In late February 2014 the DownTown Mystic cd was going strong at Americana Radio. Disaster nearly struck as I was in an accident but managed to come out ok. When I got home I found out that the single Way To Know had crossed over and gone to #1, with the album at #3 on the Roots Rock Report Alt/Rock Charts. What a surreal feeling!

About a week or so later, on the mend, I would come across this unknown indie band from Manitoba Canada called The Bros. Landreth. I checked out their music, and just like with The Band of Heathens, I was hooked on 1^st listening. The track Tappin’ On the Glass was immediate. So much so, I decided I would “pay it forward”, as it were. Since DownTown Mystic was enjoying some success, I sent an email out to the Americana Radio panel to let them know about this great new band from Canada.

I got an email back from Dave Stratton, the PD at WQBR, who’s been a big supporter of mine at Radio. He wanted to know how he could get his hands on the music, so I went on Amazon to buy The Bros. Landreth Let it Lie cd and had Amazon ship it directly to him. Dave really liked the cd and told me that he would be playing the band, which I thought was really cool of him. So did the band when I contacted them via their website.

Dave Landreth wrote me back and was so grateful for what I had done and thanked me profusely for it. I told him it was my pleasure to help in any way that I could. They made a great record and I thought people should know about it. Just like BoH, they were DIY, doing their own recordings and jumping in a van to tour around and play. I told Dave that if they were ever in NYC to let me know.

Robert and Dave Landreth from The Bros. Landreth

We stayed in touch over the next months and recently they announced that they had signed a Recording Deal with Slate Creek Records. It turns out that Slate Creek President Garth Fundis heard them play a show in Nashville and offered them a contract on the spot! It’s reassuring to know that there are still some good “ears” out there in this industry.  🙂

As it would happen, The Bros. Landreth were coming to play their 1^st show in NYC in late September, on the heels of their strong showing at the Americana Festival in Nashville the previous week. So strong in fact that they got their photo and a write-up in Rolling Stone for being one of the standout acts at this year’s festival. I emailed Dave to let him know that I was looking forward to seeing the band and finally meeting him.

I was on hand to welcome them to NYC. Again, like BoH, they’re super nice people who love what they’re doing. The Bros. Landreth, Dave & Joey, both thanked me again for helping to spread the word about them. I told them I was happy to help people who inspire me. I also gave them copies of the DownTown Mystic cd to introduce myself to them musically.

Their NYC set was real strong; with the band covering Paul McCartney’s Let ‘Em In as well as one from their musician father Wally. Unlike BoH, which has a couple of writers, The Bros. Landreth’s main writer is Joey. He’s a “triple threat”…meaning he writes great songs, plays killer slide guitar and has an incredible voice, that can be soft and soulful or rock out with the best of them!

Robert with Joey Landreth from The Bros. Landreth

At only 27 years of age, Joey’s already an “old pro”, having started playing and touring with name artists while still in high school. Older brother Dave, at 29, also has an extensive resume in touring around the world with Canadian artists. Putting a band together would seem to be a natural progression for the brothers. They enlisted long time cohort Ryan “Rhino” Voth to play drums and Alex Campbell on keyboards for the album, but replaced Alex with killer guitarist Ariel Posen for the live show. Just my kind of band—2 guitars , bass and drums! 🙂

After the show I got a chance to talk with Joey about some of his writing and guitar influences, particularly slide guitar, and the influence of the late great Lowell George of Little Feat. Like most kids, the parents’ taste in music plays a big influence and Joey and Dave’s dad Wally played a big part in their musical tastes. I told Joey that I heard a big Bruce Hornsby influence in his writing on the song Greenhouse. Joey smiled and said that he was a huge fan of Hornsby and was happy to hear that I had picked up on it and that it showed on that song.

Again, it was very cool to have stumbled onto this unknown band and months later be talking to them in person on a one to one level. It was also very cool to see that in 6 months’ time they were no longer that unknown. By the look of it, I think they’re going to be more and more known as more people discover this great band. The Bros. Landreth new album comes out on Slate Creek Records in January 2015. Keep an ear and eye out for it.

Such is the power of music—to pick us up when we’re feeling down, as well as deliver us to new heights with inspiration. It’s been a power in my life and I hope it continues to grow stronger, allowing me to discover more talents like The Band of Heathens and The Bros. Landreth. 🙂

Check out The Bros. Landreth

Since this is my blog, I get to share my personal experiences with the world and promote my music, while hopefully providing some insight into what I do. And since this is my blog, I can talk about anything I want. From time to time I would like to “pass it forward” and talk about other bands and artists I find noteworthy.

Probably the earliest memories that I have of growing up, is always hearing music playing on the radio in my house. I think it got under my skin and instilled the love of music in me. Fast forward to the present day, and I still can’t get enough of music. So much so, that I’m writing and producing it more than ever. One of the things that have kept me going has been to discover new music for inspiration. That’s what fuels my fires. Hearing something new that makes me take notice and want to create something new for myself.

One of the great things about doing the DownTown Mystic project was releasing it in the Americana/Roots genre. There’s a serious appreciation from fans of this type of music, and for me, I’ve discovered new music from Artists that are totally new to me. Case in point, when I released Standing Still in 2010, I was doing a promotion with an internet radio station. I was sponsoring an Alt/Country station and I would check in from time to time to listen to it.

Every time I seemed to tune in I would hear a track from this one band I had never heard of. But every time I heard them it reminded me of what it was like hearing The Band or Little Feat for the 1^st time, which got my attention. These guys weren’t just about writing a song and recording it. There was something more in regards to sound, arrangement, performance and creating something to capture on tape.

Luckily, the station would provide a list of the artists that had just been played, and I found out that the band I kept hearing was called The Band of Heathens, out of Austin, TX. I was so impressed with their sound that I went and checked them out on Amazon.com. To my surprise, I found that they had more than 1 release. How could a band this good have more than 1 release and this is the first I’m hearing of them?? Amazing, I thought! It showed me just how much the music industry was broken. How could a band this good not have gotten signed by some major label? Even a decent Indie?

I was shocked! I was also hooked. I bought all their cds on Amazon and became a fan. Like me, The Band of Heathens had a DIY attitude and I could tell that they really cared about “making records”. In the past when something was called an “indie record”, it was meant as a put down for 2^nd rate product. But that was not the case with BoH and it really provided some inspiration for me.

In April 2013, 3 years after I had discovered BoH, I went to see them play in a club in NYC. Before the show I met the 2 main guys, Gordy Quist and Ed Jurdi, who also happened to be 2 of the nicest people you could meet. I got to hang out with them after the show and talk to them about their music. I told them how much I enjoyed their music and how much of an inspiration they were to me. I thought it was very important that a band like BoH was out there, setting an example for others.

Robert with Gordy Quist & Ed Jurdi from Band of Heathens

By the time I saw them there had been many big changes in the band. Besides having to replace their long time bassist Seth Whitney and drummer John Chipman, they also lost founding member Colin Brooks at the end of 2012. I asked Gordy & Ed about Colin and they were still a bit dumbfounded about it too.  Maybe it was all the touring because this band tours constantly. I can understand how people can get to a certain point in their life and say they’re done, because the road can wear people down.

Whatever is the case; Colin was a big part of their sound and recordings. I certainly would miss him. His voice and playing have such an authenticity to them. They all do, but Colin has something unique. One of the interesting things for me about BoH was that Colin, Gordy & Ed were all singer/songwriters who put out their own solo albums and decided to put a band together, which is not something you usually see. I asked Gordy what it was like to start a band with 3 singer/songwriters. To my surprise he said that the band originally started with 4 of them and then just gave me this look that said “that’s completely nuts, right”? LOL

At the start of  October 2013 they were in NYC again to play, having just released their new Sunday Morning Record a few weeks prior. This was Gordy & Ed’s new version of BoH, which had to have been taken on with a good deal of forethought. Trevor Nealon steps up more on keyboards, while the new guys, Richard Millsap on drums and Scott Davis on bass are very organic together. The result is The Band of Heathens evolving into a newer version that is very solid.

Sunday Morning Record is the 4^th studio album by the band and the 1^st one without Colin. Just before taking the stage, I saw Gordy and congratulated him on the new record. I told him that I thought it was a step up from the previous one and Gordy agreed, saying they liked it better too. I thought it also showed in the band’s live performance. Compared to the show back in April, they seemed to possess new energy and were really kicking it.

Their show was also a good omen for me. I had just received the new DownTown Mystic cds from the pressing plant earlier that day, in time for the show. So after the show, I gave them the new DownTown Mystic cd, and believe me; it wasn’t lost on me that I was holding my CD Release Party with The Band of Heathens. LOL

It was very cool and quite symbolic for me to have them be the 1^st ones to get my new CD. To have been listening to such a great band for years and then get to meet and hang out with them, for me, it doesn’t get any better than that! Such is the power of music. 🙂

Check out The Band of Heathens

In the last installment of this blog I talked about whether the CD was dead or still alive. Even though it might be on life support, my decision to release a new DownTown Mystic CD was a no-brainer for me…and I’m so glad I did!

This past year has been special in many ways. The release of the DownTown Mystic CD took on a life of its own at Americana Radio, spending 40 consecutive weeks on the AMA Radio Charts!! That was something really special for me and it never would have happened if I had gone with the current thought that the CD was dead.

If that wasn’t enough proof for releasing the cd, then going to #1 on the Roots Music Report’s Alt/Rock Song Chart and #3 on the RMR Alt/Rock Album Chart in the same week surely was!! As they say, “The proof is in the pudding” (what does that mean?) and, at least for me, the results of releasing a CD more than proved it’s still alive and kicking.

While I might have answered my own question Re: the CD, the real reason I’m writing this blog installment is to talk about Synch Licensing and how important it is today for Artists. If the radio airplay for DownTown Mystic was successful, it pales in comparison to the Sync Licensing of the music for TV and such.

I don’t think an artist can rely on any one thing these days, but it’s becoming more and more obvious that Sync Licensing should be at the top of their todo list. The best thing I ever did was to hookup the music of DownTown Mystic with Jingle Punks for getting the music placed on TV. I didn’t know it at the time, but Jingle Punks was becoming a hip NYC boutique music licensing company that would become one of the leaders in supplying music for Cable and Network TV shows.

Most of the sync deals are non-exclusive, which allowed me to hook up with similar companies like Jingle Punks. But it was Jingle Punks that really took off. The thing I really like about them is that everyone that works there seems to be a musician. Jingle Jared Gutstadt (CEO and Co-Founder) has assembled a group of very talented creative people.

Also, becoming an Exclusive Jingle Punks Artist has proven to be quite beneficial for Downtown Mystic. Jingle Punks placed Way To Know on The Voice at least a half dozen times, including one of the Live Finals shows. That was the #1 show in the US at the time and I’ve got to believe that millions of people have heard it, even if only subliminally. There might be some truth there because when Sha-La Music released Way To Know  as a digital single in 2013, it garnered worldwide radio play on over 10,000 stations prior to the release of the DownTown Mystic album. Coincidence??

Besides having DownTown Mystic with Jingle Punks, I also caught on with another rising star in the Sync field — Eddie Caldwell of Music of The Sea in Chicago. My outside work as a Writer/Producer paid off when Eddie placed my track Fly Like The Wind with Alexandra Patsavas of Chop Shop Music, for the 80s-based show The Carrie Diaries. Patsavas, arguably the #1 Music Supervisor in LA, would end up selecting 3 of my songs for the show.

Ok, so things have been going very well for the music of DownTown Mystic with sync licensing but it might never have happened at all if I didn’t learn a costly lesson. The main thing every artist should remember to do when recording is always do an instrumental mix. After you do a final mix on a song, do 1 more by muting all the vocals and running an instrumental mix. It’s the instrumental mix that the sync companies will use for TV shows.

As I said, I learned this the hard way when I didn’t do any instrumental mixes on a project I was doing. Sync Licensing was just starting to happen and I was not aware of it yet. Ouch! By the next year I knew what it was and I was kicking myself for not doing the instrumental mixes when I had the chance. All that work and money spent in recording and mixing, and I couldn’t take advantage of it!

But I learned my lesson the hard way and the following year I was back in the studio recording a new project and this time I made sure we clicked a few buttons when it came time to do the mixes. From there on, the DownTown Mystic Brand began to grow via radio and syncs. The latest sync for DownTown Mystic is a very cool one.

Thanks to Jingle Punks, DownTown Mystic has 2 tracks, Lost & Found and No Exceptions featured in a web video promoting Dr. Pepper and 8-time Female Wrestling Champ/Country Singer, Mickie James. The video features James as being “1 of a kind,” like Dr. Pepper, which is a perfect setting for DownTown Mystic’s brand of  vintage yet modern music—a unique “1 of a kind” sound that sync licensing is helping to take DownTown Mystic to the next level.

All during the recording of the new DownTown Mystic CD I was reading about the death of the CD and the Album as an art form. I was in a recording studio, where time is money, wondering what I’m going to do with the music I’m recording once I finish. The engineer will burn me a CDr with whatever I’ve recorded each day to listen to in my car. I’ll come home and upload the cd to my computer so I can have digital files to play with. When I’m done with recording in the studio, I’ll have a dozen or so CDrs that have been created so that I can listen on my computer, my stereo system, my car stereo system and whatever other system I can check out to hear what my music actually sounds like when played on various sound systems.

At the end of all of it, I’ll wonder if it will make any difference to the average listener out there. Did I just waste my time and money, as well as years of experience on something that nobody is going to pay attention to? Do I want to stick my music on a piece of plastic anymore and release it?

One thing that I did notice when I thought about putting an album’s worth of music together was that I didn’t want to listen to more than 6 songs at 1 sitting. I didn’t seem to want to hear a full cd’s worth of music from any 1 artist, even if I was the artist! So putting together 10-12 songs was becoming harder to do for me than in the past. Certainly, the days of filling up a cd with 15 or 16 songs was long over.

The new approach being bandied about in the Blogosphere was to release singles at regular intervals. Why put out 10-12 songs in 1 shot when most people were only listening to 1 track at a time from various artists? By releasing singles, you would be able to get music out more frequently to fans over a period of months rather than them having to wait a year or two before you released a full album. And with attention spans becoming shorter and shorter, can an artist afford to wait 1-2 years not having their product out and expect to have fans stick around waiting for them? Some will and some won’t because there’s so much competition out there now from all over the world.

It made a lot of sense to me…especially with the digital format and downloading now becoming an accepted way to purchase and listen to music. I believe you have to “change with the changes”.  The Internet is the #1 way to be seen and heard today. With DownTown Mystic getting radio airplay in Europe, I only saw Radio being on the Internet because the only way for me to hear those stations playing me was by listening to them on the Internet! This is very cool and very new for anyone who is used to listening to a radio station by tuning in the dial of a radio. 🙂

The other thing about releasing singles that I liked was that it’s really an old school practice. Back to the birth of rock’n’roll, singles were the main way to get heard. Back then, an artist would sign a Singles Deal with a record company, not an Album Deal. An artist needed to have a few hit singles before they would get the chance to record an album. With DownTown Mystic being considered “retro” and having Digital Distribution with The Orchard, I really liked the idea of releasing some digital singles and working my way up to an album release.

But I am “old school” and I do like the album as an art form. Having grown up buying LPs on vinyl, I also like having the physical product in my hand, looking at the cover art and reading the credits and lyrics and whatever else is included. And because I grew up listening to 45s and LPs, I became interested in quality sounding recordings. Now we can argue about Vinyl vs CD in terms of which is better sounding, but 1 thing audiophiles can all agree on is that both are far superior to the MP3.

The Record Business became successful thanks to my age group—the Baby Boomers. And as it turns out, many in my age group who are on the radio side, still prefer listening to physical product as opposed to digital. When it came to making the decision whether to do a CD, it was a “no brainer” for me because I wanted to hear my music while holding and looking at my own CD and I wanted to create it for the people who also like doing that.

Now making an Album to put on cd was my challenge. I wanted my Album to have a “vibe” to it. Part of creating the “vibe” is the pacing of the songs and somehow putting them together in such a way as to tell a story. I do think that the CD had a good deal to do with the “death of the Album as an art form”. The vinyl LP has 2 sides, which means breaking up the songs to 5 or 6 a side. In the past, because of the format, great LPs would put emphasis on the opening and closing tracks to each side of the record.

I think that was definitely lost with CDs, where you listen to 10-12 songs in a row. With the LP, an artist had to have 3 or 4 songs that were standouts to lead off or close a side. But with attention spans getting shorter, an artist is confronted with having to put the best songs at the start of a CD because people might not get through to the end. Also, with the LP there’s the physical act of having to get up and flip the record over to listen to the other side. So just having to do that breaks up the flow of music, which can be good or bad, depending on the listener.

So how do I feel about the death of the CD and Album as an art form? As I stated earlier, I’m “old school” and like having my music on a physical format. As long as there are people like me, I’ll continue to make CDs. As for the album as an art form, I think the jury is still out on that. Like anything else, an art form is only as good as the artists who use it and take pride in it. 🙂

Lost & Found

Something quite amazing happened this past week. On February 21, 2014, DownTown Mystic’s track Way To Know went to #1 on the Roots Music Report’s Alt/Rock Song Chart! Not only that, the DownTown Mystic album went to #3 on the RMR Alt/Rock Album Chart!! The Roots Music Report is the #1 independent music chart in the world.

I’ve been at this for quite a while in the music biz, and I assure you, nothing like this has ever happened to me before. It’s been said that “good things come to those who wait”. Sure, I’ve been waiting a long, long time but even this seems a bit unreal!

As an independent artist in the marketplace, without a publicity and marketing machine behind you, the odds are heavily stacked against you. You can set goals to reach but you also have to be realistic about attaining them. That’s why I’m a big believer in SUCCESS being how YOU define it. Being totally independent, this is a HUGE victory and by any measure, being #1 is SUCCESS!!

Four years ago when I was recording the Standing Still album I knew we had something good, and when it was finished, I knew it was the best thing I had ever recorded. But Standing Still did not get much attention at Radio in the US. Now three and a half years after its release, I was ready to release the DownTown Mystic album, which I thought was even better. Since I’m not an artist who actively tours, and not having any music out in such a long time, I was wondering if Radio would even remember DownTown Mystic.

As I already stated, I believe that success is how you define it for yourself. By all measuring sticks, the DownTown Mystic album has been a great success. We’ve had more stations at Americana Radio play DownTown Mystic than ever before. The cd has been on the Americana Music Assn. Radio Airplay Charts since its 1^st day of release nearly 5 months ago, increasing spins for 20 consecutive weeks, breaking into the Top 50 in Total Weekly Spins.

For me, the DownTown Mystic album has far exceeded all my expectations and going to #1 on the Roots Music Report Chart is like the icing on the cake. While radio promotion is all about going after the radio stations not playing your release, I want to thank all the stations who supported and played DownTown Mystic, because they’re the ones who helped to make this happen. #1—what a trip!

Way To Know

Today we celebrate The Beatles landmark performance on The Ed Sullivan Show. There’s been nothing before or since that had the kind of impact like The Beatles appearance on TV that night. It was the A Bomb going off in Music that night and it changed the World for generations to come.

It’s always been Ground Zero for me. I’d been listening to their Meet The Beatles record for a month previous to their arrival. I listened to that record so many times that it created my love for listening to new music and going to actual Record Stores to find and sift through all the releases to bring new music home to devour. I even remember looking at their names on the back cover of the LP, trying to figure out how they were so great. How was it that these guys, who nobody had ever heard of a month ago, had this kind of greatness in them?

John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. Did their names portend greatness? The names seemed average, except maybe Ringo, but the music was anything but average. I was transported by it. And it only got better the more I listened! And it got better with every new album! I would call my local record store when they expected delivery of the new Beatles album and go down to buy it the minute I found out it was in.

So 50 years later I’m creating new music and releasing it. I wonder if there’s a connection. 🙂 I’ve always felt that The Beatles were creating and changing so much with each new release that they created whole musical areas that could still be mined for new material today.

One of the reasons that I like the Americana genre is because it allows for all the kinds of music that The Beatles introduced me to—Rock’n’Roll, Folk & Country. Americana allows for even more styles than that, which kind of reminds me of how the 60s felt and how FM Radio sounded. All that’s changed now, with every musical genre having its own Radio Format.

So I stick to my own style and follow the format I belong to, but I still look to find and hear new music within it. My 1^st Americana release was Standing Still and one of the great things that happened in promoting it to Radio was discovering the Band of Heathens. Sha-La Music was sponsoring the Alt/Country genre on an internet station. I would go on to listen to hear how my song sounded with the other songs, and I would hear these songs about the LA County Jail and Jackson Station. After a few times of hearing a song that caught my attention, I would wonder, who is that? So I checked the playlist every time and kept finding the song’s artist name was Band of Heathens. Who?

Because of discovering and listening to The Beatles growing up, I can hear when something is fully there or not. And when it’s there, I know I’m listening to the “real deal”. Listening to The Heathens brought me back to the 1^st time I heard The Band or Little Feat. This was very exciting for me to discover something new that was good and “old school” in this day and age! I really liked Robert Plant’s Band of Joy too, mainly because of discovering the venerable Buddy Miller. 🙂

With the recent release of DownTown Mystic, I got to discover a whole slew of new artists to my ears. With the recent success of Mumford & Sons, it was so great to hear Country, Folk & Bluegrass being played in a new exciting way. Being on the Americana Charts with this new release has led to my discovery of Sarah Jarosz and her brand of Folk & Acoustic. Brings me back to my college days when I was touring Coffee Houses with a 3 vocal/3 acoustic guitar band.

It does my soul good to hear a new generation of Artists who take their writing and craft seriously. There was a great Austin City Limits show recently with Sarah and The Milk Carton Kids, who are also a new discovery that I enjoy. Of course, being more of a rocker, I’m interested in listening to things that reflect my taste in sound and style. In that regards, I just discovered a new band called The Wild Feathers.

They were near DownTown Mystic on the AMA Radio Chart, so I checked them out, which turned out to be very interesting. Interesting to hear, because it sounded like The Everly Bros. rocking out in 2014! But it was their PR/Bio that caught my eye, because if I didn’t know better, I would have thought they were talking about and describing DownTown Mystic! 🙂

What caught my eye was the line “cosmic melodies with vintage roots and modern tones”. Outside of that, the comparison ends.  I think they should embrace the Americana genre because it’s perfect for them. And just like hearing Band of Heathens, The Wild Feathers put a new spin on “old school”, which is where I work. Good to hear and have some up-tempo rocking music to keep me company! 🙂

Hard to believe that The Beatles were here 50 years ago to start a revolution and become an inspiration for generations to come. No time like the present to pay it forward. 🙂