Thoughts on being a team player

I have a very competitive nature, I love a challenge and even more so, I love to win. I love to be in charge and have many natural leadership abilities. This comes out especially in situations where I sense that no one else is taking initiative. I'm the person at the bow of the ship looking ahead and leading the way. These are all good qualities for being a music producer but I am starting to think that these qualities and behavior patterns are not always the most appropriate during a recording project. i understand that in this overcrowded business you need to be aggressive to get noticed but at what point does that overlap into the actual project itself when you really need to be a team player. When it's no longer about you and your success or failure but that of your client?

 Seems I've been struggling with almost everything lately.  Some of this comes from pushing my self past my old limits. Quit my gym membership last August. Don't  let the whole "no muscle heads allowed" in Planet Fitness adverts fool you. They were there in force. They just don't look like the muscle bound guy in the commercial. I ended up hating going and dealing with them hogging the machines. So since August I've been working out 5 days a week at home and subsequently am in the best shape of my life. Lost 25 lbs and transformed myself but now have hit a plateau and this is where I've given up in the past. So it's about changing things up and starting at the bottom again.

 I accidentally found H.I.I.T. one day online [High Intensity Interval Training] and the Tabata clock [http://www.beach-fitness.com/tabata/] You set the clock for 8-10 rounds 60 seconds on and 30 seconds rest and go for the 12-15 minutes it takes. It sounds easy but I guarantee you won't get through 3 rounds to start. There are any number of exercises you can do in this time. The one I choose was  and stepping up on a weight bench and lifting  15 lb dumbells overhead  and then stepping down. It works out to be around 12 times in a minute. Then 30 second rest, drink some water and then go again for another minute. I've been doing this 3 times a week since august and now have to change up the exercise since my body is used to it. One thing I learned about this sort of workout and it's advantage over jogging or treadmill is with the addition of weights or just the fact that you're using your whole body weight is your metabolism is raised and continues to be elevated for hours after the exercise is over.
 With treadmill and jogging as soon as you stop your metabolism goes back down. So fat loss is enhanced by the HIIT style exercises.

On alternate days [like today] I just do weight lifting [dumbells 15/20 and 25 lbs.]

So you don't need a gym membership just some dumbells and a weight bench or something stable to step up on. I would see some people in the gym for years and they never looked like it was working as they were still fat and out of shape!

Modern Food

I spend a portion of my free time watching food network shows. My favorite is Chopped. This is an elimination competition where 4 chefs compete and are given a basket of disparate ingredients and first have to make an appetizer. Then they eliminate one chef so then three chefs have to make an entree and then down to two chefs who make dessert. They are given a short time limit to do this and are judged on creativity and ability to transform the ingredients and make them work together. I've learned a lot of good cooking techniques from this show but here seems to be so much pretension in the descriptions these days. Making a balsamic reduction with a sweet potato coulis drizzled with aoli over hand torn pasta. I personally pour stuff over food but these chefs drizzle! They make a deconstructed french toast and I make a fried egg on toast..etc. Any way I'm learning to be a better cook and am starting to get some great results. But the difference between my cooking and TV cooking is that I'm trying to make healthier meals. They pile on the cheese and butter and sugar and salt and bacon and deep fry because [and I quote] "The fat is the flavor" Also I have been disappointed in a number of restaurant meals lately. I made a winning dish tonight and want to share the recipe with you. Steamed vegetables and sauteed Chinese black mushrooms over rice with Tahini sauce. Broccoli, onion, turnip,zucchini steamed for 8- 10 minutes [don't over do it] the vegs should still have a little crunch to them. I had the black mushrooms soaking in water in the fridge for a couple of days [cut off the stems and discard but save all the liquid] chop mushroom tops into medium size pieces and saute in peanut oil with a little soy sauce until the mushrooms start to brown. Add the pre-cooked rice and the liquid from the mushrooms and stir it together and cook for a minute or two. Take Tahini paste and add water until the consistency let's it pour easily [don't over do it] put the rice and mushrooms on the bottom of a bowl, put the steamed vegs on top and pour over the Tahini sauce..you can add a little soy sauce to taste. And that's it....healthy but very flavorful and the sauteed mushrooms and mushroom stock make a potentially boring steamed vegetable dish come to life.. Enjoy and let me know if you cook this and how it tuns out.

Back in the saddle again

It has been quite a while since I've written. It's been an intense year since last summer. We lost someone close to us and there's been a real struggle to adjust. But now things are moving forward in a nice way. Made some major upgrades to the studio including acoustic treatments and a high end clock for the converters. Lately I've been producing a number of projects. Finished 3 songs for texas/blues/rock artist Diamond Joe Siddons [we even got some airplay in Australia]. We're at the mixing stage for singer songwriter Maureen Russell's EP [she's been my go to backup singer for projects like The Bramblemen and Inwood Jones].

Lately I've been engineering @ Parkhill studio in Yonkers and working on a couple of Indian devotional cds. Big thanks to Cliff Hackford [who's the tabla player and percussionist on both projects as well as owner of Parkhill.]. I've recently added video editing to my list of services and have been working on my first 2 video editing projects [using Final Cut Pro] It's tougher than pro tools for sure but I've been working hard at mastering it. Lots of good stuff on the horizon including tracks on the Garage band Stones and Garage Band Monkees tribute cds at the end of August. And a couple of new songs I've been working on for too long and am scheduled to finish for submission to a couple of TV shows. I promise to write more often..

Dawn of a new era.

I's a tumultuous time. A time of spectacular failures of institutions once considered rock solid. Banks, investment firms and car companies have all fallen victim to greed and mismanagement of their business models. And major record labels are about to fail as well. The old templates for commerce are based on the concept of scarcity and unlimited profits above all else. They pushed this concept to the limit and failed, taking many people's savings and investments with them. Old school scam artists in modern drag like Bernard Madoff and his network of thieves, played upon peoples' greed to the tune of over 50 Billion dollars. More lives affected and more uncertain futures. Car companies, who 25 years ago remained unconscious of the influx of well made smaller Japanese cars, are now bankrupt and still wondering where they went wrong. No longer able to shove huge, vaguely militaristic [or in the case of the Hummer, converted military] vehicles down America's throats. Billions spent on advertising SUVs only slightly smaller than the mighty titanic! Record labels manipulating the charts by throwing money at a record to make sales climb [you don't still think it's a meritocracy, do you?]. Radio promoters pushing songs to radio station costs a lot of $$. Advertising an artist is expensive. Bribery, extortion and even violence have always been part of the business of music promotion. The point I'm making is the old templates of doing business are all failing as they're built on outmoded models. Morality, community, abundance and networking have never been a part of corporate charters or corporate culture. We have an amazing opportunity to sail in uncharted waters and create new models of business and living based on morality,community and abundance. Where music creation is honored and rewarded [and not by boring fake awards shows on TV].

It's a new world order [don't kid yourself the rich and pwerful corporations will still hang on and try to relive the past but we finally have a foothold.

Looking ahead, flourishing in hard times.

I've been giving a lot of thought lately about the projects I've been working on. Some of them are great and I like the artists and the music and some of it I don't like as much but I feel I have to do to survive. I always give 100% to every project but if I can relate to the artist and the music I try to give 150%. I just read an article about 3 recording engineers in Belfast and I'm quoting them here. "we're not here to make money, we make money to be here" This is such a cool philosophy that I'm re-dedicating myself to that concept. There are so many studios taking anyone who shows up at their door with money and so many artists looking for some kind of bargain I feel there's something missing from that equation. The missing factor is whether of not the studio and the engineer is right for your project and vice versa. These guys are going out and finding bands that they like and recording with them. Then we get into the realm of connectivity and sustainability in the sense that the studio is connected with your world and your fellow musicians. This is how you create networking and repeat clientele. The bass player in one project comes back with a side project and the drummer in that side project comes back with his main band etc. Hard to develop if the studio is just catching random one off projects. Another benefit of this plan of action is the sharing of opportunities that inevitably come up. There's a local band that I'm friends with and who I included on a compilation of local recording artists. Then I remixed a track for them for free for another purpose. I got the lead singer a TV interview that I was part of [they came to Zeroville and filmed a segment where they called me a virtuoso!...you can't really trust TV :) As a result ,now I'm working on songs for their upcoming ep as well as a full length solo cd with the guitar player who I hooked up with a gig in another band I produced and recorded...and so the web grows. I've had the biggest success in situations where I included other people and was not all about myself. Share the wealth and it will grow. Poverty thinking breeds poverty. This is my plan on how to prosper in hard times.

Building relationships

Building relationships is one of the most important skills in the music business. You can be highly experienced, have the best gear, have good advertising etc. but if your personality turns off people, what good is all the other stuff? Awareness of what your potential clients are looking for should be your first priority. There are many instances where I have to be the reality checkpoint for artists who don't have a lot of experience in the studio and have unrealistic expectations and goals. The producer/engineer or studio owner has to educate their clients in such a way as not to be condescending about the facts. Whether or not they end up working with you, as part of your job you need to be helpful and informative and have a positive attitude. We all know that the process of choosing a studio or producer or engineer can be a very personal one, and although most times it's just about price, it can be as simple as chemistry. You may be the nicest person and all your friends like you and your pets can't live without you but not everyone else will think the same. You have only your website and your phone manner to rely upon. You never meet all your potential clients, so there's a small window of opportunity to make an impression. One basic way to accomplish this is to be a team player. This is not as easy as it sounds in the ME ME ME world. You need to communicate to your client that you are there for them and it's not about all you. Not to say you can't sell yourself [just don't over-hype your abilities or achievements as that's always a turn off].