Martin Atkins

Eugene – Keyboard jams, friends, reflections

We show up to the Muse Lounge (which made a sweet flyer for us, by the way)
Desire, the owner, told us to just set up right around him. So naturally I started jamming along a little bit after I set up. He dug it, and encouraged me to keep playing. Soon Hooch joined in. We jammed for a few songs while sparks flew. Everyone dug it.

Finally Ryan joined us, and it was an all-out funk jam with some of the best keys I’ve heard. Chris was a monster, knowing when to accompany and knowing when to go all out. He was creative, playing some crazy space-age sounding solos when the song called for it. It was fun! And our show hadn’t even officially started.

We all had a good time. Afterwards Chris came up to us with a suggestion – we all work on a cruise line together. Sure, why not? If we can earn some dinero to support ourselves when we’re not on tour, and have some extra to get some more promotion and more recordings, let’s do it! So we exchanged numbers. Who knows what the future will bring? Hell I’d bring Chris on tour with us any day. Maybe we will when we can support another body on the road.

Eugene was very sweet for another reason: I got to catch up with two old friends. One from studying abroad in Spain whom I hadn’t seen in three years, and another who lived in the room above mine freshman year at Rice. Both were very exciting; Nicole from Spain because we spent a lot of time together there, and Miller from Rice because she was a Senior when we met so I hadn’t even really talked to her in 5 years! Both seem to be doing great but alas our time together was far too short.

Unfortunately the first half of the show itself was pretty rough. I broke two strings, Hooch’s bass was peaking and going nuts through the monitors, and aside from our friends there was essentially no crowd. As a result the energy was low and we really weren’t feeling it.

After we took a break, we decided to just let loose. If only Chris were still around to join us! Or our friends to hear us! We just had fun on stage; jammed out extra long, gave each other more space to solo, improvised a little more. Barely anyone around to listen? Barely any reason to care. As a result, the second half was awesome.

Interestingly enough, there were probably about ten or fifteen people scattered about the bar – outside, in another room, etc., and they were all very complimentary at the end. We just didn’t know they were listening because they weren’t in front of the stage.

I was reminded of another thing Martin Atkins said in our interview – all we need to focus on is making one more fan. More on that later. This article is already pretty long.

Stripping down and hanging out at Esalen

We had the distinct pleasure of taking a break at Esalen on our way to San Francisco. For those who don’t know, which I guess is most people, Esalen is an alternative learning and spiritual retreat center dedicated exploring the vast frontier of human potential. As a result, all the major thinkers, spiritual leaders, new age gurus, and metaphysical philosophers of the past four or five decades have passed through the place – people like Abraham Maslow, Aldous Huxley, Alan Watts, Buckminster Fuller, Fritz Perls, George Leonard, and even the Beatles and Ravi Shankar have spent time at Esalen.

Marie shows off the natural beauty of Esalen

A great friend of mine name Marie is the reason we were able to hang out there for a night. She was our gracious host and tour guide. We also had a ton of fun with her, her friends, and her mom. For example;

- We attended a group Gestalt psychotherapeutic session called “Open Seat,” (more below)
- We ate incredible food
- All the food at Esalen is DIVINE
- Much of it is grown on-site
- We experienced the hot springs (clothing discouraged, more on that)
- We played Big Talk kings
- I meditated over the joining of three rivers

Plus, on a personal note, I took a transformational class that studied the Human Potential Movement and American Metaphysics through the lens of Esalen. It was in this class that I made my lifelong friend who co-founded the Big Talk Project with me.

The Naked Hot Tubs

Esalen is infamous for the natural hot springs hot tubs that hang on cliffs over the ocean. Besides being incredibly relaxing and beautiful (the whole of the Californian coast between LA and SF boasts awe-inspiring vistas of mountains, cliffs, waterfalls, ocean, flora, and fauna), the baths are well known for the “clothing optional” rule, which is better put “clothing highly discouraged.”

I thought that I would be right as rain, given my dubious history on a bike, but I must admit I was a bit shy at first. I think it was comfort as well as the nighttime. When it’s dark outside, there’s a sense that you can still hide your anatomy from the rest of the people in the area. When it’s bright daylight, there’s no protection camouflaging anything. By my third trip to the baths, in the middle of our second day at Esalen, I felt much more comfortable sunning the areas of my body which normally remain obscured.

The Naked Mind

Open Seat was a good introduction to a group psychotherapeutic process, and it reminded me of something Martin Atkins said when I interviewed him a few months ago. Bands should get therapy. I whole-heartedly agree with this philosophy, and plan on it when we have more of the basics (three meals a day instead of one, for example) taken care of. We spend a massive amount of time together in very tight quarters, with little personal time or space. Why is this not a normal thing bands talk about and do? Certainly for the cost, but what about famous bands? Have the Red Hot Chili Peppers ever mentioned it? What about 311? When Martin said it, I thought, “of course!” Our experience at Esalen was not directed towards band dynamics at all, but if nothing else it helps us better understand each other and the different way we experience what we’re all going through at the same moment. Pretty cool. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I think the other guys did as well.

As I said in the twitter message, “Esalen, we’ll be back.”

Interview with Music Tour Guru Martin Atkins

I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Martin Atkins a few weeks ago, and I wanted to share it with you guys, our fans. A lot of you ask what it’s like to be on the road, how we can make it big, and want to know about the Austin scene. Well these are a music industry heavyweight’s opinions. We’re actually not going to take all of his advice (we’re going to the West Coast anyway) but the info is greatly appreciated anyway. This is also posted at AustinPost.org

Martin Atkins is a music industry veteran with over thirty years of experience–and more than a few successful bands, a record label, and a recording studio under his belt. He has toured around the world, played live on ABC and BBC, and teaches “The Business of Touring” at Columbia College in Chicago. I recently had the distinct fortune of talking with Martin about the subject of his latest success, a book he wrote called “Tour:Smart:Breaking the Band.” It’s a veritable tome of real information covering almost everything you could possibly want to know about touring.

In our conversation he discusses new opportunities for bands touring in the information age, identifies the biggest mistakes touring bands make, and specifically addresses challenges for bands looking to make it in Austin. Enjoy!

J: The music business is undergoing revolutionary change. How has touring changed as a result, and what is the biggest opportunity for musicians?

MA: I think the biggest opportunity is within regular distribution. The freedoms, the opportunity for a band to reach anybody. Now the problem is that there are also no barriers to entry. So that there are 8 million other bands trying to reach people. But for a band that works hard and has imagination, and creates an interesting package, an interesting story, interesting materials to communicate that, I don’t think there’s ever been a better time to communicate that around the world.

J: What are some of the most common mistakes bands make, especially when going on tour?

MA: When bands go, “We’ve got to tour America!” Well I have a map, with a line from Minneapolis down to Texas and I say NEVER GO WEST OF THAT LINE. The shows are too far apart, the miles are too hot, the rain is too harsh, the most expensive gasoline in the country is on the West Coast, and just that one thing could totally ruin your band. Don’t go west of that line.

J: You’ve often spoken about the importance of the “flower petal”-touring touring pattern, using your home city as the middle of the flower. How does this apply to Austin?

MA: You go up the I-95 corridor to Minneapolis, there’s Tulsa, OK City, St. Louis, etc., and then you along the East, Baton Rouge, and those places, Savannah. By choosing Austin as a location, [...] you really only have three petals – the Eastern petal, your Northeastern petal and your Northern petal, really, but you know if that’s where your from and everyone’s from there that’s fine. If you were in LA I’d say move to Nashville or Louisville because it’s a cheaper place to live. And then you have 360 degrees of very close touring in all directions.

But you know it’s obvious as we talk through this, people aren’t thinking like this. I think serious bands need to think about this, and just understand it. You don’t have to move to Louisville. But you should understand why that could be advantageous. If you want to stay in Austin, make use of the benefits associated with being there. You know, extend your home, make yourself a location for bands off the stage at SXSW. Help them with promotion, because they’ll help you when you’re in Boston, or Norway, or wherever those bands are from. And you can strategize where the bands you help are from.

J What are the biggest benefits of SXSW to Austin bands??
MA: If I was a band in Austin, I wouldn’t even think about playing in SXSW. I’d just say, “Hey we’re a band from Austin and we’re here throughout the day with guitar strings, drum sticks, drum heads, bottles of water; we can help you with transportation and strategies to help you while you’re here and you can crash at our place.” You probably get more out of that than an OK show in front of loads of people at SXSW. That kind of dovetails into the more “pay it forward” kind of attitude which isn’t very common in the music business.

J: Can you speak a little more about that “Pay it Forward” attitude?
MA: Well I mean it just isn’t very common. I understand why it isn’t, it’s a very difficult system, but I think that sometimes bands think, if I help this guy get a show in New Orleans, then maybe when I call the venue in New Orleans, this guy will be playing there on a night I want. Lots of people play things close to their chest. I just don’t think that that helps really. I think there’s more in life to be had by helping people and accumulating favors and goodwill than there is by keeping information secret.


J: In your book, you mention strategies that give bands a “multiplier effect.” Could you talk about one of those?

MA: I don’t even know if this is in my book, but… this idea that bands are so desperately trying to find two to five thousand fans, or whatever number it is–I think now is the time for bands to do one thing, and that’s just to find one more fan. And then to find one more fan.  And that’s it. If you boil it down to that it just gets really simple and really easy. It’s a huge amount of work but it’s not rocket science. At all. That’s all it is.

There are short cuts. Large amounts of money, and strangely, any kind of notoriety that is purchased and fueled by money can be taken away very quickly. But the relationships you can build yourselves as a band that will last, that will have some longevity, have strength. It’s a world now where it’s just about one fan at a time. So I think its a very very empowering time for artists.

For more information, check out the Tour:Smart book, buy it on Amazon, connect with Martin on Myspace, Facebook and Twitter.