Beware! The Leopard

Heading to the studio

Tomorrow's the big day.  First 12 hours of recording on Beware! The Leopard's debut EP.  It's very exciting.  I can also say that it is a bit nerve racking.   When you are a songwriter your songs tend to go through a bit of an evolution, you start with an idea and it progresses to the point of a song.  Until you record that song for public consumption, it's never completely finished.  I change songs, add things, take them away, and play around with them, and they're never completely finished.  So I'm a bit nervous that they're not good enough yet to record.  I know in my head that they are, and that as an artist I have to let them go, but also as an artist, I'm striving for perfection.  When do you know that your art is finished?

So it's going to be a long weekend, but I'm sure the fruits will be well worth it.  I can't wait to hear the results.

Musician or Businessman?

As an independent musician, one is responsible for everything, not just the music, and I mean everything.

I never really thought about it much, but when I was in a band there were always other people to bounce ideas off - and demands to satisfy - but a solo musician all of these decisions fall to me, and sometimes I'm not entirely confident I'm making the right ones. 

There are all the musical decisions, whether this note is right, or that lyrics is finished; the performance decisions - what to wear, what setlist works best, what song to save for an encore; and then there are all the business decisions, which tend to take more time and effort than the musical ones.  These include what type of merch to have, what design on the merch, where to sell them, where to gig, when to tour, where to record, budgeting, do I need a touring vehicle, etc. etc.  As I get more serious about my career as a musician, I'm finding more of my time is devoted to the business end.

I've been thinking about this since the weekend when I was asked during a radio interview whether or not I would want someone else doing all the leg work, and the fact is that yes, I would.  However, I'm torn in that I have become enough of a micro-manager to want everything under my thumb, but in order to do that my thumb needs to be the size of a football field.

I can barely imagine what it is like for independent artists who have "made it" to some extent and have many more decisions to make.  I hope that one day I can understand it.

Good gig this weekend

I played at the Strega Cafe in St. Catharine's this weekend, and it was very enjoyable; despite the fact that both my parents and in-laws were in the crowd which made me more nervous than usual.  I mean, I've gotten used to ignoring the pleas of my parents - "why don't you apply to law school", "maybe you should keep that job for a little bit longer" - but I have no such experience when it comes to my in-laws.  I mean here I am, a guy who has come in, whisked their daughter away from her comfortable living in Ottawa to be a "musician", and here was their chance to listen to the music with which I hope to provide us with a little bit of a living.  They know I'm not a deadbeat, and that I work where I can and try fairly hard at pretty much anything I do, but it was still enough to create a few nerves on the night.

Aside from some more practice which is always necessary, I have also decided that I need to start using my guitar amp live.  The tone of my guitar straight through a PA is not quite what I want, and it will give me a bit more control in terms of shaping my sound and making sure the volumes between the instruments are accurate.  I also think I need to pick up a powered speaker, so that I can practice with using a 'P.A.' type of setup at home so that I'm used to the sound of my voice through a microphone/speaker combination. 

I guess there's always things that could be done better, but I was quite happy with how I ended the set, and everybody that came out seemed to have a good time.  It was fun, and I look forward to playing the Strega Cafe again sometime in the near future.

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Gig this Saturday

Hey everyone! 

I'll be playing a special intimate show at the Strega Cafe this Saturday in St. Catharine's.  If you are in the area, come on out, it's going to be bucket loads of fun!

First Radio Appearance

Last night as part of Indielove.ca's take on the "idol" format, Beware ! The Leopard played a few songs for the happy listeners.  I also happened to "win" the event and performed a few more songs and had some great discussion with the DJs. 

Radio is a weird format to play in, especially when you're going direct to the air with your guitar, so you only hear it through headphones, but it was a great experience, and a lot of fun.  Big props to Indielove for hosting me, and props as well to Camden Blues and Claire my "competition" for playing some great tunes. 

T-Shirts and delayed blogging

Hey Y'all, apologies for the lack of blogging this week.  It's been absolutely hectic.  Between doing some delivery work for cash, playing a charity gig in Fergus, and hand screen printing Beware! The Leopard t-shirts, I've had little time for blogging. 

Of course you can couple that with the fact that I still can't get my damn TypePad Blackberry app to work, and it means that my legions of followers have to wait too long for their Leopard updates.

So what's new?  Beware! The Leopard T-Shirts, that's what!  These hand screened puppies (by yours truly and friends) will be available shortly in the new store in a few colours and sizes.  If they do well, then we'll print up a bunch more.  It was a lot of fun making them.  Props to D. Maheu for the picture and for E. Tinkler for the Cli-Che font and the screen printing setup and help.  Here's a poor blackberry picture to give you an idea.  The cool thing is that they also say "Beware! The Leopard" across the back. I'm really chuffed with how they turned out.

The all important charity gig

So I performed today for the Relay for Life in Fergus organized by the Canadian Cancer Society, it went alright, everything that went wrong was my fault, largely for being disorganized, which led to me being late, which led to a lack of soundcheck which meant that my monitor mix wasn't quite the way I needed it to perform my best.

Plus I also learnt that practising on the day of a gig will wear out my voice, even if it doesn't feel like it. 

All in all the organizers were happy with my performance, and I was happy with being able to help a really good cause that is close to my family, especially right now.

Live and learn I guess.

Thanks to Kops!

A big THANKS goes out to Kops records for hosting Beware ! The Leopard for an in-store set yesterday.  Aside from a couple of technical glitches and hitting my head on the mic a couple of times, it went really well.

Kops records is a small record shop on the south side of Queen St. near St. Patrick.  These guys have a ton of fantastic vinyl, and Nick, the dude who runs the shop is extremely friendly and super knowledgeable about all things vinyl and music. 

I can't wait to get some recordings into his hot little hands to spread the word about Beware ! The Leopard.

Sweet!

Design done! Now to make the bloody merch!

So this week, with the help of some very great friends, the design for the first Beware! The Leopard t-shirt is complete; coupled with the arrival of Beware! The Leopard buttons courtesy of the Ottawa street crew, we're almost ready to go fully functional with a merch store.

The only thing left to do is pick up the blank t-shirts from the supplier (hopefully tomorrow or Monday), print the shirts, bag up some buttons (for those who want the every popular 4 for $3 deal) and then get a merch website up and running.  The latter is the one stressing me out more than anything else right now.  The complexities of getting a shopping cart compatible setup and to have the whole thing have a common look and feel with the main website is bit beyond my normal computer skills (which are pretty much limited to fiddling with the Typepad templates).  It might be a bit of trial and error, but we'll see how it goes.

On the fantastic side of things I managed to pick up a super cheap AC adaptor for my mixer that I got in England, which means that this Saturday's gig at Kops Records should go really smoothly (at least from a technical point of view). 

I also managed to score a job interview tomorrow with a musical instrument retailer, so I'm pretty stoked, even if it is in Markham.

Things are looking up!