Tag Archive for 'Jay Sweet'

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SEPTEMBER LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Published by KB@OS on September 1, 2009 in Artist News. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

JaySweet_03Yesterday, I took a one day vacation and decided to climb a mountain. It was a perfect day for being alone, so I made a pledge to not read email, talk on the phone or listen to music for the entire day. If you are like me, this is not as easy as it sounds, but I figured a little unplugged time would clear away some the media madness that seems to invade every synapse in my vibrating gray matter.

It worked until about three hours into my hike. There I was above tree-line with 120 mile visibility, clean air and no one around when it arrived—beautiful, eerie, intoxicating silence. I stopped, smiled and then finally surrendered to my internal soundtrack. I always have a mental playlist for climbing. Monotony and slogging can beat down the spirit of scaling a mountain, so it’s good to be prepared. Most climbs, I depend on the freight train funk of Aretha’s “RockSteady” for the final hurrah. However as I took in the stunning 360 degree views atop the summit, surprisingly it was not the Queen of Soul I was humming, but Harhay’s “My Way Home.”

This recent OurStage discovery had happily carried me through the mental grind of the last pitch. It’s surprising really because, at first pass,  it’s not expertly produced; the lyrics are not overly inspiring, and the voice is quirky at best. Yet, put all the pieces together and the song had “IT,” the indescribable gravitation pull that ends up getting stuck in your noggin like some kind of sonic super glue.

Descending, I wondered why “My Way Home” and its album mate “Seeing Stars” had been on such a constant loop. After a thorough deconstruction, I believe I mentally internalized the tracks, and in some subconscious way melded the soul of both to declare them as uniquely my own. Not as if I had written them per se, but more like they had been written especially for my personal use and enjoyment.

Then it dawned on me: this is why independent music is so important to each and all of us. We, the fans, have the sole power to give new music life. It seems obvious but how many of us personally engage with what truly feeds our melodic cravings?

Ask yourself, is it more compelling to pay $5 to hear an emerging artist or $350 to a corporate backed, botoxed millionare playing twenty year relics in some concrete arena hopped up on $8 beers? For decades most music discovery came via massive major label marketing budgets force fed to the masses via TV and Radio. Those days are through. Over. Kaput.

These days we can directly influence the careers of the artists we care about. All we need to do is join the tribe. Face it, we all want to be a member of the group, and finally we have the power to do it. Let everyone know you belong to your favorite music and it belongs to you. It’s true; the artists long for not only your support but for your acceptance as well. They want to be part of your team, just as much as you want to be a part of theirs.

When you find something that moves you musically, share it. With everyone. Be a hard core advocate: post, rate, tweet, blog, link, whatever. Satiate your yen for discovery and be the one who discovers the band that moves music to new heights. Hell, even if it never becomes anything more than a passing fancy at least you played a part. Turn off the noise, get out there and start breaking your own trail. Pretty soon you could be humming a great new tune looking out at a whole new view.

-Jay Sweet, Editor-at-Large

THE LOW ANTHEM KNOW WHO BUTTERS THEIR BREAD

Published by KB@OS on August 18, 2009 in Artist News. 3 Comments Tags: , , , .
The Low Anthems stay hungry for your love

The Low Anthem stay hungry for your love

Ask any musician and they’ll tell you that all they want is to be able to quit their day job and have their music support them. For the artist already at that benchmark, they know who is the boss of them—the fans. As the collective “boss,” the fans write the paychecks through ticket, download and merch purchases. Sometimes bands get caught up in the glory of all night drives and cheap motel rooms, overlooking how awesome it is when 20 people make the effort to be at the gig. Granted, it’s a bummer to look out from the stage and face a room that hasn’t sold out. But it’s an even bigger bummer to be in the audience and know that the band is pissed off—like the fact that the fans who are there aren’t good enough. Not true in the world of The Low Anthem; they know who butters their bread. Thankful for every loving spoonful, the Rhode Island natives punched their last time clock roughly 16 months ago and are grateful for the legion of bosses who support their music.

If you’re not familiar with their sound, the band’s MySpace page describes their ethos as, “new songs that come from old songs. vibe. providence, RI. typewriters. folk art. corn-dogs. mini-van. gospel influence. wood bats. old-time headwear. not jaded: music that is music. not an advertisement. word of mouth. drink of mouth. bourbon…”. Whatever it means, the result is music so haunting and sweetly soul-searching that the trio deserves a raise.

Our resident tastemaker, Jay Sweet, caught up with The Low Anthem’s Ben Knox Miller, cracking open the nut that is the world of a working musician.

JS: Speaking to Ben Knox Miller of The Low Anthem who is graciously talking to us from a sleepy van ride. What’s it been like in the last 16 moths for you, as far as becoming a career musician, where you can quit all your day jobs and focus 100% on music?

BKM: Things have changed. We started 16 months ago as a duo. We were doing bar gigs and residencies in a few local towns —Providence where we lived, Boston, New York, and just trying to make enough money playing in certain places that we could get to by car to just pay our rent. Once we figured out how to play in a few towns we started branching out a little bit, all very slowly, just doing whatever we could, booking ourselves. We’ve had some great luck with different national publications that found our new record O My God Charlie Darwin… a great booking agent that was excited about the project that wanted to get on board and help out and very quickly, we’ve just gotten so many offers to travel to different crazy parts of the world. We understand how incredible that opportunity is so every time we are just saying “yes” to every option that comes up.

Continue reading ‘THE LOW ANTHEM KNOW WHO BUTTERS THEIR BREAD’

JAY SWEET’S Q&A WITH BEN KWELLER DURING FOLK FESTIVAL 50

Published by KB@OS on August 5, 2009 in Artist Feature and Interviews. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Fifty years ago the Newport Folk Festival founder George Wein set out to create a festival that embraced both commercial and noncommercial artists representing the totality of the folk world. In 1959, the festival showcased an open spectrum of performances—from the immensely popular five-time Number 1 record-releasing artists The Kingston Trio to an obscure singer songwriter named Joan Baez, who emerged as the event’s breakout talent. To celebrate the annual Rhode Island festival’s Golden Jubilee, organizers dubbed the event “Folk Festival 50”. This year, the festival commemorated its heritage with folk legends Baez, Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie and Judy Collin as well as the genre’s future with “newcomers” such as The Decembrists, Fleet Foxes, Iron & Wine and Ben Kweller.

Folk Festival 50 producer (and Editor-at-Large for Paste and the OurStage blog) Jay Sweet caught up with Kweller to discuss the weekend’s fest, the current state of the music industry and life as a do-it-yourselfer. View the video of the Q&A and hear Ben Kweller’s sage advice to indie artists.

AUGUST’S LETTER FROM THE EDITOR AT LARGE, JAY SWEET

Published by KB@OS on August 3, 2009 in Artist News. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

I’m sitting backstage at Folk Festival 50— a celebration of 50 years of music history in Newport, RI— listening to 90-year-old Pete Seeger headlining a sing-a-long with a phalanx of younger artists armed only with aged vocal chords, an out-of-tune banjo and more heart, soul and sincerity than perhaps any performer of the last century. He is quite simply music history personified.

In a 70 plus year career he has never once put financial gain or fame over artistic integrity. He has fought against blacklists, social injustice, racial inequality and habitat destruction his entire life, and here he is leading the charge alongside members of The Decemberists, Fleet Foxes, Ben Kweller, The Low Anthem, Elvis Perkins In Dearland, Tift Merritt, Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello and Gillian Welch to name just a few. Obviously it’s inspirational to watch all these performers join in song however the almost palpable lack of cynicism during Seeger stalwarts such as “This Little Light of Mine,” “If I Had A Hammer” and “This Land Is Your Land”  hits me the hardest. Everyone is genuinely moved by the power of the performers and audience singing together in perfect and gloriously out-of-tune harmony.

All the artists I’ve mentioned above made their careers on the backs of their own labor. With or without label support, these artists have all made it to this career milestone: playing the granddaddy of all music festivals via playing by their own rules. This badge on non-conformity is really their only commonality. The futility of genre labeling when trying to categorize all the collective talent on this stage is glaring. Each one believing that he or she can change the world for the better with a few simple chords, a pound of flesh and mountain of sincerity.  It seems the secret they are willingly sharing to all who take the time to listen is to make it as a true artist you have to go to any lengths to stand by your convictions— or as Mr. Seeger told me before he walked on stage, “You never know when which added grain of sand will finally tilt the see-saw of change in the right direction. We all need to do that little extra to make it happen.”

-Jay Sweet, Editor-at-Large

Q&A WITH PASTE MAGAZINE’S EDITOR AT LARGE JAY SWEET

Published by KB@OS on July 14, 2009 in Interviews. 6 Comments Tags: , .

jaysweet_02By now many of you’ve heard of OurStage friend Jay Sweet. He’s the Editor at Large for Paste, the fastest growing independently published music magazine in the country, as well as the producer of the world renowned Newport Folk Festival. Somehow he also manages to act as a music consultant through his co-owned company, Sweet & Doggett while also holding the job as Editor At Large for the OurStage Blog. In short, he’s a wealth of knowledge.

Knowing this I asked him to be the focus of my bi-weekly Q&A with an industry insider. Glad I did. He shared some unique and affirming insights that will help all the emerging artists who aspire to greatness…

KB: Over the years you’ve become a trusted voice in music; be it as Music Consultant, Editor at Large at Paste Magazine or as the Producer of the Newport Folk Festival. How did you acquire your expertise and earn people’s trust?

JS: I’m a fan of music first and foremost, a true musical omnivore, and so I feel comfortable being around other people who live and breathe music as well. All the best moments I’ve ever experienced in the music business started with the question, ‘Who have you been listening to lately… ?’ Once common ground is discovered, everything else comes naturally.

KB: As a person who wears many hats within the industry, what has been your favorite role and why?

JS: Making playlists for friends and clients is still my favorite part of the job. What could be better than turning people onto new music and making mix “tapes” for a living?! It keeps me passionate about the soul of what we do; it’s a very jaded business so we need constant reminders as to why we do it. The other part is watching people’s faces as they leave after a great live show whether as a producer, writer or fan. The collective buzz is so infectious and affirming that the contact high can last for weeks.

KB: When you embark on the task of programming a time honored and internationally recognized event the caliber of the Newport Folk Festival is there room for artists without label support to ever make it on the bill? If yes, how do they get on your radar?

JS: Absolutely! What we care about most in programming is authenticity and spirit. The Folk Festival has always taken chances on new voices, artists willing to take risks and step out of their comfort zone. As far as being on the radar, I always say it’s like finding a new word in the dictionary, once you learn it; you start to see and hear it everywhere. The same goes for music. If I hear about a certain artist from a few disparate sources, I’ll do some digging. But, it all comes down to the music and whether you can deliver it live; engaging the audience is crucial.

KB: What advice do you have for artists trying to get booked to perform at a festival?

JS: Play anywhere for anyone, and treat each gig like it’s Red Rocks, the Grand Ole Opry, or the Folk Festival in Newport. Hone your stage presence so that you can engage any audience, no matter if it’s an audience of one or thousands. I’ve spoken to artists from Radiohead, The Grateful Dead, Phish, The Black Crowes, The Flaming Lips, Dispatch etc, each one has extraordinary and unique connections to their fan base, and each one said they built it one fan at a time by playing live anywhere, anytime for anyone. Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips once told me every show he tries to engage the last guy in the last row of the farthest point from the stage in the present moment to the point where they’d rather piss themselves than miss what’s going to happen next. In other words there are bands who can sell more albums, or have a higher profile in the fickle public eye, but you get gigs at festivals when the producers know your phalanx of fans will come along for the ride come hell or high water.

KB: Putting on your music journalist hat, what types of “news” warrants featuring an emerging artist in a print publication like Paste Magazine? Is there a different standard for digital publications i.e. blogs?

JS: With Paste, more than some other excellent and well read publications, it’s really about the music more than the flash or style. Many times no one recognizes the artists on our covers. If it’s good and honest Paste will write about it. I’ve heard “Pasteful” used as an adjective to describe certain artists whose music doesn’t necessarily fall into one specific genre or category other than being genuine. Obviously with blogs and other digital publications there is seemingly endless space and bandwidth that you simply do not have in the printed book, so the myriad of reviews, interviews, and general musings is ever growing and available. One piece of advice is to try and think like an editor; what angle would you write about if you only had a small amount of space to talk about your music? What is unique about you and your art? What’s your story? What will make a good pull quote or catch someone’s eye? Also, comparing your music to other more established artists is trite. Believe me, Tom Waits meets U2 with a sprinkle of Joni Mitchell and Brain Wilson harmonies you are not.

KB: Do you have any tips for musicians trying to get press?

JS: Yeah, practice, get good, practice more, get better and have your fans do all the shouting for you. Be humble, ignore the rules, subvert the system, and most importantly make it easy for writers to hear your music on your site. Spare all the flash and splash pages. Send links to music writers not hard CD’s unless they ask specifically for them. Target writers you actually read yourself. Use a sniper rifle not a shotgun when it comes to engaging the press. All you need is a few good writers to champion your music and others will come find you. Remember people like to claim they “found” you first. Let them feel they are part of your success and they will spread the word. Give love, get love.

KB: What is your best piece of advice for artists who aspire to have a career in music?

JS: Easy, build your tribe and serve them well. Treat them all as if they were your closest and most cherished friend. I rarely listen to what a publicist, agent, or manager has to say as they all have a monetary interest which tends to shade reality. Instead I go to the fan sites, community boards, comment sections, etc. because the fans have just as much of a vested interest, but on a much more personal level. These are the people that will buy the magazine, come to the show, buy the merch and most importantly do the heavy lifting when it comes to word of mouth marketing. In other words if you build a passionate, rabid, loyal fan base- we’ll find you. It’s all about stars aligning; you can’t force the issue, because desperation is a stinky perfume.