Seamus TV #12 – The Musician’s Guide To Giving It A Red Hot Go

Wherein I ramble about the Zen of “simple 2 page business planning for musicians”.

Enjoy this post? Then please return the favour by checking out my music – click here -> Seamus’ Music

Seamus TV #11 – The Musician’s Guide To Giving It A Red Hot Go

By Seamus Anthony

(see below for written notes)

Remember a couple of weeks ago I posted about not doing the multiple expertise self-branding thing? As in I am no longer calling myself a musician slash writer slash business man slash whatever?

Well as I said in that post, I have been the worst offender in this area and it has held me back from enjoying a more fruitful experience as a musician.

I have been very busy but spreading myself too thin and this leads to decreased results and increased feelings of Overwhelm.

For so long I have had so many ideas and wanted to do so many things that I regularly get paralyzed by feelings of being completely overwhelmed by all the work that needs doing.

And that’s why I say you just need to be a musician if that’s what you want to be because there is just so much to do being a musician that you will probably never get to it all, let alone also trying to be a writer or a web 2.0 entrepreneur or whatever.

All of these areas of endeavour are very deep in terms of things that need doing. So if you are spreading yourself wide across the board, trying to be all things at once you’ll not be able – because there isn’t time – to go deep in any of these areas.

Take being a musician, you can go so deep:

• Practicing
• Writing new songs
• Rehearsing with your band
• Playing gigs
• Recording
• Doing interviews

And then you’re probably doing everything else as well

• Uploading your music online
• Managing your websites and social media sites
• Booking gigs
• Promoting your gigs online
• Promoting your gigs offline
• Distributing your music to radio stations and blogs
• Organising interviews
• Putting together press releases
• Raising the money to do all of this

And the list goes on and on. Now if you’re 20 and you are studying at university or whatever, then you will be very, very busy getting all of this done. If you are young, not studying and have no responsibilities then you will STILL be very hard pressed getting everything done. If you are like 137 years old like me and have to work to provide for your family and spend a lot of time being a good dad, well then forget about it – NO TIME!

So recently I just realised that I have been a mental case trying to do so much, I have paired it right back to ONLY being a musician, and I have written a plan. Yes that’s right, a business plan. A simple one mind you, but I believe it packs a punch, and over the next while I am going to executing this business plan and going through that on this here video blog.

Meanwhile, you need to ask yourself – do you have time to be everything all at once? The answer is probably no, so if music is your number one passion, then just be a musician, write a plan and GO DEEP – drill down. And join me next week on Seamus.TV  – The musician’s guide to giving it a red hot go as I look at business planning for musicians and other awesome stuff like that.

Enjoy this post? Then please return the favour by checking out my music – click here -> Seamus’ Music

Seamus TV #10

Quick! Busy! Here’s a new blog post!

No time for a vlog post this week as I have a gig tonight and a zillion other things going on, but will back to our regularly scheduled program next week.

Meanwhile check out some new music by our fledgling new band, Zuiiza. You can read up on the project, listen for free and download the song for one buck if you want it.

Click here to check out Zuiiza!

Seamus.TV #9 Music Marketing Mayhem

See below for the written notes on this Seamus.TV post of music marketing tips

• G’Day welcome to Seamus.TV #9, the musician’s guide to giving it a red hot go, with Seamus Anthony your mad music man from Melbourne
• Once a friend (a fellow musician) accused me of caring too much about music marketing and not enough about music itself, which was silly
• The reason I care so much about music marketing is because I am so passionate about my music that I want to get it out there!
• My passion for music marketing has been why I have been able to enjoy the experience of playing in front of giant crowds and sell thousands of CDs (back in the day)
• And when I lost my passion for music marketing, that was when my music career went into a tailspin and I entered into a kind of long dark night of the music soul from which I have only emerged again during the last two years.
• If you don’t like music marketing then you are making things hard for yourself.
• Focus on what you want – which is people to hear your music, and realise that marketing your music is really just asking people to give you & and your tunes a chance.
• And if you don’t know where to start try reading some marketing books
• I recommend Seth Godin’s ‘Purple Cow’, ‘Linchpin’ and ‘All Marketers Are Liars”. The latter talks about knowing how to tell your story.
• You have to be a storyteller, for example, my story is how I had this rocking music career when I was a younger lad, then kind of got all distracted by parties and the ladies and whatnot,
• then I got all depressed by the time I was 30 and kind of gave up ‘cos I thought I was too old,
• then when I was 34 I was holding my baby in my arms for the first time and God spoke to me and said “What are you going to teach her? That you just give up?”
• and I said “Hell no!” and got back on the music horse and carried on afresh, with a healthier mindset, one that was more about the primal need to make art not just to party and try and be the next Michael Hutchence or whatever.
• So that’s my story – but you gotta tell your own
• Purple Cow is all about being so remarkable and different that you stand out
• And Blue Ocean Strategy will help you to achieve this. It talks about how to make the competition irrelevant by creating your own unique space in which there is no competition.
• See also Malcom Gladwell’s “Tipping Point”, this will encourage you to keep taking small actions in the direction you want to go until you reach a point where things tip and start to happen, gain velocity.
• See also GenYRockstars.com for some awesome music marketing advice (even good for crusty old Gen Xers like me). I am doing the course right now – don’t be put off by the “Internet marketing” squeeze page, it’s the real thing.

And if you’re interested, go and check out my music by following this link -> Seamus’ Music

Seamus.TV #8 Seamus – Musician

Or … Getting Clear About Your Branding

Today’s blog post is just a simple thought I have been having – maybe it’ll make a difference to you or maybe I’m just nit-picking but I am going to give it a go and see if it makes a difference to my music career.*

Here’s the thing: Have you ever noticed the trend I see for people to hyphenate a-list-of-things-they-do?

I don’t think it’s any good. I think it screams lack of focus, insecurity and general try-hardness.

Read the rest of this entry »

Seamus.TV #7 Networking Tips for Musicians

3 Networking Tips for Busy Musicians
(video notes)

• Welcome to episode 7 of Seamus.TV “the musician’s guide to giving it a red hot go”
• With me, Seamus Anthony (forgot to say that in this [totally unscripted, spontaneous] post).
• Considering changing the tagline of this blog to “Inspiration for Frustrated Musicians” (what do you think?)
• This post is for middle aged, busy and/or outer-suburban musicians who find it hard to find the time to go out and network with other musicians and music industry types
• When I was younger I used to go out to gigs all the time but now with a family and living in the outer-suburbs of Melbourne, 45 minutes from the action, it’s not so easy
• So how can you (and I) find a way to network without being able to go every single gig going?

1. Actually go to some gigs: Make the effort to try and get out to SOME gigs at least. It’s not that hard to go SOMETIMES is it? Even if it is a bit hard to get off the couch sometimes, it always ends up being worth the effort as you strengthen old friendships and make new connections
2. Use social networking – but STOP SPAMMING! Get the attention you crave by first taking an interest in other people’s lives and other musician’s music. This will get noticed, this will mean something to the other people in your network, and will lead to reciprocation (i.e. then they will take the time to check out your stuff). The golden rule – you gotta give to get!
3. Say “thank you”: When somebody downloads your music, retweets your tweet or comments on your blog – respond to that! Say thank you! Let them know that it really means a lot to you that they took the time to listen to your music! This is so important – and easy!

Cheers!

Seamus Anthony’s Music

Seamus.TV: The Musician’s Guide to Giving It a Red Hot Go – Episode 6

Don’t wait for the ducks to line up – get your music out there right now – no excuses.

Seamus.TV: The Musician’s Guide to Giving It a Red Hot Go – Episode 5

With me, Seamus Anthony!

(notes below)

The Internet got rid of the “Gatekeeper Problem” but turns out it wasn’t the music industry bigwigs who were stopping you from being a successful musician after all…

By the way the blog post I refer to in this that got me a-thinking was this one: Creative Careers: The Invisible Barrier to Entry, by one Karen Berger who does an infinitely more eloquent job of conveying what is, of course, her idea anyway

Stick with the article until the last few paragraphs because she really punches it home towards the end of the post (same as this vlog post too actually, it took a little while to warm up but then became my favourite of my not-many vlog posts yet (long way to go before vlog superstardom, methinks!)

Don’t forget to check out my music if you are interested – cheers

Episode 4 of Seamus.TV – The Musician’s Guide To Giving It A Red Hot Go, with me, Seamus Anthony.

(notes below)

I recorded a new post but Gremlins got into the video file so I decided to post this instead. Basically it is me, last night (very late) jammin’ out a new riff/song. It’s a fly on the wall look at my songwriting process in progress, and I think it sounds alright

I guess if there is any kind of take away point to help other musicians in this it’s to note that I very often sacrifice warmth and sleep to come out to the Office of Imagination & Procedure (which is cold and drafty) and jam until very late. I don’t get to just jam all day whenever I want (family man and all) but you HAVE to make time for it or your skills and your art wither. There’s plenty of time to sleep when you’re dead.

Enjoy, I will be back with more prattling next week no doubt, but for today, it’s music time.

(Interesting how less self-conscious I feel about this; I am much more confident about my abilities as a musician than as a public speaker / vlogger!)