So I haven't written in here in a while do to the overwhelming amount of stuff I want to put into words. So I guess I have to get over that or else this blog is doomed to extinction. I have been very busy. Busier than I have ever been probably. There has been an amazing amount of paperwork to get done in regard to our tour with The Dead Weather. And just to make that one clear. As of now, I am still doing our booking! And for the last two weeks that has meant 8-14 hours a day of paperwork and yelling on the phone. I never thought I would be yelling on the phone about contracts. I never thought I would be running around getting Marissa and Mike to sign Canadian T1261s (Application for a Canada Revenue Agency Individual Tax Number for Non-Residents). It is becoming far too much for this one little human to handle. I will continue to book a lot of our shows while we are home from tour but I we are going to try a booker for next tour. I can't do it anymore! I hope everyone understands that. I do the best I can at organizing stuff for this band and that has meant a LOT of work over the years but lately it has meant so much work that I think I'm on the verge of losing a few marbles. I haven't had time to take care of things that I find more important than contracts and yelling on the phone. An important one: being able to play more music! Also I want nothing more than to be able to set up a legitimate all ages space in New Brunswick, NJ but that is never going to happen if I am swimming in Screaming Females paperwork. I rather be swimming in paperwork to get a non-profit gallery/ arts space off the ground than be yelling on the phone with someone from Live Nation.
Also you should go listen to all of your Talking Heads records again. Because they are amazing!
-jd
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In regards to the legitimate all ages space in New Brunswick, there are already a host of people and organizations (like coLAB) working on making this a reality , so you're not in it alone. In fact, coLAB has already entered into the sordid world of non-profit paperwork. When you're not driving yourself crazy with SF stuff, get involved with coLAB (www.colab-arts.org), or at least the part of it that is actively looking for an art space. There's no reason to start from scratch, especially when there's a bunch of like minded folks trying to accomplish the same thing.
Lastly, there's no shame in getting help with your booking, especially if your ambition is to start going after larger clubs like the one's your playing at with The Dead Weather. The fact that the business side of things is often demonized has some justification, but is also taken to absurd lengths. DIY doesn't eliminate the business side of it (as you well know), it just means you run the business yourself. If you have the capacity to do it internally (between you and the rest of the band) with out compromising anything, forget philosophical ideals, that's the best business decision. You make the most profit and you have total control. However, as the scale grows, the capacity dwindles, and doing it all yourself is no longer the best business decision. You've already done that with the label and the PR company. I guess my point is, I don't quite get the plea for understanding represented in "I hope everyone understands that". I mean, it suggests that you're violating a code or something, or that you fear that's what the perception may be, which is obviously silly for the reasons I cited above (not to mention a whole host of others). The music is the music. That's sacred. The business IS the business, and that's unshakable. You've done an excellent job using the already established DIY/punk infrastructure to get the band where it is... "to grow your business", so to speak. As the situation changes/grows, so should your business model. Of course, this is all predicated on where you want the band to go and what you feel your limits are. To me Marissa is a star, and the band as a whole has character, which means you should be able to iron out a long and respected career, but I'm sure you've heard that before.
All the best.
-Chris
i know it's a lot but your are still my hero for doing all this your damn self! DIYDS! 4ebba
but also i miss you! lets make lunch 2getha 2day
-the bright side is you know how to do it all now anyway so someone damn good is gonna have to fill the roll... plus, it is better than getting yelled at by other people for 8-10 hours for a bunch or worthless stuff you are not even invested in/was your fault to begin with!
-Cosmic Colin
Sounds so crazy, but so exciting! Keep up the good work, hope you have time continue blogging!
rock onnn! xxx
No shame in not doing the business yourself. You will lose no indie cred here. Let the business to others if you can.
Try to do early songs on the Dead Weather tour. remember that it will all be new to people. Real Mothers,Boyfriend, Zoo Of Death, Pretty Okay, Electric Pilgrim, limbs, people will love this.
I'll donate to COLABS if it will help. I'm near Philadelphia where R5 has some good all-ages venues. I talked to the guy who ran the Court Tavern, and ne explained to me the difficulties of doing all-ages shows in New Brunswick.
News from Marissa's site, a full-scale Noun release soon. Wow.
Good luck on tour. I hope it works out to your best advantage. I'll see you Friday in NYC. Dreading doing the opening band experience when you are the best.
Where will Meat Town be on Sunday? I know it's a touchy subject but I'm craving to see you play.
Don't work yourself to death.
Thanks,
Bob
it would be so sick if you got the all ages venue up! so tired of not being able to see shows at the court tavern, etc. because it's 21+. good luck! and congrats on the tour with Dead Weather!
much love from your hometown,
tili
Jarrett... beware... if you pay someone else to do the paperwork for you, you could die!
So I guess I should respond to some of this because people have been asking about it and some of the comments here seem to be slightly misinterpreting what I wrote.
Screaming Females is on some level a business and I realize that I am running a business but I don't think of it that way. I often tell people that money has never been and will never be our main goal. If I had put this much time into almost any other business venture I would probably be rich by now. People often ask what our 'goal' as a band is. As if there should be one particular point that we are aiming toward. As if at some point (often judged according to income) we will have 'made it.' I just don't see it like that. This makes me think of Muhammad Yunus' book "A World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism." He touches on much more important issues but his basic argument is that the fatal flaw in modern capitalism is that it judges a business' success solely by monetary gain. In reality people value many other things in life as much as money. For me the goal of artist longevity is much more important than money and business growth but I recognize that without a little cash flow we won't be able to do this forever!
Also, my appeal for understanding from the DIY community is because that is the community I belong to and I understand some people's disdain toward industry moves such as having a booking agent. I'm pasting a response I made in a recent interview regarding this exact thing. Maybe it will better represent what I'm getting at.
Thought about getting a booking agent yet?
Jarrett: Yes! I'm handling our end of the booking for The Dead Weather tour and it is a nightmare. People probably think that they ask us to do the tour, we say yes, and then just show up to play but that's not true at all! Now we have to get in touch with Buyers and Promoters and Promoters Assistants and Production Managers. And each one of these people wants a different piece of paperwork. And we have to get together tax forms and immigration information for Canada. I feel like I'm buried in paperwork! On top of all that this is the first time we have dealt with things at such an official level so I am learning trial by fire style. And these people are used to dealing with the same two or three dozen booking agents year after year so they aren't all being so quick to respond to me. I'm glad I'm getting to do all this so that I can understand how it all works but it is not something I'm going to feel like doing forever. I feel like my time could be better spent somewhere else.
We've talked to booking agents before and I was just really unimpressed on how the situations were handled. I am not a big fan of the 'music industry' in general and have done my best to keep Screaming Females removed for it. Running shows for years in our hometown of New Brunswick, NJ I had to do a lot of work to convince some people, college kids in particular, that it was worth going to see a band that they hadn't heard about on Pitchfork or other sources like that. Trying to let people know that it was up to them to decide whether they liked something or not and that they didn't have to pay attention to blogs and that a lot of those bands only got there because of their managers and publicists and labels and booking agents etc etc etc. But at the same time I understand that there just aren't enough hours in the day for the three of us to handle everything that needs to be done. That's the reason we decided to go with Don Giovanni for the new record. They had the time to focus on getting things done for us that I didn't have time for. And together we agreed to take on Joan from Riot Act Media as a publicist because neither Screaming Females or Don Giovanni had the time or resources to get done what she could get done. We chose Joan because she honestly liked our band and continued to email us for about a year and a half checking up on things even though at the time of her first email I told her we weren't interested in a publicist and didn't have the funds to pay for one. But she kept checking in with me because she honestly loved our band and just wanted to know how things were going. So when we do take on a booking agent it will be for those same reasons.
And lastly, we have gone and gotten ourselves a booking agent!
-jd
A few points of clarification related to my earlier comment and what may or may not have been perceived as misinterpretation, as well as a thought or two on what jd had to say in response:
It's funny how words like "business" automatically connote financial gain in people's mind. I mean, a business (according to wikipedia) is simply an organization designed to provide goods or services to people. Regardless of what your financial aspirations are, the root is always the same. The desire to resist that reality, or to try and dance around it so it comes off like an inherently evil thing is, as I said before, silly, but typical (especially from ideologues on the extreme end of the DIY community), and not without some justification. Modern Capitalism is known for its money first outlook, which you rightly point out, so people are right to be somewhat suspicious. Hell, I'm suspicious of contracts, industry folk, etc. But come on! Let's call a spade a spade. Most artists live for the transaction; to give their art to people in exchange for the ability to keep making art. You can not think of it that way if you want. It doesn't change the fact that that's what it is, and people shouldn't seek to skew the perception of it because there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the exchange. It's always been that way. Further, your music wouldn't sound the way it sounds if you were just out to make money. You can hear sincerity. That's why I think making decisions that better facilitate growth (to be clear, growth in this context simply means bringing your art to more people) shouldn't be something that you have to be apologetic for, or concerned about how people will respond. The fact that the DIY community would show disdain for someone who, in trying to reach more people, realizes that they can't do it efficiently alone is, more than anything, what I personally have trouble understanding. That outlook isn't practical. So, that you would have to explain yourself is going to be a little weird to anyone who sees it in the way I do.
In addition, someone asking you what your goals are is a perfectly legit question, and your "as if there should be one particular thing that we are aiming toward" comment is somewhat short sighted and kind of comes off as self righteous to me (though I'm sure you didn't mean it that way). As if in asking the question the asker is assuming there's "one particular thing". Personally, when I ask the question, I expect a general answer, not something specific at all. I ask to find out what an artist's (band or otherwise) aspirations are. I know my goals are complex and varied. They have a lot to do with growing as an artist, moving people, and helping, in my own way, to advance the medium (songwriting that is). I don't want to do anything else, and don't feel like I should have to, but that's ultimately not in my hands. I know a kid who's in a band and seems to be working hard, but he's a lot more nonchalant about it. If something happens that's cool, but if it doesn't that's cool too. He's content with making records on a local level. Point is, people have different goals, and they don't have to have anything to do with money (directly that is), and asking the question and getting a legit answer can provide useful insight into who people are and what they're after. In my earlier comment, when I talked about goals (not my exact terminology but the same principle), I was merely talking about how far you wanted to try and push things, and what you thought your limitations were (if any), in terms of how many people you could reach, given all the great things that have happened for you guys of late. It was mentioned because the need to expand the people you work with is predicated on how far you want to push your music, which I thought would be obvious. In other words, you can only get so far being truly DIY, even if you maintain the ethos. Needless to say, I think you've probably done a tiny bit of misinterpreting yourself, that is, if my earlier comment was part of what spawned your response.
Anyway, it's all love man!
-Chris
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