Musicians In The 21st Century
The keys to musicians surviving these days are “networking” and multi-tasking.” And that’s what I wanna talk about today. We all know that clubs are closing; it’s harder to get gigs, and record companies aren’t signing new artists nearly as much as they did years ago. Blame TV, the economy, video games, Internet downloading, whatever; the fact is that it’s harder to make a living as a musician these days. So, what should we do?

Multi-tasking
A lot of musicians are playing in several bands at the same time. Play in all of them and pray for no scheduling conflicts. If there is a conflict, go with the best paying gig. Since most bands only play a couple of times a month these days, that’s not as big a problem as it sounds. If one band starts to take off, quit the other ones.
Yeah, it’s shitty, but that’s what needs to be done. It also means the band that’s starting to take off is doing something right (or at least doing it better than the other bands), and that’s the band you wanna be in. The pie is much smaller these days, and the best bands get the biggest pieces. If you can’t be in the big bands, get a lot of smaller pieces by playing in other bands.

Networking
Get the band names out there, either though selling recordings at live shows, on the Internet or through a MySpace page. And make sure you have your own personal MySpace page as well as a band page. Offer to do guest appearances on other people’s albums; do a solo album. Make sure that any band you’re in has product to sell: T-Shirts, albums, whatever. These days, it’s all about one thing — survival.
(Harvey Gerst), ITR Studios, http://ITRstudio. com