the soundtrack to the day you wish you'd had
Tomorrow we drive to Nashville – I love Nashville. Some of my favourite people in the world are there. Clever, lovely, talented creative people. What’s not to love about it?
Which is why we’re there for a week in the middle of this tour. We’re doing a lot there. Here’s the list: Continue reading “A Crazy-Busy Week In Nashville.”
If you’re an avid watcher of my various online streams – be it Twitter, Facebook or Friendfeed – you’ll have noticed over that last few days I’ve been talking about, and link to, BeyondBassCamp.com.
It’s a series of monthly masterclasses, inspired by the ones I give in California every January – for the last 4 or 5 years, I’ve been doing a day long seminar there, for up to about 25 bassists. Some years I’ve done two – a more general bass class, and then a solo bass focussed class on the Sunday. Continue reading “Announcing 'Beyond Bass Camp'.”
Finally, the details have been nailed down, and thanks to the wikkid organisational skillz of the wonderful Geoff Hickman, I’ll be doing a ‘future of social media for music makers’ masterclass in Santa Ana, the night before NAMM starts.
Date: Jan 14th
Time: 7.30pm
Venue: The Olde Ship, Santa Ana (map)
Cost: $15.00
Description:
“Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got… no, wait, that’s the Cheers theme-tune… anyway, it’s true that the times they have a-changed for anyone trying to make it in the music world – record labels are resorting to increasingly desperate measures to make money and artists are getting squeezed. The smart money is definitely on handling your own career, out there on the world wide interwebs. But how? There are million services promising audience reach, targeted email addresses, high profile this and big bucks that… most of which are glorified spam email campaigns. So what can we do? How can we, in the words of Rage Against The Machine, ‘Take the Power Back‘?
“Enter Steve Lawson, a solo bassist and ambient/electronic music pioneer from the UK.
“Steve’s managed to keep his career buoyant for the last decade, all via online interaction direct with his audience. He was exploring social media tools before the term ‘social media’ existed, and was using the web to connect with fans and fellow artists back in the heady days of Web 1.0.
“These days he splits his time between playing his beguiling cinematic music – at venues ranging from house concerts to the Royal Albert Hall – and teaching other musicians how to form genuine connections with their audience, to understand the new attention economy of the internet, and make the most of the opportunities that are out there. It’s not easy, it’s not a get rich quick scheme, and it probably won’t result in you making a million. But if that’s what you’re looking for, buy a lottery ticket. The music world has never been a good place to get rich. This is a chance to discuss, to ask questions and to come up with workable strategies for finding the people who want your music to soundtrack their lives. Sounds great, huh?”
There you go. Please do forward this page to any friends of yours who are going to NAMM, and may benefit from a lil’ StevieStyle social media make-over.
And if you’re at NAMM, please do drop by and say hi. Lobelia and I will be at the Looperlative, Modulus and Accugroove booths as well as around and about. And we’ll be tweeting, streaming some video, and generally having a lark!