Rockstar

A friend recently posed an interesting question to me: as a musician, would I prefer to have a handful of okay hit songs, or to have one major super-hit.

I answered as truthfully as possible, that I'd totally take any string of mid-quality songs, so long as I could keep on playing music as long as possible. While I earnestly believe that this answer is as true as possible, there are some interesting considerations to make.

First off, the case for being a one-hit wonder:

• Superstardom - This is hard to overlook; I believe that most everyone who plays music somewhere deep in their consciousness dreams of the spotlight, of being on the cover of magazines, and of hearing your songs played everywhere you go
  
  
• Royalties - let's face it, when you have a mega-hit, people want to use it for everything. It will probably be in some movies or at least used on a TV show. Radio stations will play it day and night. Soon you'll be hearing your smash hit being used to sell everything from cars to candy to hair restoration treatments. And each time those few notes hit the airwaves, you'll be making a few cents. And that's just sweet.
  
  
• Giant Shows & Diva Perks - When you have that one song that everyone wants to hear, your label/manager/promoters/etc. are going to make sure that as many people as possible can hear it. This means opening for acts who are way bigger and playing venues that most bands can only dream of. When this happens, you don't have to lift a finger. There is simply no chance in hell if you're playing something like the Oakland Coliseum or Bill Graham Civic Auditorium that you're going to have set up your own drum kit or really even tune your own guitar. You just have to show up, not be strung out, and play that one song that everyone wants to hear.

Now, the downside of mega-hits

• Burnout - Think about this logistically for a moment or two. You know how you get all tired and bored with songs when they get played out? You know how quickly you reach for the mute button when you hear that song in that commercial? You know how much you gripe when that super hit keeps showing up on your Genius playlist? Now imagine having that happen PLUS having to go out and perform that song three to four times a day for shows, radio live performances, mall openings, or whatever. Do you think you'd EVER want to hear that song again? Yeah, me neither.
  
  
• Pressure for a follow-up - There is an almost mind-boggling misnomer about the idea of a "sophomore slump". Bands that blow up on an initial release are really cursed. From the time that big hit or super debut album drops, the pressure is on to be equally impressive on the second record. But you're mired in a huge catch-22: if your follow up sounds too much like your original release, then you're considered uncreative or stale. If you stray too far from your original sound, you're persecuted for changing too much. It's a total no-win situation.
  
  
• The Brightest Star Burns Fastest - Yes, this is also connected to the "burnout" factor, but this has to do much more with public perception. The term one-hit wonder exists for a reason. Do you think the Toadies wish they could write another "Possum Kingdom"? So do I. But let's be honest; writing a really great popular song is a very difficult art, and doing it consistently is an incredibly rare feat. Unfortunately, the much more common occurrence is that you write one great song (or group of songs) and that helps you crack the big time, and you spend most of your career trying to live up to that.

Now, a couple of considerations on the benefit of being a band that just consistently puts out quality music, but no super hits:

• Sustainability - The gold standard that most all musicians I know hold is: can you pay your bills by doing nothing beyond being a musician? If so, you have officially made it. I just spoke to a friend of a friend last night who makes his living as a musician, and despite being successful enough to warrant his own wikipedia article as a musician, he said that he spent his first two years touring in bands being essentially homeless, because he couldn't afford to be on the road and still pay for rent for an apartment back home. Still, he can do it now and he doesn't exist solely on ramen and canned soup. But still, for any serious musician, the ability to do nothing else but write, play, and record music is an absolute dream.
  
  
• Experiences - I believe that you haven't really experienced places until you've played there in a touring band. By doing so you not only get to see what the night life is like, you have some free time in the day to wander around and experience a place, and if you're touring on the cheap, you usually meet fantastic people and have some of the greatest stories you're ever going to be able to tell as a result. You have some nights where you're totally blown away or caught off guard by some smaller towns or venues, and you have some nights where you can only take comfort in the fact that it's finally over. Still, it's what every musician I know wants to do for as long as humanly possible.
  
  
• Artistic fulfillment - This is what we also call the "cover band conundrum" - if you make a living as a musician playing original material, you get to enjoy having your music heard night in and night out by groups of people who, for the most part, just want to go out, enjoy themselves, and hear some music. They won't be calling to hear your hit single, but they are also more likely to pay attention to your whole set, rather than waiting for that one song. Plus, you get to play your songs to your heart's content, moving new and old songs in and out at your discretion only.

But, there is always a down side...

• Money - yes, you're making a living doing what you love, but the vast majority of musicians who play and tour for a living don't really put a whole hell of a lot of money in the bank for a rainy day. You don't have a 401k, you don't have benefits, you just have whatever is in your bank or in your pocket. What you're really working towards is being able to have enough money to make it to the next tour, next album, or anything like that. Hopefully you can stockpile a little cash here and there, but it's not an easy route.
  
  
• Wear and tear of the road - If you're just a working musician, the only way to really make money is to play shows and hit the road. Yes, you make some money selling merch and music online, but it's probably not enough to sustain much of anything. So you hit the road for months at a time. One story I hear in common from almost all the bands I've heard interviewed that gain enough success to be interviewed is that in the early years they always played shows. I believe it was Motion City Soundtrack who said that their first year after being signed to Epitaph, they played something like 325 shows. On a smaller scale, Crown Point, who are friends of mine, estimated themselves as playing 285 shows or something like that in the past calendar year. I don't care who you are, but that schedule takes the piss out of you at some point. There comes a point when all you want is a home-cooked meal and to sleep in your own bed.
  
  
• Motivation - Let's face it, there is going to come a point where you're going to look up and say "what am I doing all this for?" There are sort of built in "levels" that musicians hold themselves to; whether it's the ability to book a certain size venue, to tour, to make a living playing music, to get signed - it all depends on what the person's aim is. Still, I honestly believe that there comes a point where you realize you've plateaued, and the trick is recognizing that point when you get there. Not every band is destined to have a chart-topping hit, hell not every band is going to be able to play some of the biggest venues in your city. You just have to be happy with what you can do at a given point, or do your best to improve that situation. Do I want to be playing local clubs and venues when I'm in my late 40s? Probably not. But I can tell you right now, all I want to do is play as many shows as humanly possible and tour as much as I can afford to.

That's a somewhat more in-depth look at what into my decision. Again, it's a matter of time frame and motivation, and I feel that has to change with your age and personality as much as anything.

So.... anyone want to sign my band so I can live the dream?

Transience

Jeez, I tell you what - you start working a contract job that takes the usual 9-5 timetable, and suddenly all my late-night blogging goes straight out the window. Fortunately for you and I (but definitely not my wallet), I am back to my standard unemployed self. And as I wrap up another contract, I can't help but think about how much of my life has been marked by a certain degree of employment transience. It's interesting, for someone who clings to such deep roots, that much of what I do for a living is connected to the "here today, gone tomorrow" idea of impermanence.

First, the roots: I have lived in San Francisco for what most would argue has been my entire life. Yes, there was a short-lived freshman year of college where I lived in the East Bay, but not only was that maybe a 45 minute drive from home, I spent on average four nights in the city regardless, so I was really just sleeping in the East Bay for the vast majority of that time. I still remain close with friends from as far back as pre-school, and I take a great deal of joy in going to any establishment where I am a long-time regular. I mean, come on, don't you like it when then owner of your favorite restaurant comes up to you and greets you by your first name? I know I sure as hell do.

So, taking all this into consideration, I find it peculiar that I have spent so much of my working life not connected to much of anything. Yes, there was my time as a Community Manager, and there was the year I spent teaching full-time, but by and large, I have spent the majority of time since graduating college as a worker who has no official long-term connection to a business. In the nearly five years I spent teaching, as I said, one year of that was full time (a stat that implies impermanence in itself), but the rest of a time, I was a substitute. This means that every day I worked, I was generally greeted by an entire classroom full of strangers in a room I'd never been in. People didn't know my name or anything about me beyond what was written on the white board at the front of the classroom. Still, in that time I feel like I made a number of significant connections with students, teachers, and office staff. I don't know if it's the nature of the job to breeze in and do that, or if I simply have that tendency as an individual, but I feel like it was almost a coping mechanism in dealing with the stresses of the job: if you could walk out of the school at the end of the day and feel like you almost belong, or that you learned something about somebody in those few short hours, it put a whole new spin on the rest of the day.

Freelance work, at least in my experience with it, has been rather different. While I occasionally had moments in my recent job where I felt like I was really part of the team, on the whole, I had a much greater "outsider looking in" perspective on the whole process. I think it's mostly due to the fact that I am only brought in house when it's really crunch time, so everything that is happening around me is a bit of a whirlwind, and I can simply put my head down, turn up the music in my headphones, and tune it all out while I do my drone work for the day. Naturally, there were exceptions to that scenario on a semi-regular basis, but still, on the whole, when I left the office for the day, it wasn't very often that I would find myself thinking about my officemates the way I did kids.

But all that aside, I find the nature of this work rather singular: why is it that I am drawn to jobs that I can take and leave at the drop of a hat? Do I really value freedom that much? Do I just like being able to work around my own schedule and whims that much? I wonder how much of it is that I do indeed have such a wide social base around me that I don't feel like I need the camaraderie of co-workers. Think about it: I have two awesome roommates, great bandmates, a bunch of Rumdums, high school friends, a cop, and a wonderful monkey who are all people that I look forward to spending time with pretty much on a weekly basis, so I don't really need to add to that, so maybe that's why I can come home from work, no matter how isolated, and still have all the social interaction I may have missed out on during working hours.

Who knows. It's just something that's been kicking around in the ol' brain for a little bit, especially as I once again start staring down the rabbit hole of full-time employment again...

(sorry there's no image with this blog post, but searching "transience" on google proved a hell of a lot of really ugly art, and for some strange reason, a lot of pictures of urinals. Check it out for yourself if you're interested)