I started hanging out with Paul and tagging along to his gigs with a band that he co-founded called about:blank. The band would let me sit in here and there and then at one of those gigs I met a sax player named Marcus Cardwell, who I’m now neighbors with. Meeting Marcus became the jumping off point for many friends and musicians I would meet shortly thereafter. That moment is really a big reason why today I’m as much a part of the Austin music scene as I am (though that’s a longer story for another time).

For me, playing with about:blank was always slightly uncomfortable and new. I don’t know what you’d call their style of music. I’ve heard it described as “funk/jazz”, “acid jazz”, “acid jazz with a bit of ska dabbled in and cooked over medium heat”, and a few other things along similar lines. Whatever you call it, it’s never exactly the style I would form a band around and so it was always exciting to play with them because the unfamiliarity with some of the musical styles that their music is based off of, like ska, often made me feel like I was getting my ass kicked right on stage in front of everyone.

Some time after I started sitting in with a:b, Paul left the band. I guess I was probably the logical choice to replace him, but I was pretty busy with my own projects. I was, however, able to step in on a couple of gigs officially as their trumpet player, including their CD release show back in 2009. The guys in the band are some of the nicest musicians you’ll ever meet and they make good music that people like. I think that’s a goal a lot of musicians have.

However, all good things must come to an end. After six years of making music, about:blank will be performing their last show ever tonight at the Elephant Room starting at 9:30p. There’ll be a lot of special guests, including yours truly. I hope you can come out and enjoy their music in a live setting for one last time.

As a musician, when you reach out to potential supporters you’re usually only successful if two main factors about these people are true:

1. They need to want to give you support. This requires that they like you as a person and that your music resonates with them in a way that is special and unique. Put simply, your music needs to connect with them. And my point here is that “connecting” isn’t just about the music.
2. They need to have the means to support you. Even if they see the importance of helping you out, they need to have the expendable income that allows them to do so. The last couple years hasn’t been great financially for a lot of people in the world. If you’re struggling to pay your bills or feed your family or find a job, I’d guess that supporting music and the arts is low on the priority list.

Even if the two criteria above are met, then you’re still faced with the logistical problem of having each person actually know you’re asking for help. It’s really easy to get lost in the shuffle when you’re competing against so much noise that all of us experience in our inboxes and on Facebook, Twitter, or myriad of other social networks on a daily basis.

The Life of an Musician

Most musicians who make a go at a full-time profession in music go one or both of two routes: teaching and playing pickup gigs. Neither of these are usually very lucrative. We often rely on patron funding or commissions to make it possible to record albums, hire promoters, produce schwag (t-shirts, posters), and, of course, go on tour.

What about album sales and streaming? Surely those generate a decent amount of revenue. Right? The truth is, most musicians make very little from either albums sales or online streaming. When we sell an album — either a physical copy or a digital download — we’ll usually take in somewhere between $5 and $7. That’s not too bad, but remember to produce a physical CD cost a minimum of around $1 and that’s only taking into account the actual pressing of that CD. When you look at all of the other costs associated with pressing that one disc, the revenue from each one sold starts decreasing pretty quickly.

With streaming the situation is much worse. You would have to generate millions of streams to make any serious money. For most of us that’s certainly not going to happen. Elias Haslanger recently wrote a great post about this. My streaming numbers for Kinetic look very similar to his figures.

We Value Entertainment Less Than Art

Most full-time musicians find it difficult or even impossible to make a real living wage. There is no minimum amount that we have to get paid for a particular gig. The old idea of a strong musicians’ union is all but dead. Many musicians, even if they’re somewhat established, sometimes play for free. This can be for some benefit they’ve been asked to perform at or just to get their foot in the door. Most full-time musicians ofen don’t have the luxury to do as Mike Monteiro and Harlan Ellison suggest.

None of this will begin to change until our society puts more value on the arts. Everywhere you look you can see how little most people and politicians — I’m purposely separating them out — value the arts. For example, this year the National Endowment of the Arts budget, for the 2nd year in a row, will likely be cut by $20 million, representing the deepest cut to the NEA in 16 years.

Music programs in schools are suffering, too. When I was coming up through middle and high school, the opportunities in music we had were incredible, and I went to a public school in a fairly small town in California. Between visiting clinicians, band field trips, and special concerts with guest artists, there didn’t seem to be the same constraints as we see today. Those experiences have real, long-lasting results. They helped me see a clearer view of the path that led from being a student of music to being able to earn a some wage for it.

Shut Up and Play!

I realize that I’m doing a lot of complaining, but these are serious issues.  The more the arts decline in our culture the worse off we’ll all be. Period.

Think of your daily life. How much of it involves listening to music, watching a film, or reading a book? What if you didn’t have those things in your life? What if you still had plenty to choose from, but the quality drastically declined because artists weren’t able to fund new creative ventures? Ask yourself if the world that you want to live in is one where the value of what’s happening in Kim Kardashian’s life is greater than the value of fostering creativity and connecting with one another in a way that only the arts provides.

Check out the full MJF lineup: http://et4.us/335 and http://et4.us/336.

Taking a band of 6 people costs a good deal of money so we’re asking for your help so we can make this amazing opportunity become reality.

To thank you for your donation, I’m offering a lot of goodies. Things like a copy of first CD, handwritten sheet music, lessons, web site and iPhone app development, and more!

Please visit our Kickstarter campaign page and support us today.

The site is coolyourjetsdesigns.com and is for my friend, Mike Harnisch. Mike’s tall and he wears glasses. He’s also a talented graphic designer and “Blue Note Enthusiast and feeds his family by working on video games for geeks at BioWare, Austin, a division of EA.

The design of the site is all Mike’s. I took his Photoshop mockups and created  a custom WordPress theme for him that allows him to manage his site like a full-fledged CMS. This allows him completed control over all of the content on the site.

Besides Cool Your Jets Design being a hub for Mike to show off his creative work, it also serves as the place where he can publish his weekly podcast Fresh Friday which is a presentation of about 30 minutes of R&B, soul, and jazz mixed together straight from vinyl recordings centering around some central theme or artist.

So check out the site and especially the podcast and let Mike know what you think.

How To Get Tickets

You can purchase tickets directly from me. You’ll be able to pay with a credit card or using your PayPal account. Tickets are $10 in advance or $15 at the door so be sure to get your spots reserved early!

Purchase Advance Tickets for ETC at The Hideout Theatre

If you don’t have the iPhone app, you can buy a physical copy of the show through PayPal!

Download the EJT Music app today!

I created this to help promote my music and gigs. Now when I’m at a gig I can tell everyone with an iPhone to head to the App Store and just download my app. They’ll instantly get a bunch of free music, videos, can join my mailing list, and be notified of upcoming gigs. Hopefully it’ll help draw more of a connection between myself and the audience. Musicians have to continue to think ahead and come up with new ways to promote support their music. I’m hoping this will help allow me to do just that.

Now, a quick preview of what the app will offer.

Audio

There’s a ton of free audio included, available to stream right to your device. A lot of the audio in this app (like recordings from live shows) isn’t available anywhere else. You can purchase audio either from iTunes or directly from me through PayPal. As I add new music, it’ll show up in the app automatically. Plus, if you’re using an iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4 along with iOS 4 you can stream music in the background by selecting a track to stream and pressing the home button on your iPhone. The current track will continue to play in the background.

Video

Videos featured in the app are pulled from my Vimeo page and will be updated regularly.

News

The app features a News section that’ll let you read the same content you get on this site. You can even opt to receive Push Notifications for whenever I post something new and you’ll be notified on your phone automatically.

Calendar

Just like this site, all of my public gigs will be listed. Clicking on a gig listing will show you more details about that gig as well as a map display marking your current location and the location of the gig. From there you can add a reminder notification about that gig and it’ll appear on your phone 24 hours before the start of that gig. You can easily see any gigs that you have notifications scheduled for. You can also cancel a notification for a specific gig just as easily. The map view allows you to get directions from your current location to the location of the gig.

Photos

Pretty self explanatory. Photo galleries in fullscreen glory.

Mailing List

A ‘Settings’ section in the application will let you manage your mailing list preferences. You can subscribe and unsubscribe right from the app.

Marcus Cardwell – sax
Danny Anderson – guitar
Kris Afflerbaugh – bass
Andy Beaudoin – drums
Todd Jenkins – percussion

and, our first set will feature Akina Adderley!

We play from 9:30p to 1:30a and it’s FREE to get in. The Elephant Room is located at 315 Congress Avenue.