Too Busy

Too busy to blog.

Too busy to finish that song.


Too busy to read that book.

Too busy to clean.

Too busy to do it right.

Too busy to not cut corners.

Too busy for a lot of things.

But not too busy to watch TV or browse the internet or check email again or look at my Twitter feed or like that status or go on Reddit or click over to Netflix or cruise Instagram or do whatever else is distracting me from what I really want to do.

Too busy?

Just an excuse...

Email to Bob Lefsetz

Sent today after I read this post:

Great advice in the Shannon Labrie email. Thanks for getting back to music. Although I don't really mind the digressions. This newsletter/ blog is your world, and we're just living in it. People forget sometimes that if you don't like something, you can CHANGE THE CHANNEL.

Not sure if you listen to sports radio at all, but Colin Cowherd had some interesting thoughts on his ESPN radio show this morning (AM710 from 7-10am if you're curious). He said there might be a direct connection between socially vicious personalities like Steve Jobs, Tiger Woods, Kobe Bryant and achieving success. That the reason people perceive them as so brutal is because they are. Brutally honest. Brutally motivated. Brutally SUCCESSFUL. There's a reason Kobe has 5 rings and Lebron doesn't have any. A reason Tiger Woods was number 1 in the world for 9 out of 11 years and Phil Mickelson is often relegated to an afterthought. A reason Steve Jobs will be remembered as one of the most pioneering minds in history and Bill Gates will be remembered as... well... he's really rich, right? All three men have a refusal to compromise and brutal natures when it comes to delivering.

What he was saying reminded me of stuff you've said about rockstars. They live their lives beholden to nothing and no one. They live for their music to the point of alienating everyone and everything. It's not a popularity contest. It's about delivering what they hear in their heads no matter the cost. Go big or go home. If you want a balanced life, you shoulda gone into customer service (interestingly enough, where I am right now), but you wouldn't be playing to those sold out houses if you'd gone that route, now would you?

So many parallels between sports and music. I guess that's why I love both so much.

A lot of parallels between you and Seth Godin, too. And Derek Sivers. And Austin Kleon. Guess that's why I follow all of you on Twitter.

Damn... is there anything more pathetic than a newsletter subscriber name dropping people he only knows through their newsletters...?

And... scene...

Patience and/ or Attention Span

Lacking in both nowadays.

Rachel loves herself some Downton Abbey.

I had playtime with Chase for about an hour before his bedtime tonight. He's getting so big and is progressing so quickly everyday. He noticed that his Thomas the Train bridge was made up of shapes. "Ah an gul." Yeah, bud, it's a triangle. Good job!

Patience, Glynn. Focus. Played guitar for a bit tonight. Tried to work on a song that I had recorded bits and pieces of a long time ago. Couldn't figure out what the song should be about. It's difficult trying to write a song about writer's block. Sometimes songs just don't happen. Inspiration isn't there. I'm focused on something else. Or I just plain don't have it. Funny how my best songs normally happen when I'm not even trying to write a song. Except for the hitRECord creative explosion of 2011. Hahahaha...

Attention spans shrinking. Twitter. Status updates. Tumblr. Everything is now, now, now, yesterday, two weeks ago... It's getting harder and harder to keep up, and I have a feeling that pretty soon, I just won't...

Man, I don't even have the patience or attention span to properly finish this blog post. I blame it on 2Pacalypse Now. Thanks, Spotify...

Time suck...

I wonder how much time I wasted on the internet, tweeting, trolling facebook, watching TV this year...

Enough time to:
- learn how to do a proper drum roll?
- figure out how to format the metadata of an mp3 with album arwork and track details?
- write 30 more songs?
- read Chase 100 more books?
- take Rachel out to dinner 26 more times?
- write 50 more blog posts?
- see 15 more instances of live theater?

...

I should rethink the next time I want to use the excuse, "I didn't have enough time"...

Subject Matter for Songs

The inability to not mimic my baby son while he's eating...

Proposing on a Sunday while watching the Office

Vegan babies ftw

Foursquare, angry birds, and twitter have stolen (saved) my life...

Running is the best and worst idea I've ever had

The hipstamatic app doesn't mean I'm a photographer, but it sure is fun to pretend...

Main Street at night is Rachel's favorite

Chase is wearing the pajamas that are like crib sheet camouflage

My jingle moves more units than yours...

Myspace (any social network, really) has so much potential in the right person's hands

But Myspace isn't in the right person's hands.  It's in the general public's hands.  And the general public is an inconsiderate, selfish, impatient, rude, ignorant mass of humanity...

Think about the power of Myspace (or Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn or tumblr or chatroulette or YouTube or...).  Millions of people interconnected.  Opinions and ideas freely exchanged instantaneously.  If you wanted to you could literally find someone in Brazil or Germany or the Philippines or Arkansas and ask them what the weather is actually like.  Not a forecast or a loose prediction based on meteorological hypothesis.  The actual weather.  Which is super trivial, but you can extrapolate to a grander scale.  Ask a government official about the ramifications of the new health care bill.  Put a white collar wall street man on the spot and ask them about the ethics of insider trading.  Ask a doctor a question about that ache in your right knee.  All of those possibilities are right there in front of us...

But that type of exchange of ideas isn't happening on the internet.  Instead we have a video of a kid after a trip to the dentist office.  Or a story about a lion purchased and raised by two teenagers then released into the wild and then "Look!!  He remembers them!!!"  Or Perez Hilton.  Or TMZ.  Or aplusk translating tweets from every country in the world (wait, that last one is pretty cool).  Anyways, there is so much potential online.  And it's squandered because people are too short-sighted to maximize it's potential.

And I'm not saying I'm the right person to change things.  Wait.  Maybe I am the right person to change things... Or maybe just the recognition of what can be done is enough.  If I can instill these ideas in my son's mind and teach him to use these amazing technological tools for something more than midnight youtube searches, then maybe I can change things...

Wow... I just wanted this blog to be about connecting with each fan on myspace or facebook or twitter in a very real and authentic and genuine and symbiotic way.  But it turned into something very different.  And I'm glad...

First Impressions

How important is a first impression...? 

So many of us base everything off of the first few seconds of interaction.  Commercials on TV, songs on the radio, people on the phone and in person... we instantaneously digest, judge, and designate labels, whether we want to or not.

And it's extremely difficult to change these first impressions.  It's difficult to change our minds at all.  Once we believe something to be true, it stays true until there is empirical evidence proving its falsehood or some other event occurs that completely changes our viewpoint.

This can be hugely beneficial or extremely damning if you're a musician.  If you have a super catchy single, you can tease plenty of people into listening to the rest of your catalog.  BUT if the rest of your catalog sucks, you've lost your window of opportunity.  Or if you have plenty of recorded songs that are solid and memorable, BUT you're live show is less than stellar, chances are you won't be able to convert any true fans through gigging.

Nowadays, there are plenty of chances to make a first impression.  Through your facebook updates or your myspace profile or your twitter page or playing out live or posting videos on YouTube or even your blog... each outlet is another chance for a first impression, an opportunity to impress and convert fans, or disappoint and remain in anonymity.

And, yes.  You have to stay on top of everything or else you might as well just call music a hobby.  Because nobody cares if you have a 9 to 5 or if you're trying to raise a son or if you perform in community theater or if you don't feel like picking up your guitar or if you'd rather watch Survivor than post on your blog.  Your true fans might, but they've already gotten past their first impression of you.  Their connection goes deeper than just a casual curiosity.

So, if this is the first time you're reading my blog, I hope this first impression is a good one.  And I hope you take the time to dig a little deeper...

Thanks for reading!!

Jumping the Gun...

I recorded 5 vids on Saturday.  And it felt amazing to sit with my acoustic and sing and record and talk to the camera and share my music and talk about the songwriting process and let you in to something that is so dear to me.

I almost posted all 5 vids yesterday.  One huge binge of YouTube uploading and posting the lyrics and linking back to the blog and to my facebook page and to my twitter account so you could see all my hard work and witness how much desire I have to make music and share it with the world.

But that would be jumping the gun, wouldn't it?  Because there's no finished demo or live shows planned or marketing strategy in place or scheduled recording dates or press photos or one sheet bio or anything else that will let me take advantage of the wonders of the world wide web and all the sets of eyeballs that are drawn to online content...

Wow.  This blog post is jumping the gun... jumping the shark, too.

Just have fun, Glynn... and post the songs when you want to, not because they'll have a more impressive branding impact...

I Missed a Day... and Oh Girl

I didn't update this blog last night.

And I feel guilty.  Like I forgot to roll up my windows and it started to rain.  Or I left the stove on during a weekend getaway.  Or it was casual friday and I showed up in a business suit.

Not an overbearing heart in your throat dwell on it make you wake up in the middle of the night kind of guilt.

More of a gee that's embarassing I hope nobody noticed kind of guilt.

Because I'm sure that not many people will notice.  It's just the beginning of this blog and I'm still finding my sea legs and it's definitely evolving and will hopefully be more fully fleshed out soon.

But still...

I noticed and it bums me out because if I can't prove it to myself than it doesn't matter what you think... 

--------------------------

Oh Girl

One of the two music projects I'm in right now. 

A rock improv poppy conglomeration of two.

We're hopefully going to be recording a couple songs in March, shooting some video, releasing them via myspace, and facebook, and some other outlets.  Maybe throwing some stuff on Tunecore.  Possibly on Anjuno. 

The thing with Oh Girl is we make up songs on the spot.  Kinda like Whose Line Is It Anyway? but with a rock band instead of comedians.

So the A side will be a fully formulated song.  And the B side will be an on the spot improv.

We'd like for the B sides to have crowd interaction, too.  We'll be recording at the Stargate and maybe we can get some people to stop by and hangout and provide the inspiration for the B sides.

I like thinking out loud (on screen, thru keyboard?)...

Oh Girl!!

http://myspace.com/ohgirlrock
http://facebook.com/ohgirlrock
http://twitter.com/ohgirlrock

When it rains, it pours...

Quick stylee post today.  I'm off to drive through the rain to see Daedalus and Jogger at the Echoplex.  I'm ashamed to admit that this is my first show at the Echoplex, and I'm very excited to finally go!!

Thanks to KCRW for the tickets.  I was lucky enough to win a Twitter giveaway yesterday for my response to the question "Why do you want to go?"  And I quote, "@kcrw In HB.Never been to Echoplex. It would be a great early V-Day gift for my girlfriend! We had a son on 11/11/09. She deserves a break!"  So off I go with Ms. Rachel Pupa to the Echoplex for a fun date night!!  If you're on Twitter, follow @kcrw!!

I've got a little more time, so I will say that going to live shows always motivates me to get out and play live myself.  There's something intoxicating about performing your material in front of an audience.  If you've ever performed, you know exactly what I'm talking about, and if you haven't, I urge you to go to an open mic and play the guitar and sing or read a poem or tell jokes or wax political on the inanity of bi-partisanship.  You won't be sorry that you did.

Anjuno and EIY

Twitter has been helping me out a lot lately.  I used to just post inane stuff like "A kamikaze is neither a comic nor an Aussie.  Discuss."  Now, I've realized that there are much more useful ways to use Twitter than as a receptacle for witty banter and useless meanderings (that's what this blog is for!!).  If you follow the right resourceful accounts, you can be opened up to the plethora of resources on the internet.

2 websites have been brought to my attention that may or may not be useful throughout this whole process:  Anjuno and EIY (Thanks to @toddsattersten and @VansWarpedTour respectively). 

Anjuno is a website where artists can post their art and fans have the choice of naming the price they'll pay (Think Radiohead's In Rainbows).  It is a forward thinking concept that challenges the status quo of the current music business model.  With so many available options for the listener, Anjuno acts on the premise that "true" fans will reward artists if they feel the art is truly remarkable.  They call it "the Law of Reciprocity - that people will pay you back for making their lives better".  Musicians and authors can post mp3s and pdfs and leave it up to the fans to price the work.  It's an interesting idea, and I'm looking forward to seeing how Anjuno does over the coming years.

EIY (short for Earn It Yourself) is an exciting website conceptualized by Sarah Saturday (@sarahsaturday).  Sarah's been working with Warped Tour creator Kevin Lyman for the last 6 years and has tremendous experience as a musician and music industry insider.  To read the "About EIY" page is to be inspired.  It's refreshing to see that there are online communities being built that are aimed at putting in hard work instead of relying on "gaming the system".  Users on EIY have a news feed that is based on "My Scene", which shows all the activity from your Zip Code.  It's nice to have such an acute focus on things that are local; start small, build organically, become huge in your backyard, then apply what you've learned to the world at large.  It's a simple concept, but one I've yet to actually apply in any of my previous music projects.  EIY just launched Version 2.0 of the website, and I created my band page today (http://earnityourself.com/glynngm).  I plan on visiting this website often, not only as a networking tool, but because I want to support such a well-thought out and inspirational concept.

This is my 3rd blog post, and I'm realizing that I get sidetracked... A LOT.  I probably started this post about 45 minutes ago and have been zooming around the interweb finding useful links, checking out music, scoping the twitter hurricane.  Here are some interesting things I've found, in what will now be dubbed:

You Kept Me Entertained While I Was Posting my Boring Blog:
http://www.myspace.com/gardeningnotarchitecture- Sarah Saturday's current band
http://www.tweakheadz.com/- Resource for anyone interested in DIY home recording (great forum, too!)

That's the post for today.  The more I learn, the more I realize I don't know.  I'm sure someone famous said this, but google isn't helping me out on that front.  Very true, though.  It's day 2 of my formalized mission to become a working musician, and while I see the mountain getting bigger and bigger, I know that my biggest hope lies in realizing that one foot goes in front of the other and falling only means failing if you don't get back up...