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Darius Greene
Songwriter - Composer - Sound Mangler - Word Frictionist - Humanoid Sphere-dweller
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- Important Steps to Better Marketing Yourself as an Indie Musician
At a recent music expo, ASCAP told musicians that they should not whine, vent, or rant in songs. I simply couldn’t agree more.
To understand why you shouldn’t vent in music, consider this first: the radio.
Yes, I know. Radio might be passe’, but understand, when used to advertise to people in their cars, who are stuck migrating to the jobs needed to pretend they could ever pay off the debts they owe these same sponsors - these peak hours are the last moment that someone wants to empathize with you and your emotional outbursts. Especially if any of your verbal impulses remind them of the horror of their own ill chosen fates, it could lead them to change the station before that ad for hair conditioner comes on.
You see, without countless forms of sponsoring, musicians do not bring fuckloads of cash to the economic spectrum on their own; and even though ASCAP and the like, give us independents such wonderful advice in streamlining the magnetic nature of our wallets, let’s face it: not venting or showing emotion is only a baby step towards being a truly marketable, indie musician. So I say let’s take it a good deal further.
Listen up! Here are some important things you’re going to have to change if you’re finally going to make a buck as an indie artist.
First. Don’t just stop venting, quit writing lyrics all together.
Sure, there might be dead poets starring in their own reality casket show, but otherwise there aren’t any wordsters bringing in the kind of megabucks which cause financial sectors much of a boner. Just remember, a well managed marketing agency will always fill you in on the needed catch phrase you’ll be delivering in the ads you’ll be aired in. So don’t fret your hours away over a spiral pad with a pen, or clack your fingers madly on some kind of word-processing program, believing you have something to say. Simply whiten your teeth.
All right. You might not create lyrical music. Well that sure doesn’t mean you’re marketing gold, in fact that could be far worse. Therefore, this next gem might be the most important advice of all. For it doesn’t matter whether it’s a shock-rocking flying V guitar, a finely crafted violin (or anything with strings and pegs, frankly), racks of keyboards, laptops, iPads, a wall of analog knobbery, a circuit bent dildo, or even a triangle - let’s face it, musical instruments and sound making on the whole will make you look like some kind of noise clappering hippie, and that sure isn’t going to lead to any kind of monumental sales. So the next step, is to stop making any kind of music whatsoever.
Speaking of album sales, that brings us to that overplayed concept: music releases. What would be the point in you no longer playing instruments or writing lyrics, if you’re going to turn around and sell an album or release a work, which might lead people to believe you do anyhow…defeating the purpose of all your non-hard work? In fact, album sales fail in comparison to sponsoring sales of non-music related goods, so doing any kind of expressive art might destroy the image you have with a specific audience, then ruin your unoffensive reputation as a meaningless social jingler. Express something strongly enough, and you might cross over to a wide range of ages and social groups, or move them in a fashion which could even cause them to think - making it tragically impossible to break them down into target audiences. So truly, it’s best to stop releasing anything if you know what’s best for you.
Which brings us to that concept: you. True success is never all about oneself, it comes hand in hand with those you choose to associate with. Therefore, you should never find yourself in the company of musician types, under any circumstances. You simply can’t afford to be seen strutting about with any of these notation twaddling calamities or you’ll be scorned in an instant by any half-brained consumer grazing their dilapidated mall-hole. Anyhow, I’d even go a step further and not associate with persons who delve into the arts in any form, just to be safe.
If you follow all of this, you should be well on your way to the kind of independent musician they want to see out there: one which doesn’t threaten their monopoly on humanity’s imagination.
Actually, why don’t you just go buy yourself a decent suit - nothing showy mind you, just something clean and non-threatening enough for an entrance level position. Then go land yourself a job in finance. Brokering would be keen, but an insurance gig may suffice. A mailroom job might work for a while, but only if you don’t let any of your fans know you’re not banking six figures a year, or why else would they buy the album that you better not be selling. If you can keep this up for as many decades as you’re able, and survive without a brain tumor, you might end up with enough of a pension left to visit an overcrowded tourist trap of your choice.
Now you may ask yourself, am I still a real musician if I follow this advice? To which I can only answer with: You aren’t getting all whiny on me…are you?
STOWAWAY
Touch the brightened panel and release the shoots;
little cherub boys in cowboy boots,
astronauts and circus tents,
Captain’s peppermints he left on deck.
Like fish in flight, weightless droplets rise and kiss her photograph.
I’ll transmit this mayday…or maybe, just relax.
I feel you eat my brains, your loving
tentacles wrapped around my waist.
Your sweet digestive juices,
spitting up over the rest of my body.
Slurp me down a tube in your throat
or whatever that thing is.
Sleepy constellations. Fleeting whale of comet tail.
Solar rings marry moons, station to station in route.
Screams on sub-channels ones and teens;
mayhem and static tragedies in steady streams,
haunted waves, ghostly signals strayed.
That place where stars are born,
light sheets of a baby’s new strong arms,
the grand thieves of fairy graves,
swallows the light, darkness made.
Turn back time, spinning galaxies that drown,
winding round. Planets on her gown,
sequins celebrate the night.
- The New Hominid
The new hominid is toothless. A proboscis mouthed biped with a digestive system best nourished by high fructose excretions and boiling grease. With just enough empathy to feel guilt, yet void of the compassion necessary to give a dead rat’s ass about anything other than it’s miserable self; it is a creditscore-hunting egoistical neurotic with severe compulsions and no body hair. It has four arms, twenty seven fingers, and unhinged knees for bending backwards. Needless of critical thinking, it has hindered lobal regions. Braincloggs® grafted under it’s skin, at the temples, transmit optical operations, running programs such as FactsApp® and ThoughtSo® directly into what the new hominid sees. Synaptic regions are put onto an neurological easy street, helping formerly critical areas become obsolete. This serves to stave off the unneeded big picture, for this hominid loves drudgery. It is enticed, even aroused - by repetition and failure; and therefore it is also immune to suicide. It no longer deems itself of having any greater importance worth assailing, and with drudgery being so abundant, there are no practical reasons for ending the existence of which it is barely even aware it has.
It is the most cost solvent species in our line.
*excerpt from ‘Atom Boy’
Music is always dying.
Greenflies on the black keys, petrichor crying from the wood.
This is the contrast of impermanence and value.
- Wednesday Morning
There is a noisy monster outside the window, a garbage truck which eats and runs.
I am living in a nation with truck nuts and no universal health care.
Magazines sometimes run the same cover. It’s sad when everything happens just as we expect.
Yet I am safe, near peace, with a heart pumping blood through every longing tissue.
The unsung muscles of sagging heroes can never replant the sacred oaks;
our lips have been banished of ambrosia, and our magic has no legs.
The moon is crippled, hobbling across the night, cursing at the stars in her way.
Morning has dementia and forgets where she is;
the afternoon spends the evening leading her back to bed.
There is a music in the halls, which are voices.
People are worried there is not enough world left for them to eat and run.
- Hawk Time
There it eats - watches.
Rips the head clear off and dives into
a warm heart with a beat you could dance to.
Am I a cloud?
I keep changing. Rearranged, I disappear when empty skies appear.
Am I just a cloud?
No thunder claps, or lightning boughs.
Snowy wraiths of hazy wave no air of plane has made.
I am a cloud of a boy in a dream;
I am a toy clown without seams.
Foaming notions cast away.
Always lazy, lost, and late.
I sway, I roll. I hiss, and blow. I whisper winds that moan.
Puffs of white beds dreaming late, cotton candy sheep;
lax, dazed mountain babes, grazing paradise.
I am a cloud of a boy in a dream;
I am a buoy of a sound without sea.
When that night is bending bright, the moon over the graves,
across my world, in each flower born I can see your pretty face.
For skies alone the rivers smile for all their plain grace,
in every blooming eye, I can see your lovely face, for miles and miles.
Outer space made of glass, on the lips of piping smoke.
Pother bothers no one, escaping steamy homes.
Ice wisps of window blast, a forest of pearl canal;
gathering the rows of blades, the crystal maids of grass.
I am a cloud of a boy in a dream;
I am a toy clown without seams.
When that night is bending bright, the moon over the graves,
across my world in each flower born, I can see your lovely face.
For skies alone the rivers smile for all of their plain grace;
in every blooming eye, I can see your lovely, lovely face for miles and miles.
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- @emily_lrn Thanks, I shall!
- @emily_lrn Thank YOU! Enjoying your 'Caterpillars Dressed' soundcloud and your writings, wonderful work!!
- Crickets are decent folk.May 19, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- @rickygervais @D_GirlDesigns Most bothered by the notion of no eternal afterlife, never seem bothered by a lack of an eternal pre-life.
- I'm a fan of @DetachedSky http://t.co/P4u64sLH
- @DetachedSky Right, I'm surprised they didn't just have 'indie' by itself, same with experimental, only exp. rock or electronica
- @DetachedSky @TwitMusic Heh, I just wanted to check it out, boy twitmusic's genre choices suck though
- I just created my official @TwitMusic page. Check it out! http://t.co/orinR6oe
- @LilyBrooke13 Glad to see you get radio play - bravo!
- Mice are actually crooners - I could have told them that... http://t.co/2zLHwKbbMay 11, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- "This butt robot reacts to being spanked, slapped, caressed and stroked." - What butt robot doesn't! http://t.co/Q8r8POkxMay 11, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- North Carolina will “still have plenty of stuff that the Bible does mention, like boils and locusts.” http://t.co/h5Ot5AOEMay 10, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- That's it, all of the water on earth...even you and your dog http://t.co/6DG2egr0May 10, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- My new sounds: Adamanthea http://t.co/n8BhYPX8 on #SoundCloud
- @alexookpik Thanks Alex!!!
- My new sounds: Unseen Motions http://t.co/A88rZz6Y on #SoundCloud
