Recording studio, audio training, bands and DJs - Aurora, Illinois

He puts his pants on - and makes gold records!

Like music itself, Backthird Audio runs on people. If you've been reading this blog or hanging around our Songwriter Showcases, you'll have noticed a new one in the control room these past few months. Kyle Schmidt is our new lead engineer. He's a singer, a guitarist and an avid biker - and I've got him pushing faders now as often as I can.

"My dad's band went to a recording studio and I tagged along," Kyle says. "I took a look around and said, yes - this is what I want to do! I was in the eighth grade."

Kyle studied music business and studio recording at Columbia College in Chicago and at Belmont University in Nashville. He interned at the House of Blues recording studio in Encino, Calif. before graduation, then spent several years freelancing for producers and songwriters in Nashville. Kyle engineered at the Sound Kitchen, Dark Horse and Quad Studios before he and his wife, Stacy, decided to transition back to Chicago to be closer to extended family.

What Easter has to do with music

If Jesus did rise from the dead, then we must write and record music that is beautiful and challenging.

I’m discovering that’s what I believe. I’ve been a Christian all my life, but lately I’ve been growing in my understanding of what Easter – the event at the center of the faith I claim – has to do with art. Like a lot of people, I yearn to be better integrated – to discover what one part of my life or my actions has to do with another, and to line up the pieces that don’t fit together, until my life isn’t in pieces at all – until it all fits. Since art and faith are so significant to me, this means I’m always thinking about ways they fit together.

I find food for thought in obvious places, but also in surprising ones – like the book I finished this weekend by the Bishop of Durham about resurrection. Easter, it turns out, isn’t so much about going to heaven as it is about heaven coming here.

Which has to do with art and music. People create as a natural response to the created world around us. We reflect and enhance the beauty we find, ordering and enjoying the sights and sounds we find pleasurable – like Adam in Eden, who cultivated the garden and named the animals he found there. But unlike Adam, we live in a world that’s marred by ugliness and evil. Honest art reflects this, too.

Many first-century Jews – including Jesus – believed that evil was a temporary blight. Because God was just, they thought, an age would come when he would re-create the world. The beauty here would be transformed, made even better. The ugliness would be thrown on the trash heap. And dead people – particularly those who’d died unjustly – would be brought to life again.

Folks who concluded Jesus was the savior, then, saw Easter as the start of this new age of justice and beauty. His resurrection was a foretaste, like a single flower poking through still-frozen ground. Sure, injustice was still everywhere – but the era of peace had begun.

If I believe that, too, then it explains why I like music full of contradictions – tense, but yearning; dark, but full of promise. The kind of stuff I most aspire to make is a mixture of darkness and light. I don’t love sad songs or happy songs so much as hopeful ones. Because I think the world is cold – but also that Spring has already begun.

What about you? How do the things you believe intersect with the music you love?

Rock a wedding in 10 easy steps!

We’re in the middle of wedding-planning season, that curious time of year when I spend the most time and energy telling people about my band – and the least time and energy actually playing with them. It’s a curious gig. 

Here, in honor of the season, are my 10 rules for doing weddings well. 

1. Show up early. No – earlier than that.
2. Leave artistic idiosyncrasies, idealistic crusades and “precious frontman” tendencies at the door. Recognize that this is absolutely not about you.
3. Get a garment bag. You will spend many hours in your underwear in bathroom stalls, where you’ll make awkward small talk with the people you’re about to play for.
4. Pack deodorant.
5. And get there early.
6. Make friends with the caterers. Help them. Remember, they don’t work for you. But if you’re nice, you might score some hot tea.
7. Be friendly even if there is no tea. Recognize that this is absolutely not about you.
8. The bride’s the boss.
9. The groom’s the boss, too. So’s the father of the bride, the wedding planner, and the catering director. But guess what? You’re the one with the microphone.
10. Never use the microphone unless you already know what you’re going to say. If you’re unsure what to say, consult the boss.

Want to make money with your music? Here's how.

Find out what you can offer people that they can’t get any other way.

Marketers call this a Unique Selling Proposition, and I’ve been dwelling on it far too much lately – because I do make music for money, and because I’m surrounded by people who want to do the same. Some of you want to go full-time, some want part-time, and some of you would be happy just to recoup the money you spent making your last album. You know who you are. You’re the ones still reading this.

You have to figure out how you’re unique – or hire a manager to figure it out for you. You have to come up with something people will pay for that they can’t get from anyone but you.

Increasingly – and, I think, unfortunately – this isn’t your recorded music. Can I hear your songs for free on MySpace? Then I don’t need to pay to listen. What I might still pay for, though, is a fixed copy of your music with nice packaging and artwork. I might pay to see you play your songs in person, or to join your fan club, or to somehow participate with you in what you do. These things are scarce, and therefore easier to charge for -- and they're not the only ideas folks are trying.

But it doesn’t start with wild ideas. It starts with you. What makes you special?

I know – we’re all special. When you wrote that song at age 13 about the girl in science class who wouldn’t notice you, you knew in your gut it was a work of deep importance. And it was!

But maybe not to everyone. Maybe to someone who didn’t know you personally, it didn’t mean that much. And if you want to go part-time, or even just recoup expenses, you need cash from people who don’t know you personally. You need something people who don’t know you want, something they can’t get from anyone but you.

So what are you offering? What do you have that can’t be gotten anywhere else?

Answers in the comments section, please.

Three secrets to steal

When I started Backthird Audio in 2003, I didn’t have a clue. I had a great space, some time and money, and a dream to make a living doing what I love – and take as many other people with me as possible.

My great space and my dream are healthier than ever, but I’ve traded in most of the time and money to get that clue I needed. Here are three big things I’ve learned – and how I’ll put them into action in my dream business this year. How can these principles help you?

1. Measure it. As a friend in retail once told me, “what gets measured gets done.” Goals and resolutions are secondary; what you really need is a way to gauge what you do in the first place. Do you count songs written? Listens? Weeping fans? Identify what matters to you – and get an easy system for measuring it. Now you’ve got something to improve.

 With Backthird Events, I track the number of inquiries and bookings we get for bands and DJs every month. My goal this year is to keep better contact with the venues who refer us – I want to talk with every one of them at least once a month. The result will be more bookings. That keeps me excited.

2.

Ask for help. Unless you’re God, you’re better at some things than others – and you can’t do everything at once. But everything needs to be done. Who can do what you can’t? How can you make it worth their while?

At Backthird Audio, I do it all – but not for long. I had three interns in 2008, and now I’m hooked. This year I’ll be developing a more formal internship program to help the young and eager get experience in music business by taking those things off of my plate I know they can do well. I’m also seeking a new vocalist for the wedding band, and I’m even hashing out a plan to hire a part-time engineer by year’s end, so the studio can be in use when I’m hung up with other things.

3. Quit every day. Not for good, of course – most things in life are only worth the effort if you stick it out. But you need time away from your passions if you’re going to stay passionate.

Two of my priorities this year are spending time at home with my wife and out with friends. My job’s about serving and enjoying people – not about achievement for its own sake. The more I remember that, the more I’m inspired to achieve.

That’s what these three principles mean to me and Backthird Audio. What do they mean to you?

Take a look at yourself...

Do you really know what people hear?

This month, my column is a time capsule. I wrote this post two weeks ago, then set my e-mail service to deliver it to you this morning. In the intervening time, I’ve gotten married.

Planning my own wedding was a lot of work and tons of fun. From a professional standpoint, one massive benefit has been the way it’s put me in my clients’ shoes. I run a wedding business. I’ve played ceremonies, booked DJs and led dance bands for years. I have brides and grooms at my conference table most weekends, giving me dance requests and asking my professional advice. But last month I crossed the table. I became the client.

Big retailers do this all the time. Starbucks pays “secret shoppers” to buy lattes and critique their service. They know it’s the customer’s perspective that matters, and they do everything they can to experience their business as customers do. Music’s more personal, though. We don’t have customers – we have listeners. Our “products” are the songs we write, the mixes we create or the experiences we provide at live performances. You can’t sit with the audience and watch yourself perform. You can’t hear a song you wrote as if you’ve never heard it before.

What if you could? If the music you make wasn’t yours, what would it mean to you?

Here’s what I learned by swapping places with the brides and grooms I usually work for: 

1. Small things are big. Like communication – we hired folks to help out with our wedding who returned calls promptly, e-mailed contracts right away and always kept us notified on what they needed us to do by when. We also hired folks who were tough to get in touch with, didn’t call us back for weeks and sent us e-mail messages that were vague and confusing. Guess what’s better?
2. Big things might not be. Like overdone CD samplers. When I shopped my competition to find the other best wedding band in Chicago, most mailed a demo to us on CD. Some bands sent us two or three separate CDs. Did this make a difference? Not to me. We booked the band that sounded best and treated us with the most professionalism – not the one that cluttered up the mailbox most.
3. I’m special. For me this was the most important part – by seeing things from my clients’ perspective, I realized what I’m already doing that’s different from what others do. This doesn’t mean my band’s for everyone – but by understanding what makes us unique and putting those qualities front and center, I make it easier for people who do want to hire us to discover us in the first place.

So what about you? You may not be in the wedding business – but if you make music, you have listeners. Who are they? What does your music offer them?

Shelf yourself!

There's this scene in the music-nut film High Fidelity where John Cusack's character has his entire record collection sprawled on his apartment floor. He's re-organizing easily hundreds of recordings when a record-store employee drops by for a visit. Like any collector of great art, he discerns a challenge in the way the LPs on the floor have been arranged. "What is this - chronological?" "No." "Not alpabetical..." "Nope. Autobiographical." Cussack's protagonist has ordered his entire collection of albums, not according to any to any attributes of the recordings themselves, but according to the way they've fit into his own life. I love the idea because it speaks so much to what music is about - it's about people. The Music Genome Project may have the corner on the technical classification of music, but there's a point at which the notes and rhythms transcend the page they're written on and become something much tougher to classify - individual experience. Music becomes music when it does something to the listener. What it does can be different for each of us. And yet it can bring people together as few things can. We saw that firsthand at The Guild again last week. But I'm not ready for the conversation to end. And so I'm wondering - when you listen, what do you listen for? What are the attributes you consider to be most important in discovering music? How do you sort your own record collection? Ordering your records autobiographically may be great therapy, but it's hardly practical. Neither, by the way, is sorting your albums according to record label - something I tried on a lark about 5 years ago. I learned a ton about the industry. But I could never find a thing. So now I'm sorting CDs by genre: classic rock on the left, modern rock on the right, and - ironically - progressive rock somewhere in the middle. Jazz gets a separate shelf. And the stuff I'm embarassed to own - that's on the bottom, at foot-level, where most folks won't notice it but I can still find it if I need a fix. What about you? How do you classify and sort the music you own? And, while we're at it - how do you classify the music you make? When it's time to put a genre label on the stuff you do, what shelf do you go on?

FROM BENJIE: Thing One and Thing Two

Try this: Find a blank piece of paper or an empty box to type in (the comments box at the bottom of this blog post is a great one). Now write only two things down.

Thing One: What single activity in the world of music do you love the most? Be specific.

Thing Two: What do you have to do to make the Thing One happen that is loathsome, dull and irritating to you?

Yeah, I know how you feel.

This month I’d planned to use this space to muse about the new SlotMusic format. We could chat about it on the blog and have a dandy time. But on Saturday, I discovered something vastly better and more fun to write about instead.

Music.

I rediscover music on an almost weekly basis. I play it – and record and book and teach it – for a living, and I’ve found I constantly need reminding why. On Saturday I capped off an extremely busy week by playing a wedding with the Total Package – and it wore me out. We spent 45 minutes figuring out which door we were allowed to bring our gear in through. I spent hours on my feet re-arranging minute schedule details and relaying messages between the bridal party and a host of managers and catering staff. My team members got served dinner moments before I needed them to start performing. I spent $42 on parking. I was pining for my pillow before we had played our first note.

Then we did play our first note, and had a ball, and time flew by. I love to play. I love it.

This is why I play: I love music. I love the people I play with, and – when my heart’s in the right place – I love the people I play for. I love a thousand things that have to do with music, and it’s hard for me to pick just one Thing One. But I made up the game – so here’s my answer: I love singing with a band. Making a sound that comes from all of me, from toes to forehead, and doing it in sync with other people – that’s the thing I love the most.

Here’s what I don’t love. It’s a longer list: tight budgets, bills, guitar repairs, keyboard repairs, vans, van repairs, stairs, gig bags, heavy cases, heavy amp racks, cables, synchronizing schedules, long days, late nights, feedback, extension cords, strange hum in the PA.

Here’s what I’m putting for my Thing Two: Getting to the gig. That’s what I have to do to sing. A lot of times, especially when I’m tired, I wonder if Thing One is really worth Thing Two.

At our first note, I get my answer.

How about you? What are your Things One and Two?

FROM BENJIE: Come Together (7pm Sept 12)

What’s your context?

That’s the question I asked at the first meeting of the Guild, back in January. The idea was that music – like all art – is born in a social context. It’s made by certain people, for certain people in a certain time and place. Some songs are for the battlefield; others are for bars. But it’s all meant for somewhere. Every genre has its roots in a certain time and place, among a certain people. And in that sense, all music is folk music.

So – who are your folks?

If you’re like me, there’s a tension in that question. I spend all day with the world at my fingertips. I download photographs from other continents and e-mail hundreds of people at once. But it’s people I’m close enough to touch I’ve got the greatest chance of really knowing. I want to share myself with the same people I’m already sharing food and air and sidewalks with.

Which means, I guess, they ought to hear my music.

My community is downtown Aurora. There’s a group of us here who believe in being local, who believe in the community we live in, and who believe in the power of art to connect people and make life more rich and full. That’s why we’re pushing the Aurora ArtWalk, which I hope you’ve heard about by now. A week from Friday, we’ll turn one intersection into a hub for craziness and creativity. I’m hosting two rock bands, a painter and a sculptor. There’s a poet at the optician’s down the street. Other folks are giving free dance lessons, reading children’s books and playing with electricity. There’s even a cash prize for the crowd favorites.

If you’re within range, join us on September 12 from 7 to 10pm. Be part of us. Be local. Offer to perform for us next time. We’re hoping this will be an amazing night. We’re hoping to have fun – but also to inspire far greater things. Because the best thing would be to become the context we all need. The best thing would be to live somewhere that can be a birthplace for more songs and pictures. The best thing would be to make folk music, and to be each other’s folks.

FROM BENJIE: Anything but...

I’ll admit it – I’m exasperated.

I’m absurdly lucky to run a music business. At least, I think it’s a music business. Sometimes it’s hard to tell, because my job – like most jobs – is rarely about what I tell people it’s about. If my job is recording and performing music, why did I spend three hours this week on the phone with a credit-card processing firm, two more discussing rates and coverage with my insurance agent, and countless more adjusting web pages and updating blogs? A lot of that stuff is fun, but some of it’s just dull – and none of it compares to actually banging out a song on the piano.

But it’s all part of the process.

If you’re chasing your passion – whether it’s music or something else – you’ve probably had the same experience. We don’t shape our dreams into reality without a few rude awakenings. Want to create great music and share it with others? Then you’ll need a website, a press photo, a designer, a tech rider, a network of venues and musicians, duplication, distribution and a marketing plan. There are a whole lot of non-dreamy things to do.

Of course, part of what I hope we’re doing at Backthird Audio is building infrastructure that will allow more local music-lovers to do music without necessarily writing their own business plan first. But what I’m talking about here is bigger even than the need for structure and for differently-gifted people working together to make a project happen. I’m talking about a basic rule of life: Whatever it is that’s most important to you, you’ll always find a million other things to do instead. Some of those things are genuinely helpful. Some are just distractions. And it’s up to you to sort out which is which.

Technology only seems to be making things worse. Take e-mail, for example. E-mail is the only communication method in which it takes more time and energy to receive messages than it does to send them. Because it’s so easy to send e-mail, your inbox is doubtless cluttered with sappy forwards and clever newsletters (Thanks for reading mine! I love you! Let’s do lunch!). Each of these took only seconds to send, but it takes you far longer every day to sort through the deluge and decide what matters and what doesn’t.

I can think of lots of philosophical reasons for why the world works this way. But what I want to know is, what are you doing about it? What means have you found to keep yourself focused on the things that matter and not on the ones that don’t? How can you tell the difference? What do you do to minimize distraction and move toward your dreams?