Just Back from Playing Solo (plus Tracks) in Japan

1:15 What's good, everybody?It's Scoobert Doobert here.I just finished the last of my little run of live shows and like, you know, to most peopledid a little run of live shows, not a big deal.But to me, that was like kind of my first tour.And I wanted to take a moment to reflect on it, see if there were any lessons that mightbe helpful to you as a listener and maybe make you love music a little bit more.

1:40 So one of the interesting things that I've been finding for my music is I'm a solo artist.And in the era of modern music where things are very expensive, and I've got some reallyinteresting pods coming up on that subject about touring in different eras, you know, talkingto people that played a bunch of shows in the 80s and comparing just cost of living, cost

2:02 of doing business as a musician, it's so fundamentally different now that you see moreand more acts playing with the laptop, playing with tracks.And for people that have made music, not in that way, more organically, it feels binding.It feels like you're playing karaoke.It feels like you're doing a show rather than a performance.

2:32 Not to say that's a bad thing, but as somebody that played in garages and played in blues bandsand loves improvisation, when you don't have any of that change night to night, you canreally feel like you're in a box.And that's the reason why I haven't performed a lot is it hasn't been fun.It just has felt like this is all I can afford, this is my situation, and I am just singingkaraoke for people.

3:01 But having a gig that I was really excited about playing in Japan multiple times, it'slike, okay, I got to figure this out.And I feel like that's maybe the first kind of lesson that I'm taking from this is whenyou're confronted with a difficult problem, particularly one that deals with budget constraints,finding something to be excited about, finding something to push you across that finish line

3:24 when necessarily the task itself is not maybe the most exciting or is very daunting.And that alone was a very important lesson of just like find the fun, find the thing,and it might be a change of venue, it might be a change of audience.The second thing is, it's impossible to develop a live show without playing the live show.My first gig to my last gig in this little run are very different.

3:55 I changed the songs I was playing a few of them, you know, like three of the songs.I changed the way I started, I changed the set order, I changed the visuals, I addeda little dance, some little choreography, but all of that just happened by actually doingit in the real world.It's also funny too because like I performed it in my little studio and it felt so different.

4:19 I sang differently, I emoted differently, the whole thing, just, it's almost impossibleto do it without doing it.Even from the sound, like the audio perspective, and that's been a real challenge for metoo with live, is I've gotten so used to recording where I have so much control.And I've also developed an ear where I want it to sound a certain way.

4:44 And the art of playing live is letting go of some of that and finding the new thing.You can't do vocal doubles when you're not in the studio.You're going to have feedback.It's just going to happen especially because I can't afford to tour with like a sound engineeror whatever, just deal with what the sound board is at the venue.And those are all good things rather than bad things, but they're hard things because

5:12 they themselves are the excitement of some of these quote unquote karaoke kind of gigs.And then also like figuring out how do you break your own preconceptions of something?So tracks, how do you like go about it where you design the tracks to give yourselfenough flexibility?Room for chaos, room for change and improvisation, and then also blocks.So like that creative sense of limitation can be freeing as well.

5:47 So you're saying, okay, it's always going to be the same backing track basically.But how do I add in sections where I can talk to the audience, or sections where I canchange the melody, or decide if I want to play guitar here or not?You know, like almost creating this optionality that ended up making the whole thing feel

6:11 just more fun and more engaging and more spontaneous, where like I would put things in the trackknowing it would allow me to play guitar or not play guitar, or I would have sectionswhere it's like, yeah, I could sing that verse, but also if I just wanted to focus on playingthe bass part and grooving, like just do that.But those are the hard things for me to find without actually going out and playing.

6:36 And so it is funny, the idea of some things cannot be taught, they can only be learned,some things cannot be practiced, they can only be played.And I felt that in these shows where you have to play tests them, you have to see howthe audience is actually reacting before we vary eyes.And in that also, I feel like I'm crafting my stage personality, and it's becoming

7:01 closer to my own, but it's also that's kind of freeing where initially you want to havea persona, right?Like you want to be larger than life, but now I'm starting to find that if you're justreally genuine and want people to enjoy themselves, that creates its own persona of just

7:24 joy and inclusivity and going to try something out and just be goofy and invite the audienceto be goofy with you.And that's where the dancing kind of came in for me, which is like, you know, I'm not a dancer,but it is fun, especially because I have the scoobert mask, my dog mask.I can put that on, I can do a little dance, and the audience dances with me, especially

7:49 if I do it a little bit uncomfortably long, that was the other thing that I kind of foundout that my impulse is to be cool guy, right?Like impulse is to do one verse of something weird and then snap back into something normal.But by doing two verses of a little dance, the audience by the second time around kindof like gets down with the weird is down to be goofy with you.

8:16 If you do it too fast, they don't actually have the chance to like go on that ride withyou.And yeah, I guarantee you, it's going to flop, it's going to bomb at some point, but that'spart of the joy of performing live.Jimi Hendrix said something along those lines of like the best guitar solos are the onesthis is paraphrase, the best guitar solos are the ones that you think you're about to

8:36 fail, where you're just right on that precipice of bombing, but you don't, it's the tightrope act, the high wire act, and I'm identifying that obviously I love playing musicians, I can'twait to play with musicians again, of course, but I can't right now.So how can I find those moments of high wire when I'm alone?How can I invite an audience in when I don't have a drummer to hide behind and instead

9:04 is just me tracked on top of me, fronted by me, you know, without any stage interplay betweenmusicians, but it opens up another venue where instead of talking to the bass player,talking to the drummer, you're talking to the audience the entire time, you're totallyfocused on them, and that's exciting and fun, and also like trying to think about how

9:28 do you converse with the laptop, so to speak like, how can you do some things with tracksthat you couldn't possibly do with a musician next to you, not to say that either one isbetter or not, musicians better, but with the laptop, I can do more glitch effects, Ican do more visuals, I can do more stuff that is linked and synced, and so when I have

9:52 a 30 minute set time, I always finish at 29 minutes and 30 seconds, that's somethingI can't do with a band, you know, it's going to be more flexibility, but even just likethe little stuff like, I know I'm going to drink a cup of water at this point, and someof my voice is going to sound better at the last song because I actually drink some water

10:13 because it's built into the set, at this point you drink water, and that's like what thebig productions do, that's part of the rigidity of being a pro, like even the doobie brothers,like they play with tracks and they know what they're doing, they take solos, but theyhave like pretty tight sets, they know when those solos are ending, and that's not bad,

10:37 it's obviously it's fun to do both, but like the audience is there to be entertainedand that is the primary goal, and you want to like make good music and be cool, buteven more than that, it's like how do you get people to connect with the music, especiallypeople that have never heard the music before?

10:57 I feel like it'd be a very different challenge if you're playing for fans or like half fans, like festival people that maybe know liketwo songs been out of there for the 30-minute set, when you're playing for a collectionof, which in my case is like, some people that really know all the songs I'm playing,and then some people that have never heard of me, that crowd is a vibe crowd, it's a personality

11:23 crowd, it's like you trying to win them over just by saying like, my music could fit intoyour life, and like when this one dude who was, so I had a fan, he went to my very first gig inSan Diego and he came to my most recent gig in San Diego and he brought his friend and hisfriend had never heard me before, and we were talking and he was like, man, I can't wait to put

11:48 your music on in my backyard when I'm hanging out with my friends. I'm like, I'm so glad thatmy live performance was able to sell what I want my recorded music to do, because for a longtime, I didn't think it was because it just felt naked, it felt like karaoke, but getting beyondthat is really inspiring, it makes me excited to do more live shows and it gives me, it makes

12:11 me feel like purpose behind doing these other live shows other than just like I wanted to playin Japan.

12:16 It gives me the sense of that lead to something, a little bit of a breakthrough, and thatbreakthrough is really hard to put into words, but I'm trying to do my best because I know thatthere are other people out there that are struggling with the exact same thing where like they want to afford a band, they want to improvise, and those creative constraints can lead towards something,

12:42 and exploring them and finding some sort of incentive to get through them is pretty cool.

12:48 I'm glad I did, and I hope that this little tiny podcast can inspire you in whatever your versionof this is, whatever you're doing, maybe there's one segment that you're not doing enough or you'dkind of dread, but if you can recondextualize it, maybe it'll become your favorite thing, and I'mhoping that live will do that in time, but I do know that I actually had fun, and that's a big deal,

13:14 because a lot of the live wasn't fun, but it's happening, and I'm really proud of it,

13:19 and it was hard, and it was fun, and it was worthwhile, and I'm really grateful for all the peoplethat came to those shows. If you enjoyed this podcast, I'd love to invite you to subscribe to it.

13:32 Also, check out my music at scoobertdoobert.pizza, and feel free to share this podcast with a friend,rated five stars, all that good stuff, who'd really appreciate it. Thanks for listening.