Confusion • Legends • Insomnia

8 August, 2010

Music Success in Nine Weeks

Week Five: Version One

Note: I got an e-mail this morning from Ariel's people and it turns out there are two versions of the book, they have just e-mailed me a copy of the updated version. In the new version chapter five is on blogging, in the earlier version chapter five is about the e-mail list. I am going to post two different week five blogs, as I am happy with the one I had already written up! Week five version two will be up in a few days.

The problem with a ball is that it's round.

So when you drop it, it rolls.

"Hey, Randy! Where's the ball?"

"It's over there - I dropped it."

Week five is about the e-mail list. A great tool for any business and musicians are right at the top of the list, if they use it right. So where did I drop the ball? Though the Aeterno Elementum production was a huge success and we had our largest crowd yet, I failed to put out an e-mail sign up sheet. The response from the crowd was fantastic, and I have no doubt that we would have seen a large portion of them sign up for it, had they be given a place to do so.

Typically we have done alright with our e-mail list, and we have a few hundred people on it. Now that we see a way to doing larger shows, this is something that will be of increasing importance to us, and it shows us that we need to be a little more complete in our checklists. There are several areas for improvement that we have identified, and this is foremost on that list.

There is an exercise in this chapter that helps you to identify what your core group of fans is. Where they are from, what their interests are and so forth. We have continually been surprised at the diversity of our fans. From the teenagers in t-shirts throwing their devil horns, to the elderly Asian lady that said, "That guy's cool!" after my guitar solo. We have had a tough time identifying a demographic, the one thing I can say for sure is that we have some of the most musically open minded fans that I have ever seen. We have put in classical guitar pieces, Mozart piano solos, and we even did a coffee shop show with lounge/country version of our music, and our fans have just eaten it up. Fans of Ara'Kus are fans of music.

Using that, we have been putting together a couple of download only songs, including some alternate versions of previous songs, that we will be giving out to our e-mail list pretty soon. So let's finish up here, since I dropped the ball on the e-mail list at our last show, since you are an open minded person and in to our music, and since there is some cool stuff on the way, you should sign up for our e-mail list right now:

And now that you've done that go ahead and join us on Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter. See you soon!

Relevant links

Music Success in Nine Weeks
Ariel Publicity
Ara'Kus on Myspace
Ara'Kus on Facebook
Ara'Kus on Twitter
Ara'Kus

8 August, 2010

Music Success in Nine Weeks

Week Four

I'm about a full week behind on the blog challenge, and where the Aeterno Elementum production certainly did take a lot of my energy, what I am finding is that I would rather be working on fulfilling my musical goals than writing about them. Like right now, it's really an effort to sit and write this blog instead of playing my guitar, working on recordings or doing other immediately productive things. I've spent most of today working on pre-production items for Ara'Kus' second album, and it's been great. This week has, overall, been pretty productive for me. I finished mixing and mastering an orchestral recording that I started a while back, started working heavily on the second album, played a bunch of guitar, spent some time interfacing with Enterprise Newspaper for our review, and am pretty much where I would like to be with weeks four and five, of the blog challenge.

Week four has us learning about Web 2.0, which is basically the social networking sites, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and stuff. Our webmaster, Jeremy (drums), is very big on having web 2.0 connectivity with our main website and has been working us in that direction for some time. He has set up our main site to automatically post to our social sites any time we post an update.

Ariel talks a bit about the reasons why musicians do not like to use these sites, such as, it feels like we are "tooting our horn" so to speak, and that's really the point. We have to advertise ourselves or nobody will no about the product (music, live shows) that we offer. And whether your goal be to make money, or just to get people out to your shows, they have to know about what it is. When is the last time you did something without knowing about it? See the point?

And advertising works. For the Aeterno Elementum: Volume One release show Ara'Kus did more advertising and networking than ever before, and by a huge factor. The result was that we had a larger audience than we have ever had before. Coincidence? Not remotely.

One of my favorite ideas in this chapter is to have one band member each take a site, rather than one person trying to do it all, which is something that happens all to often. So I have now set up a distribution in the band as such:

I have taken over Twitter

Jeremiah is working Facebook

Rachel's on Myspace

And Jeremy has the main Ara'Kus site

Which is not to say that we can't each go to these sites and do stuff, but now I don't have to worry about going on to Myspace, which I can't stand, and Jeremy can rest easy in the knowledge that he doesn't ever have to Tweet (and when you put it like that, who can blame the guy?). So I think that this will work well.

O.K. Week four is done, and I should have the Week Five blog up within 48 hours, but right now, I'm going to go play my guitar. Thanks for reading.

Relevant links

Music Success in Nine Weeks
Ariel Publicity
Enterprise Newspaper
Ara'Kus on Myspace
Ara'Kus on Facebook
Ara'Kus on Twitter
Ara'Kus

1 August, 2010

Aeterno Elementum

Wow.

Just wow.

It's been about 14 hours since the show ended and I'm not sure how to express my gratitude to the extraordinary number of people that came together to make this happen.

Everything about last night's performance exceeded my expectations. I don't have an exact count on the crowd that showed up, but rough estimates by the theater put it at close to 300, which blows me away, I was hoping to get a third of that. We had close to 40 people on stage.

After the show, one reviewer told me that he has not been that impressed by a metal concert in more than 20 years.

The choir sounded amazing. As did the string section, despite the fact it was only three people. The actors nailed their parts, the sound and lights were great.

And I think I speak authoritatively in saying that last night's performance was the finest that Ara'Kus has ever done.

If I tried to list everything that everyone did I know that I would miss a lot, so, thank you to everyone that was a part of this production, from the audience, to the singers, players, actors, sound, lights, theater and my fellow band members: Thank you!

These people have all blown my mind:

Jeremiah Johnson
Whitney Burdge
Rachel Brunson
Ray Salamon
Jeremy Veleber

Priest - B.J. Becker
Demoness - Asraiya Deyo
Bishop - Anthony Brogan
Duke - Brad Russell
Aerialist - Michele Frances
Philanthropist - Jared Requa
Syren - Persephonie Illyri
Farmer - Eric Esteb
Farmer's Wife - Angela Soignee
Farmer's Daughter - Chloe Velasquez
Prisoner - Mike Folger
Prisoner's Wife - Megan McDonald

Brigand Leader: Michael "Velox" Cassell
Brigands: Chandelle "Ziare" Rivera, Mem~bar', Richard Chartrand, Brandon Worrell, Alix DeMitchell, Ryan Aarestad, Jordan Morris

Imps: Chandelle "Ziare" Rivera, Richard Chartrand

The Choir: Susan Smith, Helen Rogers, Kyle Rogers, Ashley Seleck, Leilani Gribner, Shannon Sherrodd, Lynn Ceiladh Grandin, Christopher Noble, Jordan Morris, Ryan Aarestad, Becca Johnson, Alix DeMitchell

Additional vocals by: Kim Lavoie and Lynn Ceiladh Grandin (Aeterno Elementum Aria)

Strings: Tamara Wierks, John Perlic, Terry Sandys

Lighting Design: Stephanie Rose
Lighting team: Rachel Mowrer, Jennifer Garvie, Megan Gamiz, Patrick Hufford, Gira Kenny

Stage Manager - Brandon Worrell
Director - Mike Olson
Co-Directors - Jeremiah Johnson, Asraiya Deyo

Sound - Alleventservice.com

Make-up and Hair - Kris Jenot, LaRhetta Smith, Rachel Brunson

28 July, 2010

Music Success in Nine Weeks

Week Three

Week three. I'm actually at about three and half, I'm not sure whether posting this blog late will put me out or the running for the blog challenge, but I intend to finish it nonetheless, because it has been doing me a lot of good. This upcoming Ara'Kus production has been taking up a lot more time than expected. I've been spending a lot of time at the theater getting everything set up for the show, doing rehearsals, make sure that this thing can happen. It's the most complex production I've ever been a part of and it's so cool!

Week three is all about web site optimization, and keeping fans interested in your web presence. We are in an interesting position with this just at present. I spoke with our drummer, Jeremy, who also serves as our webmaster, and does a great job of it, and it turns out that our website was recently hacked. So right now, the website is actually redirecting to an alternate site, which has only limited information.

Because Jeremy is just as busy as the rest of us with this production, the website is on hold until the first week of August. That being said, Ariel has six points of interest that should be addressed in web site construction:

1. Add your pitch to your homepage.

This we will be doing when we reconstruct the site. It will be very easy to simply at the term Operatic Heavy Metal to our logo, and it will appear on each page of the site.

2. Load quickly.

This is something that we have had pretty good luck with as we tend not to put a lot of bells and whistles on the site. We like the site to be user friendly with compelling content, but not difficult to get around.

3. No Flash intros.

Yeah, none of us in Ara'Kus ever voted for one of those.

4. Consistent look throughout the web.

We have been working on this ever since the most recent site design went up, and in fact, Jeremy has got the alternate site looking very good.

5. Give away free stuff

I'd like to expand this one out and say that I believe it should be extended beyond the web. When we met with Martin Atkins, one of the first things he said is, "Free is the new black." He then proceeded to show about a million ways in which giving stuff away will make you more money. And we have used this to our advantage. We've had shows in which we told the audience about flash drives with exclusive content hidden in the venue, offered something free when you buy a shirt, offered free shirts if you do something for us. And of course we have often had exclusives for our e-mail list. This works wonders.

6. Make it clear

In this Ariel was referring to making it clear that they are getting their free content, which is good, and I also think that anyone setting up a website should keep in mind that clarity is important in many ways. If a person cannot navigate your website, or it does not have compelling content, they are not going to stick around, they'll probably click over to something that can keep their interest, or if they are male, they'll look at porn.

In summary:

This week was as little rough to accomplish much because of our hacked website.

We typically do most of what Ariel describes in this chapter.

We intend to update soon.

I hope I'm still in the blog challenge.

Free is the new black.

And, when all else fails, fall back on porn.

Relevant links

Music Success in Nine Weeks
Ariel Publicity
Martin Atkins--Invisible Records
Derek Sivers
Ara'Kus

18 July, 2010

Music Success in Nine Weeks

Week Two

Week two of Ariel's book and blog challenge has been interesting for me. The second chapter of Music Success in Nine Weeks is about branding your product and having a pitch prepared to say to anyone that asks about your music or band.

This is something that really hits home with me as, for Ara'Kus, this has been an ongoing project since before I joined the band. Ara'Kus has gone through a lot of changes since it's inception nine years ago, but for the last three years we have been moving in a direction that is best described as operatic heavy metal. In the past we have been described as epic metal and adventure metal, which are both very apt description of what we do, but I have found that when people ask about us and I say that we are operatic heavy metal, it never fails to elicit questions about us, at which point I can easily get a more in depth conversation started.

Interestingly, as we have been approaching this show on the 31st, J.J., our singer, has been using the nearly identical term, heavy metal opera, and found the same results. While we were working out some of the details of our stage show, we had a brief discussion of this subject, and everyone was an board with branding ourselves as such.

I gave some thought as well to the idea of how we communicate in writing as opposed to how we communicate in speech, and realized that though operatic heavy metal will work in most cases, it could be beneficial to have other ideas for people to read. I went out this week to the Historic Everett Theatre to put some information about our show in their ready window, and I wanted it to stand out against the other posters and ads that are up. Most of them are just 8 1/2 by 11 pages printed up at home, and a couple of full size posters with standard information. So I went above by getting some royal blue fabric to drape as a background, hung a sword in front of that, and across the sword is a plaque with our show information. Then, at the bottom, I put a banner across the drapery that reads: "Not just another action-fantasy-horror-apocalypse-thriller-heavy metal opera." It's got just a touch of comedy that helps it to stand out and grab the attention. So I am thinking that I will continue to use this, or some variation of it, where appropriate.

It's nice to be seeing what works and what doesn't. We had printed up 5,000 postcards to pass out as advertisements for the upcoming CD release, and on the cards we put this: Aeterno Elementum: A Symphonic Operatic Heavy Metal Theatrical Production, which is extremely accurate, but a bit unwieldy and not something that people can really associate with. The post cards looked great and were very attention grabbing, but in the future we'll probably use some variation of the above two ideas.

This week's chapter also hit home for me as the ideas that Ariel talks about in this part of her book are the same ideas which I discuss with many of my students. I've always been real big on helping my people to help get people to come see their shows, so I have the discussion with them that they have to be able to set themselves apart, not just with their music, but with their presentation, both on stage and off. I tell them to give me a reason to come to their show, or listen to their demo. Saying that it's unlike anything else won't work, saying that it's indie, or alternative or punk or metal won't work, give me something unique enough to make me ask for more. It's a pretty big departure from learning music theory, technique or how to play a G# demolished chord, but I find that once my students move in to this realm it opens a lot of new territory for their creativity. So I feel good knowing that I have been doing this with my band as well.

Relevant links

Music Success in Nine Weeks
Ariel Publicity
Historic Everett Theatre
Ara'Kus

11 July, 2010

Music Success in Nine Weeks

Week One

Alright, I got started a little late on Ariel's blog challenge, it started on the fifth and I didn't know about it until the eighth. Nonetheless, I feel like I am a bit ahead of the game with where I am at. The first chapter is all about setting goals. Ariel points out something that I have long felt to be true: Write down your goals. Don't just make them, make them and write them down; on paper, with a pen. This really helps to solidify the goals and make them meaningful. It doesn't mean that they can't be changed.

I have done this in the past, and luckily, this is something that Ara'Kus has been doing since before I joined the band. That being said, I think that this is a good time to take a look at our goals and see if they are still valid, or maybe could use a bit of an update.

This would be an appropriate time to talk a bit about what Ara'Kus is up to these days--a lot. A whole bunch of stuff is going on that has got us busier than we have ever been before. About a year and a half ago, being dissatisfied with our live shows, I took a look at the various ways that bands do gigs to see if I could find ways to improve what we were doing. I looked at three types of gigs:

1. Bars. You call up a local bar, set up a date, there will likely be two to four other bands playing that night, and you hope that each band brings in a few friends so that you have what we like to think of as a crowd. Do this enough and you gain more fans of music/show, and start to get a following. The bars have the stage and P.A. set up, so you just have to bring your regular equipment.

2. All day events. Similar to number one, but usually set up by an outside booking agency and often has eight to twelve bands under the theory that more bands equates to more tickets (and drinks) sold.

3. Large touring acts. These are the big guys, they travel in buses, rent large venues in advance, bring their own set up and crew, they market the show, and they have to sell enough tickets to pay their expenses and make money.

I started to kick the third idea around and wondered how I could do something more like this, but on a smaller scale. The answer came quickly--play in local theaters. We would have to rent the theater, bring in a P.A. and market the show, but we would not have to go on a major tour. The theater atmosphere is perfect for the type of performance that we are doing, and we can have a greater level of creative control (no more twenty minute sets because the bar manager wants to close early, being dropped at the last minute because the promoters got a friend whose band wants to play, or any number of other things).

I spoke with the band and they loved it. After putting it in their hands and heads the ideas just grew and grew. We are doing our first of these shows on the 31st of this month at the Historic Everett Theatre. They are the first theater of many I have talked to who are willing to take the time, and the chance, to allow us to develop the production in the way that we want to, and they have been great to work with. We will be releasing the CD in three parts, a great idea we got from an extremely killer meeting with Martin Atkins. The 31st show will be the first of these.

Getting in to this has been a big step for us and many things have changed in the dynamic of the band, all for the better in my opinion.

So what about our goals? Well they have changed significantly as this project has been coming to fruition. Our main areas of focus and the goals that go along with them at this point are:

1. This Blawg

Seems obvious that Ariel's blog challenge is one of my current goals, but this is the type of thing that it is easy to start out being all on fire for, but end up losing steam after three or four weeks of blogging. And truth be told, I'm not blogging to win Ariel's prize of a three month cyber PR campaign, as cool as it would be to have that. I'm really doing it because I see great potential for improving what is happening with Ara'Kus and my other music and personal projects by using the advice in her book.

Goal: Work through Ariel's book to achieve my goals and post a blog about it here at oddology.net for the next nine weeks.
Longer goal: Continue to use this information, as well as other positive sources, to continue to achieve my goals and modify the course of my work.

2. Branding

We have already come a very long way on this, and, having looked ahead, I know that this is largely addressed in Week Two of Ariel's book, so this one is coming soon.

Goal: Fill out the band's branding pitch by the end of week two of this blog challenge.

3. Fan Base

Like any band, we want more people to hear our music and come to our shows.

Goal: Be able to fill the Historic Everett Theatre (capacity 863) within one year.

4. Publicity

We have historically kind of kept to ourselves as a band. We'd do a show and then nobody would hear from us for two months. Great for mystique, not so great for people getting to know our music. So we have been getting out more and more. Now that the album is officially complete it's time to start getting it out to radio stations and newspapers. We are scheduled to do an interview with a major local newspaper about our show at the end of month, and just last Friday I dropped off a copy of the CD and some information for Jolene, host of the program Loud and Local at Seattle radio station KISW.

Goal: Get our material in to the hands of more publications and radio stations (ongoing)

Immediate goal: Get our material in to the hands of local papers The Stranger and Seattle Weekly within one week.

5. Stage Show

The Ara'Kus stage show has been slowly evolving since before I joined the band. It has come a long way and I think that most of the ideas we incorporate work very well. Now that we have moved in to the theater show realm we have taken a huge step and added in a lot of new things, but we still have a few gaps in the story line. These will be refined as we do shows.

Goal: Fill out the stage show over the course of our first four theater shows (we do not have firm dates for all four shows, but it should be over the course of about four to six months.

6. New Material

We have composed about two thirds of the music for our second album, and by we, I mean Jeremiah. He does most of our song writing and he's extremely good at it. The processes we used to make our first album, Aeterno Elementum, were pretty rough around the edges. I would like to streamline the recording process by first making good demo versions of the songs for people to work to, and then by setting up a process to record things in a timely, consistent and professional manner.

First goal: Create demos of songs that are already composed (seven songs) within two months.
Second goal: Once everything is composed get the band up to speed within three months.
Third goal: Record, mix and master within six months.
(Final date will remain undetermined until after all compositions are complete.)

7. Band Image

And by this I am referring not to our public image, but to our self image. I believe that this is the most important of my goals, and probably the most difficult to define. I have been working on this for quite some time. For example after almost every show, I call everyone in the band and tell them they did a good job on the set.

I believe that confidence, with each individual, and as a group can make a tremendous difference. Don't misunderstand me, Ara'Kus is far from insecure, but I do think that overall we are at about 80% of the confidence that we should have in our abilities as musicians and performers. Though I have worked on this over time, I have not seen it as a goal in the past.

When asked about the music of Ara'Kus I have often said that it is amazing, and I don't say this because I am in the band, I am in the band because I can say this. I want the band as a whole to feel the same way.

Goal: Band confidence to 95% or greater in six months.

We have been working hard to get things up and running for this show, and I see from this exercise that we can do a lot to streamline the process by keeping a clear set of goals in mind. Tonight we got together for a practice and did the set using the in-ear monitors that we will be using for the show on the 31st. It was a pretty kick ass rehearsal, and though a couple members were new to the in-ears, they got used to them quickly and it worked well.

My favorite thing in the first chapter is Ariel's advice to "Do something everyday that moves you toward your goals." Setting them and ignoring them doesn't do anything for you. I've seen that happen many times, most commonly with people's health. I have seen too many instances of someone planning an exercise regimen, or new dieting standard for themselves, only to set a start date some time in the future. When the time comes around, you hear a bunch of excuses why they can't do it now. Though I have been guilty of this at times myself, I tend to set goals for myself that I am passionate about, and those are the ones that I go through with. Like Derek Sivers says, "A bad goal makes you say, 'Let me sleep on it.' A great goal makes you say, 'I can't sleep.'" So if I find that something isn't getting done, rather than beat myself up for it, I'll make a review of the goal, find why I wasn't passionate about it, and make a change.

I would like to leave this off with one of my favorite statements of all time, I got this from David Earl of Pyramind in this video (at 5 minute 6 seconds, but watch the whole thing). I have said this to many of my guitar students, and now I am saying it to myself: Don't give me the excuse that you don't have time, because you do have time, you're just not using it.

10 July, 2010

Hades Machine

An important announcement type thing of some kind.

About six months ago I joined a local zombie apocalypse punk band known as Hades Machine. I had spoken with Jake, the founder of the project a couple years ago about his ideas, but at that time he was not looking for a guitarist. When I saw that he was looking again I got back in touch and got on board with the project.

A few weeks ago I agreed to step down from guitar playing duties and fill the role of bassist with the band. It's been really cool taking on the new role, it allows me to express myself musically in a new way, and I am getting a broader perspective of the role of the bass and it's uses in music.

You should check us out before we eat your brains.

9 July, 2010

Blogging

Nineteen months since I've updated the site. That's about to change:

So, now I am blogging.

I've been getting Ariel Hyatt's newsletter for some time now and, truth be told, I normally don't read them. Sometimes I'll skim through the titles and read an article or two, and I always find that she has very good ideas, but as busy as I am with my various projects, I usually don't look to close. Last Thursday was no exception, but as I was skimming the titles one of them really caught my eye.

Ariel has just issued a challenge to read her book Music Success in Nine Weeks, take her advice, and blog about your experiences with her material. There is a nice prize at the end for the person that does the most with her material, and you have to blog for all nine weeks. I like to write, I like to learn, I want to do more with my bands. I'm in.

Throughout this blog I am going to be concentrating primarily on my main band, Ara'Kus, an operatic heavy metal conglomeration based out of Seattle. I will be applying the same processes to my solo projects and Hades Machine, but right now those are not as active as Ara'Kus.

I've been working through week one of the book and will be posting the Week One Blog this weekend.

13 January, 2009

Site update

So, Oddology.net has been in desperate need of a makeover for quite some time and here, at long last, it is. All of the stuff that was here before is still here and I've thrown a few new items in to the mix as well, including a brief history of the Confusion project and some pictures of a really cool dump truck. Take a look around, listen to a few songs that weren't here before, read some new stuff, go back to the splash page and hit F5 300 times to be entertained by a mindless stream of random quotes, do what you do, do it well (unless it's watching television, then do something else).

I'd like to inform you that it is now my intent to update this site on a regular basis thereby keeping you, the reader, abreast of all of the exciting things that are happening it the world of Randy and ArA'KuS, but for me to do that I would have to lie, so I'm not going to. I don't know if, or how often, I'll do anything with the site, maybe next week, maybe next year, until then, enjoy what's here!