Collective Pursuit tonight @ Europa Night Club

Tonight I will be performing with Collective Pursuit, an 8 piece jazz ensemble packed with talented players. We're part of a night of performance art where bands and painters will collaborate to create a larger experience. If you're in NYC, come to Greenpoint, Brooklyn to and be a part of the event:

Collective Pursuit @ Europa Night Club
11:30pm - 12:30am
Featuring Cody Brown (d), Craig Akin (b), Bobby Avey (p), Cameron Mizell (g), Luke Malewicz (tb), Michael Eaton (ts), Jackie Coleman (tp), and Kt Chauvot (tp)

Europa Night Club
98 Meserole Ave. (at Manhattan Ave)
Brooklyn, NY 11222
Visit my calender to see more of my performance schedule.

To do list.

When I started this blog, I intended to write something every day to keep me focused on whatever I was actually doing to build this little business of being a musician. It's been a great exercise. I typically sit here and just think through my fingers, organize my thoughts, and then put them into action. If anyone reads it, that's an added bonus (Hi, Mom).

If I haven't had anything interesting to say recently it's because I have so MUCH interesting things to say, or at least things I think are interesting and frankly my dear don't give a damn if you do or not. Some of the articles/posts in the pipeline:

-Metadata! What's that? I'll tell you, and why I think it's important. Who am I kidding... I'll link to the Wikipedia page and then tell you why I think it's important for musicians.

-Gigs! No, not computer memory, but the things musicians do that supposedly makes them all their money while everyone downloads their music for free. Which brings me to our next topic...

-Free! Again, my thoughts about giving away music, but this time why the idea of rampant downloading frustrates the hell out of the people that actually invest their creative energy, time, and money into the music, aka artists. I'm one of them, yet I'm indifferent about the downloading and I'll tell you why.

-Music Entrepreneurship! I was asked what I thought about a Masters degree that would essentially prepare students to do more or less what I do. It's a really interesting concept. How do you make this successful? I don't know, but I'll write down my thoughts.

And a few still shaping up in my head. Many of these will be posted at the new website Dave Hahn and I started:

http://www.musicianwages.com

If you haven't checked it out, please do. There are a lot of posts there so far, and a forum for discussions amongst musicians. If you have a question, ask it in the forum. Dave, myself, or one of the other great musicians that are contributing to the site will try to answer it, or find someone that can.

Blogging is just my side gig, though. The real reason I haven't been writing much recently is because I've been BUSY. And it's great. I'm writing a lot of music, practicing a lot, and continually working on some recording or another. Outside of my trio, I've been playing two other gigs:

Collective Pursuit. An 8 piece modern jazz group playing music composed by all members, under the leadership of trumpeter KT Chauvot. Loaded with talent, the band has really started to come together after getting some gigs under our collective belt. This gig definitely keeps my reading, arranging, and jazz chops in shape. We recorded three songs for a demo, and have been recording some of the shows as well. Check the MySpace page every now and then for more music.

Lauren Zettler. I'm not really a huge fan of the term "singer/songwriter" because it's so vague, but it's a good place to start when talking about Lauren's music. She's a fantastic singer and her writing gets better with every song. It's folk/pop/rock/alt-country/grunge/alternative/klezmer/reggae at it's best. Hopefully that make you curious enough to go listen to some of her music. I've played several shows and have been recording with her, something that will be released in the next couple months. I practice the "less is more" approach to playing her music, which is something every instrumentalist needs to do. Whatever the song needs, I try to do. This sometimes means playing mandolin or even harmonica, and sometimes NOT playing (what?!?). Lucky for Lauren, I'm a fantastic dancer and bust out the Hammer whenever I have more than 8 bars of rest.

I'm also starting a band with my good friend Eric Clay, formerly of Team Tomato. Eric and I started our first band in junior high, sold it three years later for $64 million, and are doing this start up for the same reasons. Actually, that's not true, but how cool would that be? Anyway, we've been writing music and will hopefully record some of it in the next couple months. This is a straight up rock band--the kind my wife was embarrased to tell her mom about. Her end of that conversation went something like, "Oh yeah, Eric has moved up here. Yeah, he's living with his girlfriend. Him and Cam are uh, writing some music together, and uh, you know, playing guitar." Just say we're starting a band! Although, it does kind of sound like something you do in junior high. My band phase. There are a couple people still waiting for me to get out of that one.

All the while I'm also trying to find time to finish another album of cover songs with my friend and singer Matt Ketteman. Matt has recorded all his vocal tracks, and now it's up to me to make the music sound good. I find myself being such a perfectionist that I usually get fed up with my results after adding a few parts and moving onto another project. I can't pinpoint what the problem is exactly, but this would probably be easier if I wasn't trying to do it alone. Matt, take a vacation. Come hang out with me for a week so you can press record, stop, undo, record, stop, undo, etc.

As I'm working on this stuff, my cat will be taking my calls. She's more likely to answer if you call between 4:27 and 6:51 in the morning, when she's usually knocking things off my bookshelf. The rest of the time, she's catching up on her sleep or taking a lunch break.

The excuse didn't work in college, either.

Keeping Up.

I've never been much of a tech freak or computer nerd or what-have-you, but I am pretty particular about certain things and like my HTML code nice and tidy.

Tonight I was putting together a web page for somebody. I taught myself web design about 5 years ago with a couple books. My first website looked awful, and the following two were a little better. The last time I redesigned my site was in the summer of 2007, just after my latest CD came out. Back then, it was still somewhat important to have your own website. Now that's just icing on the cake if you have a profile for every social networking site out there. I think they keep a running count of those things on a clock in Times Square. It's around 10 trillion now. What's that? Oh right, that's the national debt. Both are about as hopeless. I've digressed.

I need to redesign my site sometime soon, but it feels like I need to learn how to do it all over again. How are you supposed to keep up if you only do it once every 18 months? I've considered hiring somebody to do it for me, but then I hear nightmares about unresponsive web designers.

Oh well. I'm starting a rock band with my friend Eric. At least I get to make a new MySpace page.

Twitter

There are at least 4,397 social networking blog websites for us to choose from, and for those of you out there doing the whole independent musician thing, you realize that you're only cool if you have profiles on at least 1,000 of them. Bonus points if actually log into them all once a month.

My approach has been to focus on one at a time and see what happens. I set up a Twitter account on August 11 after reading some press about how various companies are using it for customer service and bands are able to... etc. Enough for me to check it out.

The first thing I noticed was that many of my friends were already on Twitter, but most had stopped using it. Next I noticed that I'm long winded, because Twitter is a mini blog, and you can only post 140 characters and spaces or less. That's hard for us Mizells.

Other problems... how often do you Tweet? Should new Tweets have anything to do with previous Twits? Is it lame if you only Tweet once a day?

In any case, I have found some interesting information thanks to Twitter. Plus the search function allows you to track queries that might be relevant to you. I'm following terms as varied as "Cameron Mizell" and "cameronmizell" and "Cameron Mizell is awesome." So far the RSS feed is empty, but I haven't given up all hope!

In all seriousness, I'm trying this out for a while to see what happens. This is the only way to figure out what sites work best for me. Ultimately, I'm just trying to reach a few more people that might enjoy my music.

Follow me at Twitter!

Quest for a Decent Lunch

A New York Experience:

This afternoon I was hanging out with a friend, working on some music we've been writing together and cleaning up in the backyard of his new apartment in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. After a while we set out for some lunch.

My friend wanted to go to a spot where they made this sandwich called the Vegan Temptress. He talked about it as we walked the 6 or 7 blocks to the place. My mouth was watering. When we got there, the place was being used to shoot a movie, with Jason Schwartzman sitting in the window. We stood across the street staring while we tried to decide where to go eat, when the director turned around and gave some dude the stink eye while pointing at us, and we were quickly asked to leave.

Then we wandered around looking for a Mexican restaurant he wanted to go to, but of course couldn't remember where it was because he's only been living in Brooklyn for about a month. When we finally found it, it turned out it was closed on Tuesdays. Only closed on Tuesdays.

We ended up at a spot around the corner. Another Mexican restaurant, but they were playing jazz. I knew it was a Verve album because I recognized Herb Ellis' guitar, Lester Young's tenor sax, Buddy Rich's drums, Oscar Peterson's piano, which of course meant Ray Brown was on bass. But I couldn't pin point the trumpet player and asked the waiter. It was Harry "Sweets" Edison. Don't you hate it when that happens?

What I Learned at My Record Label Job

There's a new website in the works, and it'll be the future home for my blog. I've been working on an in depth article about what I took from working at a record label. It's pretty long, so I might not be writing too much more on 'Between the Music' this week.

What I Learned at My Record Label Job

After you're done, take a sneak peak at the site. If you're a musician, you can participate in the forum or even contribute an article yourself, simple read this post by Dave Hahn, my cohort and the true evil genius behind this adventure.

Record Labels

I used to work at a record label, and loved the job. Almost as much as I love making my own music for a job.

There is a lot of trash talked about record labels, and I read a lot of independent artists regurgitating the same complaints over and over. But I feel like most of this contempt is towards the huge corporations that own the labels. It's really the system that's the pain in everyone's ass, not the labels.

Record labels have to operate a business, just like I'm trying to do with my music. Labels have to hit quarterly numbers to satisfy their corporate owners, or else heads roll. Every ethical problem people have with labels screwing over artists is rooted in money and could probably be traced to somebody trying to keep their job. On the contrary, my short term goals are best achieved when I focus on the greater long term goal. Money is an issue, but I'm trying to make a career, not just a weekly paycheck.

One thing I learned when I worked at the label was that most artists need this. It's nearly impossible for one person to work a record the way five professionals specializing in production, sales, marketing, promotion and publicity can. Then there's the internet--a good new media person can coordinate multiple websites, social networks, and blogs from a single feed. Trying to do all that alone eats up all the time for everything else. Forget making the actual music.

Perhaps one reason so many unsigned artists complain so much is lack of understanding mixed with jealousy. They want to be signed, otherwise I don't know why they are complaining. I don't want to be signed, which is why I view this objectively. My opinion is based on some first hand experience and education, not what I hear other people say, and definitely not what I read in music business books that are practically obsolete by the time they are published.

It's also worth noting that a lot of artists know what they're doing when they sign a deal. Most of the artists on this label were pretty smart, as were their managers. I didn't work in the legal department, and I never saw any deal memos, but here's how I came to understand things:

Artists usually try to get the largest advance they can, because recouping costs and making royalties is a long way off, if it happens at all. All those pie charts you see where the artist get $0.00009 of every CD sold don't account for the $50k advance. Rather, once the artists' cut pays back the advance and agreed portion of the rest of the budget, royalties begin to flow (or trickle). If an artist can continue to sell enough records to release something every few years, they can make an advance on each record. Factor in the money from various other revenue streams and they're doing alright.

The real problem is that it's really, really hard to break a new artist. It's an investment and costs a whole lot of money that you hope to make back on the second or third record. The terrain is so rocky today that who knows what's going to be happening five years down the road when the third record is released. Meanwhile the labels have to pay their employees, and that adds up even in smaller companies. So decisions have to be made to cover the bottom line.

The way I see it, I would love to have my former colleagues working my albums, but there's just no way my music will generate the amount of revenue needed to support that effort. I also don't want to forfeit ownership of my recordings. And my general rule of thumb is that if you want to work with me and get a cut of my revenue, then you have to be able to triple what I'm making now so I feel justified in giving you a percentage.

Someday, somebody is going to figure out how to restore some balance. Maybe I'll come up with it on this blog.

Getting over the hump

You know how the first gig with a new band is always exciting? By the next gig the excitement is worn off and everything that's going wrong is pretty obvious. Then a few gigs later, everything clicks and the music just happens, you take the little risks to make the music better, even if it means there may be a little mistake, but the feeling is all there.

That happened at the gig last night. We got passed that invisible hump. Sure, I have a list of things I need to work on, but now that we have our cake recipe figured out, the rest is just the icing.

Lauren Zettler tonight @ Rockwood Music Hall

Tonight I will be performing with Lauren Zettler, a very talented singer/songwriter I've had the pleasure of working with for the last several months. She has an EP available on iTunes, a free download of a show we played in LA, and more studio material coming soon. If you're in NYC, come down to the Lower East Side and check it out:

Lauren Zettler @ Rockwood Music Hall
7pm - 8pm

Rockwood Music Hall
196 Allen Street (between Houston & Stanton)
New York, NY 10002

Visit my calender to see more of my performance schedule.

I beg to differ...

Whoever said there are no stupid questions what just trying to be clever when somebody was scared to ask one.

You should never be scared to ask questions, but you should try to find the answer first. If you're asking a question out of laziness, then it's a stupid question. I'm generalizing a little, but I have a point.

Nobody can fill your brain with knowledge except you.

When I think back to my guitar lessons, the weeks I asked fewer questions were the weeks I learned the most. If I showed up prepared, we'd go over the material and then I'd get exercises to help further round out my playing, based on what I'd just demonstrated to my teacher.

On the other hand, when I wasn't prepared I'd fill the time by asking questions like, "How do you voice this chord with the third on top?" If I actually took 10 minutes to think about it over the week, I could have come up with plenty of solutions, but I was lazy or more often just used the excuse that I was busy. Deep down, I knew I was being lazy.

When you do ask questions, I've found the best questions to ask are always those that stress the you and not the do.

How do you do ____?

If the question is about finding specific, personal approaches to something like music, the answer is always more fulfilling.

Fan Mail Gets Dear John Letter

Yesterday I read a short news story about Ringo Starr posting a video on his website asking fans to not send any fan mail or "objects to be signed" after October 20th. It will be tossed. The 68 year old has too much to do.

I can only imagine. Even if he didn't, the guy is allowed some peace and quiet (and love), right? He's almost as old as John McCain for Pete's sake. He's almost as old as the phrase "for Pete's sake."

Of course he comes from an entirely different generation. The Beatles were like nothing we've seen before or since. The way they interacted with fans in the early days probably set the tone for modern super star bands having so many restrictions and security surrounding their shows, or any public appearance. It comes as no surprise that Ringo would still be getting loads of fan snail mail. It also doesn't surprise me that he answers it, and now that he's made the decision that he can't do it anymore, he has some feeling of guilt so he posted that video.

But bands today interact with fans differently. Blogs, websites, videos, contests (by the way, all of these things exist on ringtostarr.com), all give the fans some extras to go along with the music. It's all about the experience, but today it's all about instant experience.

I wonder what will happen 40 years from now when a band decides they don't have the time or energy to do these extras? How will the next generation interact with their favorite bands?

Songwriting Diagnostics

There are two things I've been doing a lot lately: Writing music and watching House reruns.

When I'm composing, I tend to get in this zone and write a lot of material in long spurts. I've never been able to successfully schedule too many writing sessions. Similarly, I've never been able to successfully watch a TV series. Something about committing every Tuesday night at 8 to the TV has never been appealing. Instead, my wife and I wait until it hits Netflix or some other network picks up the reruns and does a couple marathon sessions.

One thing I like about House is that every case is a puzzle. Sometimes the diagnosis is a rare disease, but often it's something fairly common presenting itself in an uncommon or unexpected way.

Sometimes when I'm writing music, I run into a problem. The song just isn't working right. Kind of like it's sick. Sometimes, the tune is just no good, but usually I'm just approaching it wrong.

House approaches each patient with a certain lack of trust. He assumes anything is possible.

That's a good way to approach a song. Don't trust convention. Don't assume the obvious harmonic or melodic solution, but don't rule it out just to be exciting. Follow your gut but use your head.

Don't Overestimate Free, Part 2

Earlier I talked a little bit about why free doesn't work. One thing that might not have been clear is that it's not that free never works, and by 'works' I mean helps a musician maintain a career playing music, it's just that it's not as easy as a lot of people think it is. My point, in my typical long-winded fashion, is that simply making all your music available for free is not going to give anybody any incentive to take it. You must position it so that it's relevant and valuable. Otherwise it feels more like picking discarded CDs out of a dumpster.

Hugely popular artists seem to do well despite, or arguably because of, widespread free downloads of their music. In this past year, Coldplay, Lil' Wayne, Usher, and Metallica all sold over 500,000 CDs in the week following the release of their latest albums even though people could get their hands on the albums for free before the release date.

For guys and gals like me--independent, developing, or niche musicians--it's entirely different. I doubt anybody is scouring the internet looking for free music by Cameron Mizell. In fact, here's a link to a track for you to download. On the house. If you're reading this, you're probably a lot more interested in hearing it than someone that randomly finds it because you're connecting it to a person, or at least the person you imagine me to be based on what you can find out on the internet (hint: there's more than one Cameron Mizell on the internet... I'm the one with the hat and glasses).

More importantly, I actually make most of the money from the sales of my music, and it's what helps keep me on my feet. I currently use CD Baby to distribute my music to digital retailers. When you pay $.99 for a track on iTunes, I get $.64, and likewise $6.37 per $9.99 album. Those are good margins. Granted, I'm not selling boatloads of music, but it always does sell. I'm currently generating income from seven albums on iTunes. Some of these are with other people, so I'm splitting that profit. Even so, it's a nice steadily growing revenue stream.

This isn't to say I don't offer some free music here and there. Every time I finish an album I make two or three tracks available for free across a few different websites. I choose sites where people that listen to my kind of music hang out. I also don't mind if people burn my CD for their friends, or email MP3s. Just don't act like you're helping me. If you've gotten this far, you know that each sale actually makes a difference to my bottom line. Plus I'm not selling that much music, and I still need to buy groceries and pay rent. Not to mention, freelance musicians, like most small business owners in America, can't afford health care (cough, cough).

It's very possible that a day will come where I give away all my music. Revenue streams shift or dry up. But as the industry changes and trends for buying music shifts, independent musicians like myself have the flexibility to quickly adjust.

Collective Pursuit tonight @ Lucky Cat

Tonight I will be performing with Collective Pursuit, an 8 piece jazz ensemble packed with talented players. We're playing some of my music as well. If you're in NYC, come to Billyburg, Brooklyn to check it out:

Collective Pursuit @ Lucky Cat
8pm - 10pm
No cover! Featuring Cody Brown (d), Craig Akin (b), Assaf Glizner (p), Cameron Mizell (g), Luke Malewicz (tb), Michael Eaton (ts), Jackie Coleman (tp), and Kt Chauvot (tp)

Lucky Cat
245 Grand Street (between Driggs and Roebling)
Brooklyn, NY 11211

Visit my calender to see more of my performance schedule.

Globalized Fan Base

How do you build a fan base when the hundreds or even thousands of people listening to your music are spread out across the world?

Have you ever seen that "Demand it!" widget on MySpace? Whenver I see this on a band's page that might have 10,000 'friends' and rack up a ton of plays, I usually see small tallies of people in many, many areas. This would make for a 150 date U.S. tour with an average draw of what, five people per gig? Even if there's a $20 cover and everyone buys two t-shirts and multiple copies of all of your CDs, you can't afford it!

This is something I've been trying to figure out. I don't really have the answer, but here's how I see the situation:

By looking at a site like Last.fm, there are about 900 people that listen to my music with about 3,600 plays recorded. On Last.fm, listeners are added up when either somebody with the Last.fm software listens to one of my songs on their computer or somebody streams my song on the Last.fm site. Whether a person listens to only one of my songs once, or plays all my music repeatedly, they still only count as one listener. Let's assume about half of these people stumbled across my music unintentionally, heard one track, but probably won't be repeated listeners. I can't consider them fans. That leaves about 450 listeners with maybe 3,000 plays, which is less than 7 plays per listener. There's a lot of room for error, so I'll just assume 100 of these people are actually fans. Sounds kind of bleak, but then again, do you use Last.fm? Most people don't, so it's a pretty narrow poll.

What's more important is that most people that use Last.fm live outside the U.S., and the vast majority of my music sales are to people in this country. Plus I only really perform in New York City, so the fact there are 100 people around the world that are into my music is actually pretty cool. Really, the fact over 900 people have heard my music around the world is pretty cool. If I factor in all the music I've sold, I'm comfortable saying that worldwide, there's probably 1,000 people that are fans of my music. Probably more depending on how widely available my music is on P2P sites.

One reason the internet and all these social network sites are so great is that it allows me to interact with my fans in Chicago, Portland, Madison, New York, Philadelphia, Boston, not to mention London, Paris, Moscow, Tokyo... should I go on? Even if there's just one person in Lynchburg, VA that bought my album, they have the same access to me as anyone else, with the exception of seeing live shows. Hopefully my new digital camcorder and YouTube will help change that.

It's difficult to nurture both the local scene, where I book and promote gigs, and also the global scene. I've sold more music in New York than any other single city, but it still makes up less than 10% of the total sales. So I can't ignore the bigger picture. It's just difficult to find the balance.

Octoberfest

My wife just brought home some Sam Adams Octoberfest, possibly my favorite of their seasonal brews. Now that my hometown brewery (I'm from St. Louis) has been bought out by Martians, I think, my loyalties have fully switched.

Anyway, it's going to be a nice night in this corner of Brooklyn.

Don't Overestimate Free

There's a lot of hype about just giving your music away for free.

"Think of the exposure! So many more people will hear it and buy your concert tickets and t-shirts! They'll all want to buy your albums in the future!"

But this is false. It works well in theory, seems to make sense, so it gets all that hype. Using a completely unfounded statistic based on zero research other than what I've been reading by music industry theorists, I've concluded that 99.9% of those that hype the "Power of Free" are not musicians trying to break through obscurity.

Everyone can think of a time they turned down something free. Why'd you do it?

- Free doesn't work because there's no such thing as free. First, people assume you want something in return. Even if you don't, your music will occupy space on their shelf or hard drive. They have to invest the time and effort to listen to your music. And more often then not, people don't want free things because they have to figure out how to get rid of it if they don't like it. Even throwing it in the trash seems like a chore. People on the street wouldn't take the samplers because they would have to carry them around all night knowing they'd probably just throw it in the trash later.

Sure, people have huge appetites for music. My iTunes folder has 6,267 tracks--which is apparently 21.4 days worth of music. But there's a Public Enemy track on here that hasn't been played since December of 2006! Do I even like that song? If I'm not listening to some of the music I paid for, give me a good reason to listen to yours!

Along similar lines, people who might scoff at the size of my collection are likely people that just horde music (or they're trying to compensate for some other insecurity). There are people who will take anything and everything that's free, but that doesn't mean they're going to be your fan or even listen to your music. And it's highly unlikely that they'll buy anything from you, music, merch, or otherwise.

- Free doesn't work as a solution to massive distribution and exposure because it is too random and not focused on a particular group of people. Specifically, it's not focused on the people that would like your music. Giving away your music to 100 random people does not mean any of those people will like it, or even listen to it. But if you use a piece of criteria to find 100 more specific people, your music ends up in the hands of someone that might actually listen to it. My favorite piece of criteria is a similar but better known artist. You like the Meters? Then studies show you'll like my music! Which takes us to the next point...

- Free doesn't work without a trusted reference helping your target audience feel comfortable taking candy from strangers. Why do you think grocery stores use ladies that remind us of our grandmothers to hand out free samples? Because we won't suspect the poison. Similarly, this is why tracking "twinsumers" online is so helpful. The whole "listeners also bought" idea gives us a since of trust and direction as we browse online.

People need to feel their time, space and energy is worth your free music. Free suggests no value, and that's unattractive. That's one reason I think people are still buying music. But there are alternatives to creating value other than money. You can give away music in exchange for another product or service. You can ask for email addresses. You could even ask for people to spread the word. In fact, somebody needs to create a widget that gives away free music after the user forwards a note to 10 friends recommending that they check out your music. That idea's on the house, but let me know when you figure it out.

Placing some value on your music is key. It helps the right people find your music and let's them do something they're comfortable with in exchange. Sometimes it's give you money, but sometimes it's something entirely different.

The Heat is On

Remember that Glenn Frey song? It was the theme for the St. Louis Cardinals in the late '80s when I was growing up, so it's forever associated with Ozzie Smith and Willie Mcgee. Now that I live in New York City, the only time that song comes to mind is when it starts getting cool and my building turns on the heat. An event accompanied by a lot of hissing and some banging of metal pipes as the adjust to the steam running through them. If you haven't heard this before, it sounds like somebody banging wrenches against metal pipes in your bathroom at 5am. The heat, not the Glenn Frey song.

With heat comes dry air, which is the nemesis of wood instruments like guitars. The steam sucks the moisture out of your apartment while the cold outside sucks the moisture out of the as well. Here are a few tips I've picked up to help keep your guitar safe during the dry season.

-Keep the guitar away from the windows and radiators! These are usually in the same place, so that's easy enough.

-Room humidifier! Get something to throw moisture back into the air. Use distilled water if you're keeping it by your guitars, as the minerals in tap water can gradually seep into the wood or undo the glue.

-Instrument humidifiers! I have one for every guitar with a soundhole. There are several types, and they all work well, just make sure they stay moist but not too wet.

-Put it in the case. If you're not going to be playing it, or when you travel for the holidays, your case is a good barrier to humidity. The trick is to get some moisture inside. The poor man's humidifier is a wet sponge in a disposable tupperware type of container with a few holes punched in the top. A ziploc bag will actually work alright too. Lay this under the headstock in the case, and leave the case flat so there's no spilling.

-Pay attention. If your acoustic guitar is buzzing more than usual, or there's a noticable dip in the top around the bridge, it's drying up. Get some humidity on that baby to prevent any warping.

Book 'em, Cam. Oh.

I book my own gigs, and it's a pain in the ass. There's just a lot of back and forth (somebody play a whole tone scale right here)...

Me to Club/Booker: "Hi, I'm Cameron Mizell, blah blah blah, can we play a show."
Club/Booker to me: "I have these 736 slots open over the next 5 weeks."

Me to band, after checking their websites to rule out any nights I know they've got other gigs: "Can you guys play any of these dates."
Band to me, sometime over the course of a few days to a week: "I can do this day or this day, etc."
Me to band: "Ok, pencil in this date, I'll confirm within 24 hours."

Me to Club/Booker: "Hi, me again. We'll take this night."
Club/Booker to me: "Sorry, that night is booked."

Me to band: "How about this one other night...."

...and so it goes until we can find an agreeable date or the venue shuts down. For my next gig though, I got the whole night and was told I could have any other bands play, but the goal is to get 80 people through the door. That's tough, but doable. Doeable. Possible.

My plan was to organize a night of funky jazz, psychedelic fusion, progressive, trippy, crazy groove oriented music. To play that music you've got to be pretty laid back, right? Well, not necessarily. The back and forth is still a pain in the ass. The club has no backline (no "house" drums or amps) so I'm trying to get everyone to contribute a little so we can have quicker turnaround time between bands. That's not happening so much, but luckily there's a DJ for between sets.

I'm really happy with the groups that are going to be playing. It should be noted that the music is going to be great. I wouldn't settle for less. But this hasn't been easy. To top it off, I need to motivate everyone involved to do some promotion because, well, I'm not a promoter.

I'm hoping to learn from this experience so I never have to do it again... UNLESS it turns out to be a huge success. So if you're in NYC on November 13, come out to Club Europa!

Recommended Jazz Albums for New Listeners

It's hard to remember a time I didn't listen to jazz. Maybe it was because of what I was listening to, I don't know... but my point is, the music is simply a part of who I am. That's not to say I don't listen to many other kinds of music. People are always referring to bands or songs I don't know, but I still think I've got a fairly eclectic taste. In fact, I think most everyone has eclectic tastes. Given access to a wide variety of music, they'll listen. But for some reason the genre of jazz is hit or miss for most people. Why is that?

My theory is simply that jazz, as a genre, is about as eclectic within itself as one can get. There are so many subgenres it's hard to know what's out there. Plus, most people's exposure to jazz is limited to the commercial, crossover, or nostalgic subgenres. There's not necessarily anything wrong with that type of jazz, but it often carries that lowest common demoninator of taste found in any popular music.

Smooth jazz is possibly the most commonly heard form of jazz, though it's arguably not even jazz and is now often called "Adult Urban Contemporary" or something like that. Some popular artists include Dave Koz, Kenny G, and Chris Botti. I've heard a lot of smooth jazz in my time, but it's not really my cup of tea, so I'm not a good person to make any recommendations.

Another oft-heard style is crossover vocal jazz. This is the stuff that sets the atmosphere for wine and cheese parties in the suburbs (that's a gross over simplification). Norah Jones' first album is a great example, along with Diana Krall's entire catalog. There's also a handful of crooners, like Michael Buble or, well, Michael Buble. This style is pretty self explanatory and easy accessible.

Finally, there's the nostalgic styles you'll hear in a jazz documentary. This includes anything from early jazz like Louis Armstrong to big band like Benny Goodman, and bebop like Charlie Parker. This is where I think things start to really get interesting. Following various progressions stemming from these artists lead you to a wealth of music.

So here is a list of some of my favorites, in no particular order. I purposefully avoided popular titles and anything that would be considered a must have, such as Miles Davis' Kind Of Blue because I'm going to assume someone else has already told you to go buy it.

I should note that Kind Of Blue was one of my first jazz albums, and I started my collection exploring albums by each of the sidemen on that album. That's a great way to go once you find something you like.

Miles Davis - Someday My Prince Will Come (1961)

Looking for some great straight ahead jazz? This is it. If I could choose the music that plays as I die, it would be the title track from this album. Specifically, during Coltrane's solo. You see, 'Trane wasn't in Miles' band when this was recorded. Hank Mobley was holding down the tenor sax chair at the time. So the album starts out as one would expect, playing through the melody and solos as a quintent, then restating the melody. But after Miles' plays a shortened statement of the melody, an old, familiar voice is heard. Coltrane proceeds to play an out of this world solo. Very brief by his standards, but it leaves me floored every time.

John Scofield (w/ Medeski Martin & Wood) - A Go Go (1996)

If you want something with a little more edge to it, try out this album. Sco is one of those immediately recognizable jazz guitarists who could do no wrong by me. This album, with MMW, is all about the groove. But what I love so much is that it's NOT SMOOTH. Most artists that play jazz over a funk groove end up sounding too smooth for my taste. I want something organic, and this album delivers. I often use it as a yardstick to make sure my songs don't cross that line.

John Coltrane - A Love Supreme (1964)

Pretty much considered his masterpiece, this album was more than just music--it was 'Trane's tribute/prayer to the God. Not necessarily the God of Christianity, but more of the supreme being or creator. Honestly, it doesn't matter that much, you need to experience this music start to finish, repeatedly. I've heard it dozens of times and continue to find inspiration.

Herbie Hancock - Man-Child (1975)

Looking for some true jazz/funk? Herbie Hancock and his Headhunters group released several albums, the most popular being Head Hunters in '73, but this one is my favorite. I have yet to hear another group convincingly play in this style as well as this band.


Bill Frisell - Good Dog Happy Man (1999)

This album is a mash up of jazz, Americana, folk, and blues, often called Neo-Americana. It's difficult to describe because no one makes music like guitarist Bill Frisell. He has definitely been a huge influence of mine as of late, and this album introduced me to his playing.

The Quintet (Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Ray Brown, Max Roach) - Jazz At Massey Hall (1953)

One of the greatest bebop recordings of all time, played by the cats that invented the style and consequently reinvented jazz. Perhaps one of the reasons it's such an outstanding performance is the slight tension on the bandstand--Charlie Parker and Dizzy were late because they had to find a saxophone for Bird, who had pawned his off for drug money. The rhythm section performed a set as a trio before being joined by the horns.

Brad Mehldau - Largo (2002)

Largo is a great album for those turned off by the notion of traditional jazz. Mehldau is openly influenced by a wide variety of music, including the Beatles and Radiohead, and covers songs by both groups here. I sort of think of Mehldau's groups as the indie rock band in jazz. You never know exactly what he's going to do, but it's always hip and bound to set some new precedent.

Dexter Gordon - Our Man In Paris (1963)

Another immediately recognizable voice in jazz, Gordon was simply one of the greatest stylists of all time. This album swings HARD from start to finish, and every line Gordon plays on his sax is played like that is it. The master has spoken. One of the great lessons I learned from this album--playing time. Listen to how he starts most of his solos by sitting on one note and just swinging it. Try it, it's not as easy as it sounds!

Magic Pencil

I have two pencils that are exactly the same.

Except they're not. I use one of them to write, or at least write down all my initial ideas. The pencil with all the good ideas had been missing for a week or so up until last Wednesday, when I found it and went on a writing tear.

I now have four solid pieces written for my next trio album, and a handful of ideas that will likely bloom into more tunes. I also wrote a couple other songs, but I'm not quite sure what I'll do with those yet.

Productive creativity feels good.

Dear Cubs fans...

Saved you a seat here in the off season.

Shared thoughts on embracing Long Tail content

Here's an interesting report from Digital Music News publisher Paul Resnikoff in Los Angeles. If you didn't understand what I was talking about here, maybe this will help confuse you more.

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Second Life Lessons: Underestimate Niche at Your Peril

(10/2/08) September roiled the recording industry, and tightening consumer wallets could spell a vicious fourth quarter. That is part of a bigger, multi-year slide for major labels, a downward spiral driven by a tanking CD.

But not everyone is getting the doom-and-gloom memo, including EMI Music senior vice president of Digital Strategy Cory Ondrejka. During a late-day keynote at Digital Music Forum West in Hollywood, Second Life cofounder Ondrejka offered a snappy, smart, and optimistic outlook for the beleaguered label. Tossing words and phrases like collaborative filtering, community formation, entrepreneurship, and crowdsourcing, the incoming brain focused on niche audiences, microtargeting, and rapid responses to consumer needs. "Underestimate niche at your peril," Ondrejka urged.

But the coveted niche exists within a very, very large potential audience. "We basically have access to half of the earth," Ondrejka said, pointing to collective internet and mobile penetration rates that easily surpass three billion (1.2 billion internet users, 3.2 billion mobile users). "We have billions of fans, and zero marginal costs."

If Ondrejka at times seemed like a digital dreamer, he also realistically pointed to a business model and cost structure that has been focused on big hits, big artists, and super-sized marketing campaigns. But Ondrejka also placed emphasis on Long Tail theories throughout, and was clearly motivated to energize more focused audiences. "Those artists way out on the curve are valuable, and this can be scary in a hit-driven world," Ondrejka said. "The top of the curve is dropping faster than the market as a whole. That is the curve flattening out, this is the Long Tail that Chris Anderson talks about. The niche actually monetizes better, and if you doubt that, you should probably go check out eBay, or Google, or Second Life for that matter."

Of course, label revenues are clearly declining, though Ondrejka pointed to massive increases in music consumption, across both free and paid channels. "This is actually a really great time, in some ways this is the best time ever to be in music," Ondrejka said.

Ondrejka was recruited by Douglas Merrill, an ex-Googler and EMI newbie who shares a similar digital brilliance and optimism. The combination is certainly refreshing, though largely incongruent with technophobic strategies like file-sharing lawsuits and arduous licensing approaches. Those touchy topics were left untouched, though the broader question is whether Merrill and Ondrejka can quickly solve an urgent monetization riddle.

Using iMixes to Effectively Promote Your Music: Part 3

UPDATE (10/26/08):

This article has move to another website: MusicianWages.com

I am a regular contributor to that site and will continue to post relevant articles there. It is a great resource for musicians. If that's you, check it out!