About Jake London

Professional Advice Giver

Recent posts

• Comment on Jake London's answer…

  0 0 Great comment chrisrnps. This is what I mean about learning to get it dialed in and simplified all at once. Jake London commented over 2 years ago

• Comment on Jake London's answer…

  0 0 Try to have patience and persevere. These things take time, but if you keep working at it, little by little stuff will open up. I think this blog post by Seth Godin is a great summary of this stuff: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/05/barry_bonds.html Jake London commented over 2 years ago

• Follow Following 1

  What is with the trend of Talent Buyers making bands do all the work?

  1 0 Bookers have a lot of days to fill. So if someone else steps up and does some work filling some of them, that can help lighten the load a bit, and allow them to be more effective on the other nights they have to fill. I know I helped organize a monthly songwriter night at the Sunset Tavern for 5 years. I'm sure one of the attractions of it for the owner/booker was that it was 1 less night a month he had to handle. But I benefited too. I got to play every month in a great venue. I got to know a lot more great musicians, and a lot more people got to know more about me as a performer and about my music. People still ask me about that night five years after we stopped doing it (got too busy in the rest of my life). So maybe the booker likes your thing (and/or likes you personally), but doesn't feel he or she knows the landscape of bands that fit with you as well as you do. So it's better for everyone if you put a good bill together. Or maybe they like you and your music, but the reality is that your band does not draw well enough for them to put energy and resources into putting bills together for you at this point in time (but this could change if your thing grows more). Or maybe they've come to find that when the bands put a bill together, they are more inclined to work harder to promote it and get people out to the show. All that being said, if you have local bookers at reasonably good clubs, who will answer your e-mails and phone calls, and are open to you putting bills together and making a show happen at their club, you may not be all the way to where you'd ideally like to be, but you have definitely established some legitimacy with these people. A lot of bands are not yet so fortunate. Jake London answered in Music Panel over 2 years ago Answer, comment & read 2 more answers »

• Follow Following 1

  How should I organize my records?

  2 0 This seems like more of a question for the Librarian and Archivist Panel. I think they'll be discussing cataloging and taxonomies on Questionland next week . But seriously, who and what is the organization for? Is it just for you, so you can find what you want when you want it? Do other people use it too? Are you interested in genre categories as a way of reminding/inspiring yourself to listen to more of your collection? All of those factors would contribute to what you end up doing. When I had more vinyl than I do now, I usually just went alphabetical, to the extent I even did that. I get kind of overwhelmed trying to classify things. In iTunes, I rarely use genre categories. I like to make smart playlists based on play counts and skip counts, so I get a mix of stuff I haven't heard that much of along with favorites. But there's no genre involved in that. It's just the variety mix, so to speak. If I want to make a genre playlist, I just put it together manually, or I use a program like Music IP DJ, which is like a slightly more sophisticated iTunes Genius or Pandora for your iTunes library. But vinyl is a different mindset for sure. Unless you have a record changer, it's one thing at a time. Jake London answered in Music Panel over 2 years ago Answer, comment & read 8 more answers »

• Comment on Ben London's answer…

  0 0 Beat me to the punch with a lot of this, Ben, and added some other great thoughts. Excellent post. Ultimately, if you don't know already who the people are that can help you, you probably need to be out and about more in the community figuring that stuff out for yourself, because my answer to that question of who a good person is may be very different than the answer you come to in your own experience. I know it's frustrating in a forum like this when you ask for some specific info (give me names...) and you end up getting back generalities. But the reality is that your needs are going to be specific to you. So it is hard to comment on that. In any case, especially at the outset, I'd be wary about working with anybody who isn't a known commodity inside of your community. Do all the stuff above that Ben suggests. But if there aren't some people you know in the community who can also vouch for this person, think twice about working with them, especially if there isn't a clear and easy exit strategy (e.g.,, no long term agreement). Jake London commented over 2 years ago

• Follow Following 1

  Are there local booking agents or promoters you enjoy working with and would recommend to a developing indie band?

  0 0 Few people in your position wouldn't like to outsource this task to somebody else. But few people in your position will be able to find this sort of person to take you on, especially in the present climate. People with credible skills and strong references are hard to come by. Their plates are generally quite full. Either they are too big for your project, or they are too busy scrambling with the bands they already have trying to make a living off them. I don't mean to sound flip, but at the start (and often well after the start), the booking agent thing is a don't call us we'll call you scenario. Unless the agent saw you in the flow of their game (perhaps opening for one of their bands) or you were referred to them by somebody they trust (e.g., a club booker or somebody at your label if you are on a label with some credibility), they probably will not take you on unless you are already making a fair amount of stuff happen on your own. If you are making stuff happen on your own, then you will get onto their radar that way, and at that point, you may not be approaching them anymore. They may be approaching you. This leaves you with two options in the mean time: (1) keep booking your own shows; (2) see if there is some inexperienced but passionate friend of yours who might be willing to take on this task. Both of these options have their pluses and minuses. If you DIY it, you'll learn a lot about how the show-booking process works and any headway you make doing it will be equity that you own, because you will have established relationships with club bookers that you can continue to fall back on as the years go by (even if you get in a new band). If you get a friend to help you, you don't have to do it, which can be a plus, and if they end up having any aptitude for the game, you may end up in a better situation than if you'd signed with a more "credible" agent, because your friend is passionate about your thing, and his or her success is more dependent on your success than an agent with more prestige and power. More than one of those more "credible" agents you mentioned in your question started out in the agent biz by being that passionate friend who was willing to help book a band that nobody else believed in early in the curve (the same goes for band managers too). On the other hand, if your friend is incompetent, you'll wish you had kept doing it yourself. Jake London answered in Music Panel over 2 years ago Answer, comment & read 4 more answers »

• Comment on Fnarf's answer…

  0 0 Yes, but as the person who asked the question, I can say with some confidence that it's probably not the most interesting use of Web 2.0. Jake London commented over 2 years ago

• Comment on Jake London's answer…

  0 0 Your other option is to get keyboard amps for the synths/drum pads and just let the sound person mic the amps. Then you get the ability to control your sound on the stage and you give the sound man something familiar to deal with. It may actually end up sounding better too because there will actually be sound coming off the stage besides the guitar amp. There will be bleed between the different sounds coming off the stage. This bleed may actually help to create a more congealed sound mix. Will it be pristine as the synths coming through the board in stereo? No. But I think stereo is over-rated in a club gig context anyway. Besides, if amps are on a stage in different locations, they will naturally create a stereo image for the listener (even if the sources are in mono), because they exist in space along the stereo image field of the stage, and since the sound off the stage will also be helping to create the front of house sound in a club setting, it will contribute some dimensionality to the sound. Jake London commented over 2 years ago

• Comment on Jake London's answer…

  0 0 Man, 5 DIs is a lot of DIs if you aren't an all acoustic band or something like that. If a venue doesn't do a lot of this stuff (and what venue does except maybe the Tractor?), they probably won't even have that many DI boxes. Do you bring any of your own? Or maybe one of those rack units with 4-5 DI boxes built in? Is there any way to incorporate the mixer into a rack with some of the other gear, so you just roll it up on stage, give the sound guys some wires to plug into the snake, plug in the mics, mic the guitar amp, and call it good? I know it's a hassle and would cost some extra money to get the thing together, but it sure would save some hassles in the long run. And ultimately, that's what you want to do, make it as easy as possible for the sound person to get you set up and ready to for a sound check. As far as different onstage sound than what the audience hears, that's always going to happen as soon as you are putting most of your stuff through the P.A., rather than playing through amps on the stage. To my mind, the front of house sound, is out of your hands. You just need to hope the sound person does a decent job with that (or try to get someone you trust to listen and empower them to pass their thoughts along to the sound person). The stage sound, on the other hand, can really affect your performance. So I say do whatever you can to improve your ability to control it and make it what you need. Jake London commented over 2 years ago

• Follow Following 1 What is the most creative use of Web 2.0 social networking tools (.e.g., Twitter, FB, etc.) that you have seen a local band use? Jake London asked in Music Panel over 2 years ago 4 Answers by Fnarf, Dave Segal , Megan Seling…

• See all of my 1 Question , 12 Answers and 7 Comments