What this rock and roll lifestyle is really all about
Happy Wednesday!
First off, thanks so much to everyone who tuned into the Raro broadcast, celebrated with us at UIC, or danced with us Saturday night at the Latin music party. I feel surrounded by a community of kind, thoughtful and fierce people.
I wanted to take this week's update to share some thoughts I've been having about bands, groups and musical collaboration in general. I hope they will be informative and / or entertaining for you.
Before I dive in, I wanted to mention that my monthly jam session at the Golden Dagger on Halsted is coming this Monday May 15th. The usual trio of Marcos Rios, Leon Godfrey and myself will be joined by special guests Michael Pineda (sax) and Ben Zucker (vibraphone and cornet). We'll play a 30-40 minute set at 8pm and the jam is open afterwards. It's always a fun night for players and listeners alike. Hope to catch you there.
So, are you in a band?
When I got started playing drums almost 20 years ago, my dream was to be in a big successful rock band.
Okay, to be more accurate I'd say my dream was to play music as close to all the time as possible, and being in a successful rock band was the only way I knew of that could make it a reality.
Tough luck for me. If I was maybe 5-10 years older, being from the Mid West, I could have experienced the times where you could have a Blink182 cover band and get signed by a label. They'd snap you up, help you cobble together some original tunes, and send you on a little tour before dropping you because that ship had already sailed, but hey at least you got to live some life right?
Or if if I was maybe 15-20 years older I could have experienced the tail-end of the erra of scouts coming to local shows to find new groups. Come on mom and dad, why didn't you just go on and have me right out of high school? (Totally kidding).
All jokes aside, no matter what time we're in, it's always been incredibly unlikely for a musician to have a single musical project that supports them through life, or even supports them through the need to perform on a close to daily basis. It's even less likely any such success will continue for more than a couple years, especially if you want to have creative control of your music.
Popular music is about much more than the music itself, the average listener doesn't want to have to become an expert to enjoy what their favorite artist is putting down (tough but fair), and music executives want to turn profit without having to invest too much in reinventing the wheel. Without fully going down the rabit hole, it's more or less a combination of these three factors that make it incredibly dificult to make your living by just being in a band. (These factors are also responsible for the countless public meltdowns of formerly beloved artists who tried in various ways to avoid the fate of having to stay afloat by trotting out the same hits for 20-30 years beyond their expiration date).
All this is to say that as a teenager, I didn't know about all the other stuff (cool and not as cool) that musicians can do to stay active, and even build a career. Everything from artist residencies to wedding gigs / private events, teaching lessons to holding it down while people sing carioke, hired recording work to running sound for someone elses show can happen in the week or even a single day of a professional musician.
And I love it much more than the idea of doing the same performance year after year--one long tour after the next. Don't get me wrong, consistency is appreciated and often covetted, but I am deeply grateful for how much of my own city being a musician has allowed me to experience. Between playing bars, local schools, college campuses, museums, restaurants, house parties, community centers, churches, parks and plazas, you really get to take in the various rhythms of life, which keeps your creativity and social life pretty healthy.
As a part of all this, I've played in countless groups. Some are steady with the same people every time, whereas others are one-offs where you might not see some of your collaborators for another year or two.
For those who are curious, I wanted to outline the major types of groups I've observed, and wrap it up by saying a bit about why I love being in Raro, which is a true band to me.
Solo Artist
A solo artist (even when they're amazing to work with) is all about their identity. Rappers and singer / songwriters represent this best. Most rappers for example start out performing with tracks, but might hire a band for bigger shows or a tour. a solo acoustic folk singer might beef it up when they start playing a bigger rooms. As a player, you don't tend to get much glory for these performances (even when the artists do try their hardist to share the spotlight), but you can get a lot of work by being known to be good to work with in this context.
Project
A project can have a single or multiple leaders, but it's defined by being finite. Project is one I heard getting thrown around a lot today, which makes sense when the future feels so uncertain. Basically, to me a project is musicians agreeing to commit to finishing something (maybe an album or a show or two) and doing it. If the project continues, we get into our next category...
Group
I consider both Calculated Discomfort and Prosthetic (my main personal creative outlets) to both be groups that grew out of projects. Some members are more consistent than others on a performance-to-performance basis (I am a tinkerer afterall), but in general we are using the ideas that started with past projects to evolve towards the completion of new projects. We tend to meet and perform in concentrated chunks with gaps in between. I'm pretty much calling the shots, but if someone else started feeling ownership, we could be come...
Collective
What constitutes a collective can be debated, but to me it's a group with a key distinction. Whereas groups perform all at the same time, a collective is more likely to consist of people who perform together, but also have their own groups. I think the most successful collectives are focused on taking turns presenting events. One month I might throw a show with my group and bring a friend in from out of town, the next month a different collective member might organize a performance and discussion.
Ensemble
This is definitely a fancy-feeling one. To me an ensemble is a group focused on very specific music (jazz standards, salsa, top 40 pop, West African griot music, etc). Ensembles can be professional or amateur, and they can definitely incorporate original music or modern interpretations of classic styles, but they're never going to stray too far from a certain sound.
And last but not least...
Band
So what is a band anyway? Yes, you can refer to any group of musicians performing as a band without pissing off too many people, but to me band is a mindset.
The best way I can describe a band is explaining why I love being a member of Raro.
Not so different from the band I was in in high school, we get together every Sunday to practice and hang a bit, even if their isn't a gig on the calendar. We compose music together, and talk personal drama throughout. We bicker, make our way through the tension, and tare it up on stage together. If someone isn't available a day we're offered a gig, we decline. There are no subs in a band because the spirit of the band is a composite of each member (strengths and flaws). Sonically, we aren't chasing anything besides what tells our story best.
It feels great to be part of a proper band. Even if it isn't my most high profile or lucrative project (yet), Raro feeds my heart and gives me a sense of belonging. Being in bands has gotten me through large chunks of my adolescent and adult life, and I am so proud to be back in the saddle.
Raro performs next on June 11th and our album is coming in July. Stay tuned, and I hope you got something out of this little musing. Feel free to let me know if any of this resonated with you.
Have a great day,
Tommy