When it comes to the tasks and processes involved in making and promoting music, there’s no one right way to do anything.
There are, however, plenty of wrong ways, and that’s why we created What NOT to Do, a regular series in which we help you avoid making the mistakes everybody makes when they’re trying to go it alone in the music world. In this installment, Amy Klein, who’s currently a touring guitarist with New Jersey punk band Titus Andronicus, and the leader of the bands Hillii and Solanin, discusses what you can learn from a disastrous gig.
You always remember your first bad show. I was just barely 19 on that sultry evening in late spring, and I had just started an all-girl punk band. Armed with several borrowed amplifiers, a few shoddy quarter inch cables, and an absolute faith in the power of punk rock to triumph over every force of evil to which the universe had ever, in his billion year history, given birth—we sought nothing less than eternal glory, and a swift beheading of the body of the patriarchal state, in front of hundreds of adoring fans.
It should be noted that, on that fateful night, nearly all of the proper elements were in order: The sizeable crowd, for instance, arrived promptly at eight o’clock. The patriarchy was, as usual, firmly in place. And as for my band’s lofty ideals, well, nothing could shake those. Nothing, that is, except the complete and sudden failure of every piece of musical equipment on stage. [click to continue…]
