make the whole band sound better. Most of the time it involves losing the ego about your specific job and focusing on the big picture.
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Your Big Amp Is Annoying is written by Ryan Graham, lead guitarist and producer for The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad. Next Week: The tried and true methods of downsizing your live set up or how The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad manages to do their best to sound great (even though we suck and everyone knows it.)
You sound like shit live. No matter where you play, you sound like shit. Big venues, small venues, it doesn’t matter. You think you sound awesome? You’re wrong. You sound like shit.
The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad plays a lot of shows at a lot of venues with a lot of different bands. Many of these bands are technically awesome and have amazing songs, but there’s no way to tell because they sound like a big pile of shit.
Some common symptoms of sounding like shit:
Indistinguishable vocals.
Constant feedback
“Buzz saw” guitar
Snare sounds like you’re hitting a wet cardboard box
Kick drum fights with the bass guitar for all the low frequencies, and they both lose.
It’s a mess, and everyone tunes out or leaves after 2 minutes. Sorry, you’ve failed.
The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad have been playing live since 2005. We’ve been fortunate enough to have Jeff Mewbourn tape most of our performances. His recordings don’t lie. If we sounded like shit, we’ll know it the next day when he posts the audio. So over the years we’ve been able to refine our stage setup to a point where we know we’ll sound as good as possible at any venue we play. Because of lousy acoustics or a bad sound person, we might still sound terrible at any given gig, but we’ll still sound better than the rest of the bands on the bill.
Key Takeaways: Quit blaming the club for your bad sound. Recognize exactly what is not sounding that great at your shows and start to take action in changing these aspects.
•••
Your Big Amp Is Annoying is written by Ryan Graham, lead guitarist and producer of The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad. Next Week: Some of the major setup issues most crappy-sounding live bands have in common.
Special Announcement: Flute Squad singerNikc Miller’s collaboration album with DC-based one-man-band Pilesar is nearly complete.
This full-length album (called Izland of Crooked Houses) is a genre we like to call “Country Weirdstern.” 13 songs that fans of Ween, The Supersuckers, Johnny Cash, and Frank Zappa will thoroughly enjoy.
So here’s how it works:
1. Spend $5 on The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad’s Die Humpin!
2. Stop on over to our Facebook page, and write a one-line review of the album.
3. I’ll contact you and send you Izland of Crooked Houses for FREE.
No strings attached. If you’ve already bought Die Humpin! this applies to you as well.
Write the review and get the full album for nothing. How’s that for incentive?
**Please Note: This will be a digital release that will be available in March of 2010.
We like to think we know how to read. So on occasion we’ll order a book on tape, listen to it, and pretend to understand it. READ THIS is where we get to talk about books we think are worth paying money for. Get this book now.
As a rule, I think all musicians should read more books on marketing. More Pitching Hacks and less Nirvana: The Biography. Why? Because one tells candid advice on what it takes to succeed while the other sensationalizes a path to success that is likely to be 90% embellishment. Ignore EverybodyAnd 39 Other Keys To Creativity is not so much a book on marketing as it is a one-on-one conversation with Hugh MacLeod; a guy who has found moderate success by putting his artistry and wit into cartoon form.
While I have a few gripes with the format and content of the book (I’ll save them for my Amazon review) the benefits of Ignore Everybody ring true throughout.
Key takeaways for me:
1. Define your own path to success
As it becomes more and more apparent here at FluteSquad.com, I am a big fan of setting feasible goals and creating my own success. Ignore Everybody is great for really spelling out the idea that success as an artist comes from your own definition and not some lofty idea only realized when someone “discovers” you.
2. Keep one foot in the real world and the other on a banana peel
This is the inverse of when your parents told you: “Have something to fall back on.” MacLeod doesn’t suggest having a real job as a backup plan for your dream. Instead, he suggests having the real job as a way for you to not have to compromise your dream. Hmm… real job in support of the dream. I like it.
This is important to realize since writing a jingle for a dish soap commercial is the kind of decision you should make only if you want to; not if you have to make your car payment.
3. Never underestimate the rewards of a normal life
Being a rock star is cool, but you only stay young for so long. Once you get a little older being at ritzy parties with a star-studded guestlist gets less appealing. MacLeod reminds us that while playing a rock festival for 60,000 people is cool, having health insurance when you’re 38 years old KICKS ASS.
4. Selling out is harder to do than not
Sorry strong-willed musicians, until you are faced with the decision to sell out, you really don’t have a worthwhile opinion about the matter.
So, notice how the tip that gives the book its title is not on the list? That’s because I found the “ignore everybody” tip that kicks off the book may actually be the weakest tidbit in this short manifesto.
Two reasons why I say you shouldn’t just ignore everybody:
When Die Humpin! came out in 2007 I learned a ton from the people who were brave enough to explain to me why the album was garbage. And while I didn’t agree with them, I refused to ignore them. Instead, I took note of ideas that were previously way off of my radar. I questioned The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad’s rationale and formed opinions that either justified the band’s creative decisions and even changed my mind about a few things. It’s true, you can learn a lot from a hater.
Advice like “ignore everybody” just sprinkles fuel on the fire of people who genuinely have bad ideas. Unlike a lot of the cats who have learned how to live successful and satisfying lives from their blogs, I still believe that good ideas are far less common than bad ideas and not everyone is cut out to write a blog.
Minor gripes aside, Ignore EverybodyAnd 39 Other Keys To Creativity teaches a crucial lesson for artists and musicians alike. Virtue, creativity, and hustle are great. But guess what? TONS of artists and musicians have virtue, creativity, and hustle! The true secret to success involves creating a sustainable and satisfying plan that involves patience and appreciation of creativity’s small rewards.
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If you like this article check this one out:
What The Hell Is This? – An overview of who The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad is and why we started this blog.
In 2010 FluteSquad.com is going to focus on an issue that is near and dear to me: Goal Setting. I personally feel this really is the key to success in any venture both business and personal. The goals you set are a barometer to gauge why some ventures win and some fail.
In this spirit I thought it would be keen to name a few of my goals for the band(s) and then revisit them around Jan 1st 2011 and see how it pans out for us.
Obtain $10,000 in revenue for all three bands
The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad, Wild Bonerz, and The Hilltop Hightops have to step up and make some money this year to keep things rolling. In years’ past, the goal has been to keep the band self-sustained. The numbers on self-sustainment have gotten quite vague, so keeping track of this income should give us all a clearer idea of what works and what doesn’t.
In 2010 I’d like to surpass the self-sustainment goal by actually making us somewhat profitable, perhaps enough so each of us can draw a (very small) retainer salary. With a new album, plenty of merch, and some paying gigs already on the schedule, $10,000 seems totally reachable.
Finish and release The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad’s Bone Slinky!
Thankfully, our follow-up to 2007′s Die Humpin! is well underway. In terms of distributing the album we have to make much wiser decisions. This includes pressing less physical copies and pushing for more digital sales. Die Humpin! was a great experiment with many successes in execution but many mistakes in distribution.
Create 30 posts specific to goal-setting for bands on this site.
This means an emphasis on informative and tactical advice as opposed to the typical band news posts. Of course there will also be book reviews, venue reviews and band news. However the almost-weekly tactical post is going to be something I seriously need to gain discipline to acheive.
As part of this theme, most posts will contain some notation about the specific purpose of doing whatever it is we are suggesting to do. For example, if a post is about downsizing your live setup, there will be a note stating how following this advice should accomodate the overall goal of helping a band become successful.
Obtain official endorsement from Party City
The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad is famous for our endorsement from Michael Guitar, a fledgling guitar distributor that seemingly went under shortly after giving us a ton of gear. To be fair, we more than delivered on our half of the bargain. For 2010, I would like to approach Party City or some other costume-outfitter with a deal to endorse their brand. Party City is our store of choice for costumes so it naturally seems like a good fit.
Significantly build our mailing list
Regrettfully, in the past, I’ve missed every opportunity to build a successful mailing list for the band. This is a HUGE mistake that I plan to fix in 2010. I’m not sure of a specific number of subscribers to reach for, I just know that our efforts need to be stepped up significantly. Oh, by the way, Please Sign Up For Our Mailing List to get free music and find our when our blog is updated.
We didn’t make any music videos for the songs of Die Humpin! because as much as that seems like the proper step marketing-wise , music videos by even the best independent bands are usually ineffective. We do, however, find it important and fun to make short films, spoofs, and documentaries that feature the band.
Why not a music video? Honestly, because as difficult as it is to get people to give a shit about your song it might be even more difficult when that song comes attached to a video. This is because downloading and listening to music can be passive, but video-watching is always active. It seems to be alot easier to gain a little viral traction for your band by taking something that’s already popular and putting a unique spin on it.
We were thoroughly amazed when we saw the original Amish Fireplace commercial a little over a year ago. Mike (Captain Mediocrity) and I went to the hardware store and bought everything we needed to build our own Amish Computer Mantle. On a Dollars Per Second scale, this has to be the most expensive short we’ve ever made.
As a reference for touring bands we are attempting to create a library of reviews of the venues we have played. Most of these venues are in and around the Baltimore area. We attempt to review the venues from the perspective of a performing band (sound, environment, staff, money situation, etc.) For more specific information CONTACT US
Three words why we always have a good time at The Windup Space: Dune. Rock. Opera.The guys from Bene Gesserit Witch keep inviting us to play at The Windup Space, and it’s that rare gig where we don’t have the most elaborate costumes of the night.
The Windup Space is at the high end of the non-dedicated music venues we’ve played at.There isn’t any backstage area, but they do have a decent sized stage area and the venue itself is fairly large. The PA and sound guy are solid (my personal experience has been good: he helped me kill the feedback on my acoustic bass) and the sound has been good for us and the other bands on the bill.
There’s always a good crowd, and while we’d like to take credit for that the real reason is The Windup Space itself and the heavy foot traffic in the Station North Arts District. I know performers are going to have a hard time with this, but try to show up early. Parking will fill up on North Avenue, so unless you want to park on the side streets under a blue light and lug your gear a few blocks, get there at the earliest time for load-in. Then go get a pizza at Joe Squared or some New York Fried Chicken and have a couple beers back at The Windup Space.
I rate the band-booze situation as above-average. They do a ticket scheme, I think 2-3 per member (we always seem to end up with more than enough), good for imports as well as swill. At venues that do drink tickets, Nikc will frequently offer his up to the first person who buys merch, or sometime just give them away, which makes a nice (although honestly not always effective) promotional tool.
