Category: Blog

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how to un-sell a show

May 24, 2002
how to un-sell a show

Now that I’ve tried to promote a show, let me make you uneasy about coming. Can I market, or what?!

I have been rehearsing with Chris this week, to try to begin to work out the concept of the two of us playing shows together, acoustic guitar and stripped down drum kit (this is what I will be taking out on the road, for the most part, because he is foolish enough to want to blow his money doing this). The process is kind of frustrating for me right now, just because I think he really wants me to give him an idea of what I want, and I can’t seem to get the thought into anyone’s head that when I say I don’t know how to tell someone what I want I’m not just being self-deprecating. 🙂 I was trying to explain it to Sarah last night, and I said it was sort of like trying to tell someone who knows Sanskrit how to write something in Sanskrit, when I don’t know it. Other instruments are another language to me, and I don’t know it. It’s not that I have ideas but I just don’t have confidence in them, I don’t have ideas. The band arrangements are Rob’s, based off the CD, which is Rob’s. The discussion in the Million Box is generally, “Paul, do you like this part?” “uh, yeah, it sounds good to me.” or “Paul, what do you want me to do here?” “uh, i’m not sure.”

So, I say to Chris, I’d like you to do more stuff, or, really, just do different stuff than what’s on the CD. But, when he wants to know what that means… I don’t have a clue. I can’t even find an equivalent musically as an example. I’m having enough trouble trying to figure out how to be more expressive in my playing acoustically. I just don’t want it to be, “oh, here are those songs on the CD, being played on just an acoustic guitar and drums.” If that makes any sense. I want it to be, “oh, here are those songs, written for just guitar and drums. That’s pretty interesting.”

Really, what it boils down to is… I’m afraid. I have had this fear for some time now, that what people are hearing out of me, CD and band-wise, is Rob’s doing. And I’m about to go out on the road, playing acoustic. And let’s say people hear a song on the radio and like it, so they come out to see a show, and if what they get there is just, here’s that guy trying to play those same songs on an acoustic, I just can’t forsee much response from that. Historically, I haven’t gotten much response from that. My band shows are always more successful, at sales and at getting people to sign up. I write good songs and then, because one of my weaknesses is my inability to think in terms of arrangements, I surround myself with talented people who know what they’re doing. That’s what I do, and me touring around solo takes that whole thing away, leaving just me, the songs, and average guitar playing. And I’m afraid of having some sort of successful response to the CD, that I then go out to play shows to support, and having it die because people aren’t getting anything interesting. Because I don’t know where that leaves me at that point.

And I also don’t seem to be able to articulate what troubles me very well.

The show is still on, by the way. 🙂

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Anger-Boy! First Senses-Shattering Issue!

Today is a random installment of Things You Don’t Know About Me and Probably Didn’t Really Want To But I’m Bored…

I have always had a short temper, in both senses: quick to get angry and quick to have it pass. When I was very young it was particularly bad, I would throw fits and sometimes even get destructive. When I was 13 I got into a fight with my mother and sister. I couldn’t begin to tell you what it was about, it’s irrelevant, I suppose. I’m sure it was something minor, and probably wrong on my part. At any rate, they left the house to go somewhere, the store or something, I don’t remember. I was still furious at them for whatever imagined slight I had suffered.

I started reading comics when I was 13. I still remember that Iron Man #115 was the first one I ever bought. The second one I bought was Marvel Team-Up with Spider-Man and the Not Ready For Prime Time Players (really. John Belushi was on the cover). By this time of this story I had 44 comic books, and I was pretty proud of that fact.

I started ripping every one of them in half.

To this day I still don’t know what that was supposed to accomplish, or how destroying my own prized possessions was supposed to get back at the two of them. But I was just full of rage and I started tearing them right down the center. What makes it so much worse was that, halfway through, I had started to calm down, and I knew what I was doing made no sense and that I should really stop. But I didn’t, until every single one of them was destroyed.

Then I grabbed some tape and tried to fix them. Two pages into the first book I realized there was no hope and I threw them all away. I knew then, in that dim way only a 13-year-old boy can think, that I had a real problem.

I have always kept a very tight rein on my anger since then. Most of you who know me might be surprised that I even have a temper, which is, of course, the point. It’s not that I push it down; it’s just that I deal with it on my own time, and I always keep in mind the stupidity that I am capable of.

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12 May: Atlanta

12 May – Eddie’s Attic (Atlanta, GA)
with Alastor, weaklazyliar

The entire show seemed to go off without a hitch, really. Alastor opened with an acoustic set. Actually, it was just Elizabeth and Scott (who used to be in Alastor), but I haven’t seen them play together since last September, so that was actually really good to see again.

Then we went on. I felt really relaxed last night, and I couldn’t even begin to explain why. We rehearsed just before the show, but we’ve done that plenty of times. Maybe it’s the room, because Eddie’s is an odd room to do an electric show in, a small stage, less intimidating, but we’ve done a show there before and I can’t recall feeling that at ease. But whatever the reason, my heart or my shoes, I just felt really good. One thing I have noticed… I have always felt that a good deal of the success I am having with recording and with band shows is having surrounded myself with people who are extremely talented. I know it’s what you’re supposed to do, but when you have my mentality it’s hard to shake the feeling that the credit lies largely with them, since I’m the same guy who shortly beforehand was just playing solo at Borders and feeling very despondent. But lately I have felt a bit more like I am a part of it as well, some sort of sense that my abilities are growing, too.

Of course, one bad acoustic show will crush that right back out of me. 🙂

weaklazyliar played last. I was sitting in back talking with people, and talking about how tight they are. I think I am getting repetitive about them, so I’ll try to just sum up: they really went out on a limb for this record, and I know it was a beast to get it done. But it really is amazing, and the fact that they’re keeping the arrangements for live shows is just great. I know it probably can be daunting at times, playing songs that are sparse and quiet like that in a club, but I think it works, and if I had stumbled on them out of nowhere I would have just been blown away. I sang backup on a couple of songs with them. I keep telling them I’d do it on everything if they’d let me but so far they haven’t taken me up on it.

They seemed to be enjoying themselves, I hope I’m right about that. It was a fun show to watch. After the main set they played some older songs, a couple of them with other people doing the vocals. Elizabeth came up and sang “Rocketpop” and I sang “Secondhand.” Then we all did “American Girl” and drank a lemon drop shot (which, by the way, was really disgusting. I don’t know what’s in it). Then there was an encore song and Elizabeth and I tried to do parts on it even though we weren’t really prepared, I think we did okay, she played some guitar and I tried to find a backing vocal part on the fly.

It occurs to me that the last time the three of us all played together was last September and I remember feeling really great afterwards, and that was even me just playing acoustic. Clearly we should do it more often. For my sake, if nothing else. These are two bands who I want to see succeed, who I think are amazing for so many different reasons.

On a side note, I saw what is pretty much the final design for my CD last night. We went through one design already, which had a lot of things about it that I liked, but some things that didn’t work for me. Then, with the Daemon Records thing happening suddenly, all the plans went into the air, but now that they’ve sort of landed we’re back with more or less the same design specs, so we went back to tweak the last design. They brought it to me last night (they being Lauren and Rama at goodsforyou.com) and I just love the damn thing. It’s right on the nose of the feel I have wanted for the CD since I first started planning it back when recording on Slumberland was wrapping up.

It feels like things are happening. It’s fleeting at times, and still I remain overly cautious, I suppose. But when my negative tendencies are tired or weak, I can almost sense momentum of some kind. But I’m trying not to jinx it.

I forgot to mention one thing… after our set, Michelle Malone came up to say hi. She missed the actual set, I think, but said she had heard a lot of great things about me, and was working with her manager to set up some opening spots, so I guess that may actually come to pass. I am assuming Linda has talked me up to her, which would make one more thing I owe her for.