Still Truckin'

Hey folks! We made it through the weekend without getting impounded! Mainly due to the generosity of our friends Mark and Melissa Duckworth, who let us borrow their extra car for a few days. However, the fate of our beloved Tahoe

(shown here with genuine Idaho potato antenna, for reception in the most remote areas) is still in limbo as we weigh our options. I personally had fun imagining myself and the band cruising down the highway in this pimped-out $5,000 E-Bay van, but Jodi leans more towards getting something that was built in this century.

Oh, well. I do have a show to look forward to this Friday, at Judge Bean's. It's a Texas-style barbecue place, and I'm hoping to turn it into a semi-regular gig because I love the ambience (and the brisket tacos). I'll be trying out a new bass player and fiddler who I think are going to be great---I'll get some good photos or video for the next post. If you're in the Nashville area, come on out! Peace,

Into the Matrix...

I've got a lot going on this September---local shows, traveling shows, the Americana Music Conference, a label showcase---and figuring out which musicians are available for which shows has gotten complicated. So, for the upcoming month of September I went and made a "Musician Availability Matrix".

There's that college education at work. (OK, junior high.) Hopefully with the help of The Matrix, September will be a smashing success and lead to more shows and perhaps even a record deal. In the meantime, however, we're having a small problem with "agents".....

You see, our faithful Tahoe is up to 324,000 miles, and it never really did pass emissions this year. In fact, our tags have been expired since APRIL. It appears the problem might be with our "fuel metering assembly", which could cost $1000 to fix, so I was kind of hoping to just dodge the cops for a year or so and then get rid of the Tahoe altogether. Well apparently Jodi and I are not naturals at cop avoidance, because yesterday we got our 3RD TICKET for expired tags. The cop (agent) said next time we get pulled over, they're gonna tow it.

We've decided to go ahead and get it repaired, but the shop can't take us until Monday, and that means that this weekend we're going to need to do some serious evasion to make sure we don't end up impounded. Luckily, I am the Chosen One and can bend the natural laws with my mind. (Click photo for mind-blowing demonstration. Windows Media, 1.94 MB)

And if we STILL get busted, we've got the cash to get us out---my TI-83 sold for 69 bucks on E-Bay! Sweet!

Up Late in Cincinnati

Wow, thanks to everybody for the good feedback on the day job problem! In addition to the posted responses on the blog, John Ott recommended the marketing book The Purple Cow which I intend to read, and my good friend Mark Duckworth hooked me up with a couple of interesting possibilities for part-time work. Maybe I would make a good "casual dock worker" operating a forklift...

Or it might work out for me to do some occasional assistance jobs for a sound and lighting company...

Of course, being stuck in a hotel at the moment (and a very nice one at that, courtesy of Northern Kentucky University), I apparently have nothing better to do at the moment than mess around on Photoshop. Man...I should go write a song or something...



PS Jodi wanted to keep the "W" candle holder, so my first EBay experiment is a TI-83 calculator instead. A bit more practical, I suppose. And it's already up to $1.25! Easy street, here we come...

Day Jobs Don't Pay

So I spent all of our savings on the new CD, and the 18 shows that we have on the calendar for the rest of the year are not going to be enough to cover our expenses. I've been flirting with the idea of getting a day job for the first time in 5 years, but I'm afraid I've become way too spoiled...

Spoiled by days like last Thursday when I spent the day at the home studio that used to belong to Alison Krauss, fine tuning the record I've spent so many hours on and learning a lot about how an album is mixed in the process.

Spoiled by days like Monday, when Jodi and I took some Somalian refugee kids to their first day of school in America after we found them sitting on the side of the road with no clue where to go.

Spoiled by days like today when I've spent hours and hours exploring the online world of blogs, podcasts, and message boards, searching for ways to promote the record when it's ready. ("The Nashville Nobody Knows" is one of the best podcasts, if you'd like to check it out here.)

Basically, it seems like if I spend every waking minute of every day working on this career, it MIGHT just happen. After a really dang long time. If I spend 40 hours a week mowing lawns for $9 an hour and relegate music career stuff to late nights and weekends, well....at least I would get a tan while I watched what little career I have tank.

So, I think I'm going to get back to my research now and maybe tonight I'll see what household items I can sell on EBay to pump up our cash flow.

How about this exquisite concrete "W" candle holder? Understated elegance, compliments a wide variety of decors...

Music Wrestling

You know, if you think about it, music is really weird. Why do notes arranged in a major chord sound bright and cheery? Why is it that if you take that middle note and drop it a half step to make it minor that all of a sudden it sounds lonely and mournful? Why does some dude beating on a drum make you want to shake your booty 'till you can't shake it no more? I've spent this entire week studio trying to finish up my record, and I am continually amazed by the complexity and subtlety of even a simple tune.

So you take this nuanced, free-flowing thing called music and you try to capture it and mold it using a system of mics, cables, computers, compressors, plug-ins, and Lord knows what else. Throw in a few factors like social dynamics between the people working on the project, money issues (always a joy), and the random outside issues that life throws at you, and you'll being to understand why it has taken me roughly 10 years to make a decent record.

At least I hope I've made a decent record---I guess time will be the true judge of that. Speaking of time, some of you may be thinking it's way PAST time for this record to come out! If you're one of those people, I just have one thing to say. THANK YOU for actually caring about my music. I am doing everything in my power to make it well worth the wait.

Here are the steps I have left:

1) Mix and master...should be done by the end of August.

2) Artwork...can be done by end of September.

3) Get indie label to pick up the record...I started off with a list of eighteen possibles, that list is now down to eight. Some were too small, some didn't think I was the right genre, some I was told to avoid. A couple said they liked the music a lot but were too busy at the moment with the acts they had already signed. It may take me a few months to follow up with the remaining eight---I'm planning a showcase before too long, and I will also be able to see some of these folks face to face at the Americana Music Conference in September.

4) Talk to some major labels as well....my song plugger has had some major record label folks show interest in seeing my live and hearing more about what I do. I'm admittedly skeptical about whether I would fit on a major, but I'd like to have the conversation anyway. (I've never heard back from Capitol for those of you who are keeping tabs on that.) Hopefully we can get some big label folks out to the showcase here in a month or so.

5) If the labels don't think I'm "developed" enough as an artist, then I release it myself in January of 2006 with the help of a distributor, publicist, and radio promoter. I pray that Tim McGraw (or his equivalent) does a cheesy but overwhelmingly popular version of "Hurry Home" so I can pay for all that stuff, I sell 10,000 copies on my own, and then I get a good indie deal for my NEXT record.

That's the plan Stan. Stay tuned....

The Music Row Diaries Begin!

Hi everybody! Welcome to the auspicious beginning of The Music Row Diaries---the continuing story that began six years ago as Zane's E-mail Adventure.

In 1999 when I started chronicling my intentions to move to Nashville and pursue a career as a singer-songwriter, the "blogosphere" as we now know it was still shrouded in primordial mist. As it evolved, I began to see similarities between the blogs and my own e-mail based journal entries.

Recently, as buzz about blogs grew loud enough for me to finally check them out, I realized that this was the best way to distribute and archive my story. My goal is what is has always been---to document one man's experience chasing the dream of making it in the music business, and to use my story as a springboard for discussing music and life. I have imported one year's worth of E-mail Adventures into the blog to show some of its history, and I hope that the blog format will help me make future posts even more interesting, honest, and useful.

Welcome to the Music Row Diaries...

To the Northwoods and Back

Pull up a chair! I have once again managed to take a trip on which I made lots of memories and very little money, and I'm feeling generous. With the memories.

First off, a tribute to free lunches: this was my happy situation after a very hospitable stay at Northwestern University in a suburb of Chicago:

With a full heart and a full belly, we headed off into the heartland of Wisconsin to find out just where all this wonderful food we have in America comes from. And what do you know, Matt had a friend who happened to be loading his hog truck when we stopped by. It was time to get up close and personal with the pork industry!

I've always thought that I would go just about anywhere if a burly man in overalls were threatening to jam an electrified cattle prod in my backside. Apparently this method works on swine as well. Now that is something you don't see every day....

Unless you live in Goodhue, WI, which apparently a couple of people do. Watching all those hogs being carted off towards certain death of course brought up all kind of questions in our minds about mortality, and why living organisms must kill and eat other living organisms in order to sustain their own life. What we needed was a philosopher, a remote cabin, and some time to get some answers.

Once again, Matt came through and we spent a very pleasurable night in the company of his philosopher friend Steve. However after Steve lost to Matt in chess and told us that his main focus of study is whether or not fictional characters are real, we were unsure about whether or not he really knew any more than we did about the philsophical implications of eating bacon.

Perhaps the answer was all around us, in nature. Matt took a sailing lesson and spent some time contemplating the elements...

But again we were disappointed---Matt didn't come back ashore with any answers, and he insisted thereafter that we call him "Commodore Matt." It was time to take our angst, confusion, and mystic uncertainty and channel it into our music. Luckily the Northwoods Bluegrass Festival was just getting fired up, and they would provide just the audience we needed.

We were very well received by the fun-loving crowd, and everyone was really impressed with the Commodore's mandolin playing. This video plainly shows that after enough cold beer and good music, people are able to put the pain and humiliation of hogs out of their minds for a time and just enjoy life...

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We really did have a great time at the festival in Manitowish Waters, WI. Of course we weren't performing the whole time---we got a chance to relax as we were treated to a soulful performance of "The Milwaukee Waltz".

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Yup, by the end of our stay at the festival we felt like we fit right in up there in the northwoods. Thanks Jerry! But as much as fun as were having with our new friends, it was time to hit that road and get a little closer to our home.

Now I'm back in Nashville, and back to eating sausage, and back to trying to get my record finished. Thank y'all for coming along on our adventures and hope to see you out there on the road soon!! Peace,