It has been some time since I have written publicly about snorb! and the music we make. I think maybe there is, after a creative endeavor, a period when you just want the music to speak for itself for awhile... when there just isn't anything to add to the "conversation," such as it is. (Made worse, I imagine, by the nagging certainty that there really isn't a conversation going on at all... just a shout or two and that compelling, if hollow, reverberation.)

I used to write about this stuff all the freaking time. Set lists and practice routines and lyrics and whatever. No snorb! event was too small to make a big deal about. I think, looking back, that all that writing was a kind of practical magic. I think I was coaxing something into being with words and sounds.

I think... therefore we snorb!

And like all magic of this nature... a failure to nurture it... to prod it further into our world as a real and substantive thing... well, it does, of course fade back to wherever it comes from eventually.

I can't help but think about that kind of stuff as October burns its way towards November. Trees throwing off their leaves and the sad, sad state of my tomato plants are no mere metaphor for the ebb of things. They are the actual ebb. We take comfort in the certainty that what comes... will go... and come again. But you can't help wishing for more delicious tomatoes. I mean... those things are delicious.

It was a year ago that I was finishing up in the studio. That intangible something or other had come fully into view and you could touch it and wonder what it might do if you weren't watching it every second. A year ago, we were fully in furious motion. A momentum built upon a thousand tiny, insignificant movements that has now run its wild course... for a solid year... only to slow, wobble and, one hopes,  begin again to pick up speed for another long acceleration towards an uncertain end.

The hardest thing I do... is start. Starting is so hard. Objects at rest tend to stay at rest. Objects in sweatpants with multiple bags of pizza rolls waiting for them in the freezer and an overflowing Netflix queue tend to stay in sweatpants. But you know how this story ends.

And how it begins.



The LaLa Gallery show was our first concert in Lafayette with Grandon playing bass. In those opening moments of that amazing first time... we found ourselves exploring the terrain as though we had never seen it before. We call that first exploration... The Charm.

I have hidden it in the music player queue at the very end... after Angle of Repose. I sure wouldn't mind if you listened to it and thought about snorb! for a few minutes.

I just got back from Indianapolis. I made the one hour drive to the big city with my friend Chris to see one of our favorite local bands, ROOT HOG, (check them out at www.roothogmusic.com ) compete in a "battle of the bands," competition. They absolutely unloaded on the joint. It was a full on rock assault. HUGE jams, artful, soulful, solos for days, passion dripping off of every note. It is a sincere pleasure to watch a band leave everything out there on the stage. Another band that we have shared the stage with, Midwest Hype, put on a terrific show as well. And so, for six dollars and the cost of a beer I got 3 hours of incredible music, a second hand nicotine buzz, nine awkward encounters with well-meaning strangers and a chance to spend a few precious minutes with friends.

I also got a glimpse of an economic model for 21st century musicians... a model with which I have not fully come to terms. You see, in addition to the pride I felt when Root Hog laid it down... I was surprised to have nearly that same reaction as I watched my fellow Lafayetteers trickle in to the venue over the course of the evening. A Sunday evening show, over an hour away from home, with the daunting prospect of a late-night interstate drag race home to hit the sack in time for Monday's inevitable workday alarm. The 20+ folks that made that trip to support the band are really sort of heroes to a working band. They are more than just the core resources in any band's pursuit of a livelihood. In the emerging business model in my mind... they are the new "products." I don't say that to cheapen or demean. Fans of a band that are invested enough to drive 120 miles and lose sleep in the name of supporting a group are SO DAMN IMPORTANT... that I would wager that they are the new currency of musicians.

In days past, sales of recordings, merchandise and the proceeds from live shows were the salaries of a working band. Recently, music licensing and other esoteric pay strategies have dominated. While these remain important revenue streams, it seems unlikely that a band of 5 musicians, + 1 or two support staff could generate the $150,000-$200,000 per year it would take to pay modest salaries and costs. (And by modest... I mean terrible. In the neighborhood of $16K-$20K per member.) That is just a staggering amount of CD and t-shirt sales. Even if a band can play 200 shows a year... unless they are all $1,000 paydays... (and they aren't... more like $150-$300,) the revenue necessary to operate a band independent of patronage (record label, Prince of Wales... what have you,) is nearly impossible to generate using those traditional methods.

Then I saw how important the core music supporter really is. A band needs 100,000 fans who are LIKELY to spend at least $1 per year on the band. To get that many committed fans is hard. Really, really hard. Not rocket science, but hard. You don't get it by attrition. You don't get it a few at a time. The only way you get that many fans is IF you have a core, vocal and committed group of supporters who are advocating for your group at every opportunity. (Or you get on national TV somehow.) 1,000 core supporters, each with a network of 100 friends in their social circles, can make a viable band through shear force of will.

It is Math, yo.

Like I said, I haven't fully come to terms with this. But I feel, in my gut, that this is the way forward for groups. For YEARS... YEARS!!... the only way a band has been able to make a living is through some improbable accident of patronage. We wait to get discovered. We wait to get signed to a juicy record deal or to write that one viral hit. 99% of the musicians I know have long ago developed a callus over the part of their spirit that harbors that insane hope. Some, like Root Hog's guitarists, Pat McClimans and Dru Alkire, are as talented, creative and vital as any musicians playing anywhere. The difference between Pat McClimans and Warren Haynes is, in my opinion, mostly just luck. Every one of us knows a genius player that is unheralded... who long ago hung it up to bend pipe at a refinery or sell real estate or whatever... because one can't wait around forever to hit the hit-record lottery.

With social networking, digital distribution and the myriad other advancements that enable us in this new era... we should not need to rely on patronage as the only path for musicians. The math says... it should be possible for 1,000 engaged supporters... engaged enough to actively advocate to their small social circles for the band... to produce 100,000 fans where "fans" is defined as someone willing to spend $1 per year on the band. Finding and cultivating these core supporters is the new currency for independent musicians.

Sorry this is so long and serious and boring. I'll get back to writing about donuts soon enough. If you made it all the way to the end of this... then you may be who I am talking about. You may be the difference between a band making music for you full time and a band that works themselves to death trying to make music for you part-time.

I haven't come to terms with any of this.

In a few seconds, it will be midnight on the day of our first official studio release. If we were having one of those Harry Potter-style midnight release parties... folks would be getting pretty excited right about now... you know... if snorb! had some vampires maybe... or a half-blood prince or a dreamy werewolf. (Note to self... talk to Tyler about his new role in the group.) I find that the mix of emotions I feel concerning this event creates a sensory cocktail that I haven't ever experienced. There is pride, of course. But there is also fear.  Fear mostly of what your rational mind has already concluded based on evidence... that there was no reason to do this thing. 

Musicians and the folks that listen to them make sacrifices. We know about the money it takes to buy gear and studio time. We know about the time it takes away from other activities like parenting, work, bathing, learning to rope a cow. We know about the sacrifice of dignity that goes along with being a grown adult human being engaged in an activity that makes Peter Pan Syndrome look like a week-long course in estate planning. And listeners make sacrifices, too. Time, money... same as above... and it hurts a little to watch a band you love struggle just to present their music to an indifferent and over-stimulated world.

And even knowing all of this... knowing that it will take money, time and money and even more time and that the world will not wobble even a little regardless of whether you do this thing or you don't... matters not at all. We are simply compelled to do it. We are called. There is no denying the nature of things.

Strange to be called to say these words... to make these noises. Strange to be called to lug a thousand pounds of gear all over the place so that you can attempt to wrestle the sounds and words into a semblance of order. Strange to sacrifice the things that everyone wants... money & time... so that this moment happens.

And... as I type this... the clock reads 12:22 a.m.

So happen it has.

So... here is a link to Tim Brouk's Blog:

www.jconline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section

Tim is the Entertainment Editor of our local paper, the Journal & Courier. He was kind enough to feature the writings of another local musician, (Ian Gerber,) who was kind enough to be writing about our upcoming CD. These wheels within wheels never cease to astound. Folks connecting across the internets, reacting to sounds generated in smoky bars... moved to talk to band members during a break... moved to write an email or tell a friend or buy a t-shirt. Most amazing of all is the genuine affection... affection that we in this group have for all the people who take the time to listen, allow us to be ourselves in a saturated market full of bands... affection that we feel flowing back and forth in time to the waves of noise.

Community has long been understood to be a place where geography alone ties a group together. The spacelessness of information, traveling everywhere at incomprehensible speeds... is a phenomenon new enough to exhibit characteristics and behaviors that are strange and unsuspected. These new communities are as deep and connected as they want to be, as shallow and cursory as they need to be.

I used to live in a cul-de-sac when I was a kid. It was brilliant. Cul-de-sacs are the physical space equivalent of the social networks I see springing up all around musicians and artists and folks on the internet. All day long, kids would ride their bikes into the circle for wiffleball, stick fights, kickball, snow forts, touchdowns, hide & seek, chalk painting, scheming, arguing, fighting... there was no kind of human drama that couldn't find a piece of the sac in which it could thrive.

Or... if not thrive... at least hang on until the time was right.

Heading out to rock the suburbs around Chicago. If you know me, even a little bit, you know that I get lost in any city larger than Lafayette. I have lived and worked in LA, Seattle, San Francisco... but I am small-town at heart.

I am always amazed at the feeling of freedom that washes over me as I drive off to a gig in a new town... the possibilities are so thick. New people to meet, new terrible culinary choices to take responsibity for... (yes, I do want 6 corndogs. To go.)

Also surprising is how often I feel that sense of true freedom.

It is rare.

If feeling free is a once in a great while feeling... what is my everyday condition? Is the background noise of regular life the sound of slavery?

I can not wait to crank it up tonight.

Having a website is interesting.

Interesting in that... one is compelled to make it better than it is... compelled to add individuality and style... compelled to try to create content that will help to differentiate the site from the 10,000 sites out there exactly like it... sites with exactly the same parameters... with exactly the same goals... aiming at the exact same audience.

And yet... all this creation and tweaking and polishing... all this industry and hope... sort of all falls under the umbrella of "things you know will have exactly zero impact on anything." It is all done with a sort of tacit understanding... a healthy certainty that maybe 50 people will look at what you have done... once in a while... and mostly only out of a sense of duty and compassion.

Nice people. All of you.

If you are this deep into the website, you deserve a special kind of thanks. A thank you with homework! You see... we have one of those word problems to solve and we think you are just the right sort to solve it. Those fancy word problems go a little something like this:

Two snorbs leave two different departure stations heading in opposite directions at exactly the same time. The first snorb is on a train that averages 61 km/hr for 5 hours before it comes to a stop outside the Hall of Irrevocable Lunacy on the surface of the Moon. The other snorb leaves the station in the belly of a Space Walrus and is slowly consumed by a gnawing sense of doom... (which is how a space walrus digests a word-problem-snorb, on the rare instance of encountering one.) Solve for X. 

So... that's the idea. The actual problem is a little easier to begin with and a little more difficult at the end. It is expressed as:

What kind of content would make a site like this compelling enough so that someone or many someones would be interested in visiting regularly and would, over time, allow them to develop a genuine connection to the group and the music that they produce?

More videos?
Podcasts? (maybe of rehearsals and the like?)
Some other internet fad of 5 minutes ago or worse?

The wisdom of the crowd, (such as it is,) is well known throughout the kingdom of 1's and 0's. We await this wisdom with a gnawing sense of... wait... I covered all of that already.

Stupid space walrus!

~s