If anything, that is what the last year since graduating college has taught me. The more I try different jobs, whether running an independent promotion company, competing in the ferocious music industry jungle or working with special-needs children at an elementary school, the more I realize that I just want to be an artist, a musician who spends the majority of his time on music, not hoping that one day my part-time focus, music, will somehow overtake other jobs with more money and security. IF YOU WANT MUSIC TO BE YOUR FULL-TIME JOB, IT HAS TO BE YOUR FULL TIME JOB.
Creating, organizing, running, and executing a promotion company and its associated festival, Mountainside Mardi Gras at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, was one of the most intense experiences of my life. The pressure, risk/reward and fickle nature of the music industry makes it one of the most unpredictable industries in the world. Mountainside Mardi Gras took place on Aug. 8th, 2009 and the outcome of all our hard work and vision can be seen in multiple lights. On one had, 1,500 people showed up that day. That's a lot of people. But not nearly enough for us to have broken even and kept For/Sure Productions afloat.
Sometimes every fiber in my body tells me to find capital, refinance the company, have another go. I'm sure it'll happen at some point in the future, but I am just now, four months after the fact, understanding the impact and implications of what we did that day at Red Rocks. For me personally, the concert had many benefits which ultimately outweighed the ocean-sized financial bath FSP endured in August. We brought enough artists from NOLA to CO at one time to make residents of New Orleans wonder if all the musicians in town had just packed up and left for good. I had the amazing opportunity of playing alongside the world-renowned Dirty Dozen Brass Band and my good friends CR Gruver (Polytoxic, Outformation) and DJ Logic, spinning on the other side of the stage. If in the past you told me I would play music onstage at Red Rocks at the age of 23, I might have slapped you silly, right across your mouth.
And so there I was, a young entrepreneur with respect and love from the musical communities in Denver and New Orleans and that much richer... in contacts and networking, certainly not in money. I was disgruntled with the outcome of the festival, although the vast majority of festivals around the world lose money in their first year. Shortly after, Frogs Gone Fishin's first record deal with Oh/Ya Records dissolved, before we could secure financing for a second album.
Losing the deal with Oh/Ya seemed to be a fatal blow to the band. Without money to make a new record, everything started to seem redundant because no new music, fresh material, could be presented to our fans. Frogs canceled tour to the Northwest, an area I was particularly excited about absorbing. I moved deep into the mountains, 2.5 hours from Denver to a tiny town called Gypsum and actually employed my college degree in a productive way by getting a job teaching Special Ed at an elementary school. I wanted to get away from Denver, a city which we are just now starting to break, as Frogs. I moved in with a Buddhist songwriter and his family and worked hard from 7 in the morning t0 3pm, every day. This became exhausting. After Frogs would finish a show at 2am in Denver or Boulder, I would proceed to drive, tired, back up the mountain for two and a half hours, before getting up mere hours later to go work with kids.
It goes without saying that working with cognitive-needs children is challenging. I'm going to write a separate post about this altogether because the amount you pick-up and learn as their advocate is impressive and wondrous, while conflicting factors outside of the school can make the job impossible, to say the least.
Just when I was positive I was going to perish on the roadside from exhaustion by driving the 200 miles between Gypsum and Denver in the middle of the night, every other night or so, a miracle happened for Frogs Gone Fishin'. Our friend and adept producer at Evergroove Studio, Brad Smalling announced that he and an attorney wished to start a record label and sign FGF as their only flagship act. This divine act set into motion the wheels of a new album and a tour in the Spring, reversing the gloom that had settled in early Fall.
Another great relationship has developed between Frogs and movie maker Travis Milloy, whose recent picture, Pandorum, hit theatres a couple weeks ago. He will be shooting a music video for Frogs, starting this weekend on Saturday at Finnigan's Wake in Avon, CO. Incidentally our largest fan base, by far, is in the High Rockies, Vail and the surrounding area (Avon, Edwards, Eagle). Given the opportunity for great recreation in a beautiful landscape setting, we're not complaining. Ski season is upon us, after all.
Frogs couldn't be more excited to release a follow-up to Tell Me True in the first part of the new year and get on the road again to 14 states in two months. Tour is a part of my life which I cannot deny; it calls me from down South to hop in the TOURMOBILE and get after it.
I'm working on a number of other projects, the most exciting of which is the opportunity to compose the soundtrack to a monster movie being filmed in CO next year.
Remember to wear sunscreen and stay hydrated people, we'll see you out there on the road...
2 comments:
A complete yet concise summary of the myriad experiences that compose a blessed life such as yours.
Your blogs have been missed, sir.
so much sunscreen. and such burned elbows.
talk to you soon.
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