T.J. Edmond

I’m playing  a private event in Atlanta this evening, and as I listen to the rain outside of my window, I’m not looking forward to the  hour-and-a-half drive to the gig. To be honest, I’m not totally looking forward to gig for another reason: I’ll be playing solo.

I still get nervous before performing, and even though I’ve done lots of solo gigs in the past, I’m way more comfortable getting up on stage with the band behind me. They’re sort of a security blanket for me, and I know that even if I don’t hit all the notes right, the band’s gonna rock and the show will be good. When I play solo, I’m way more exposed. If I miss a note or flub a chord, there’s nothing to hide behind. And I’m not an exceptional singer or guitarist, so the songs themselves better be good enough to make up for any lack of virtuosity on my part.

But that’s the essence of what I’ve been going for all along, isn’t it? To write great songs. So part of the challenge is to be receptive to the songs and write them when they come. It’s another challenge, when performing, to get out of the way and let the songs speak on their own. And playing solo acoustic shows is the best way to practice that.

I just added a solo show in Atlanta on November 11th for Two Wheel Driver, a great local cancer benefit combining motorcycles, golf and music. I’ll be joining Michael Tolcher, Sam Thacker, Heather Lutrell, Elizabeth Elkins and Chuck Carrier. It’s $10 and the proceeds go to help pay medical costs for Ashley Klem, who was diagnosed with breast cancer. Go to www.twowheeldriver.com for more info.

2009 RECIPIENT INFORMATION

Ashley Elizabeth Klem is 28 years old and was diagnosed with breast cancer on June 19th of this year.   She has a mass in Stage 1 with the possibility that it has spread to her lymph nodes.  Given her age and other circumstances, her cancer specialist has recommended a bilateral mastectomy followed by chemotherapy
and Herceptin treatments.  Because of obvious troubles in the economy, Ashley unfortunately has no health insurance.

Ashley was born January 27, 1981 in Conyers, GA and grew up on a 285 acre farm that has been in her mother’s family for over one hundred years.  She comes from a very artistic family with her mother being a landscape designer and her father working as a mechanical engineer.  She has one older sister who is married with three children.  Ashley attended high school in Rockdale County at Heritage High, where she played both soccer and volleyball until graduation in 1999.  She then attended Georgia State University, gaining her BA degree in Studio Art in 2005.  While at Georgia State University, Ashley was a member of the Delta Zeta sorority
and studied abroad in France for one summer.

After working for over three years as a design consultant in the new home construction business, Ashley’s company had to close its Atlanta office due to the ongoing recession… and along with it, lost her health insurance.  She is presently working at Fado Irish Pub & Restaurant and has been blessed to meet many  amazing fellow employees and patrons of the pub.

With golf and music events being planned for late October, TWO WHEEL dRIVER will be working through the fall of 2009 to raise money for Ashley while she focuses on what matters most.

A couple weeks ago, I talked about not worrying about how you measure up against other musicians, because it’s easy to get discouraged. There’s another side of that that can be equally as damaging, which is criticizing others in order to build yourself up. This is certainly not limited to musicians, but we tend to fall into it pretty easily.

There’s a zillion bands, musicians, songwriters, artists and producers out there trying to “make it”. When someone else is getting the attention… a bigger crowd at their shows, favor in the press, a sweet opening slot at a big concert, or even a record deal… it’s easy to think,“Why not me?! I deserve it more than him! It’s easy to start viewing your peers as competition and criticize them. “They’re not that good!” Arrogance and entitlement show their ugly heads, and bitterness sets in.

I’ve been as guilty of this as anyone. But I’ve learned that it’s counterproductive and damaging all around. It destroys any camaraderie you could have with other artists, and it tends to keep you focused on what other people are doing instead of focusing on what you should be doing, which is making music. I think it comes from insecurity, which I think every artist person has to some degree. We all want to be liked and affirmed, and as artists, we tend to hang our self-worth and credibility on it.

But, if you’re an artist, what does it really matter? Do you believe in what you’re doing? Regardless of whether it’s trendy or popular or commercially viable or has “indie-cred”, can you look at your body of work and take pride in it? Are you creating music that you like, honestly? If so, then forget what anyone else thinks and focus on your own improvement. Keep doing your thing. If it’s real, and honest, there will be people who recognize it and will appreciate it. Encourage and cheer on your peers in their improvement as well, without trying to compete.

Don’t hate. Create.

I spent the day working on booking shows, which for an independent artist, is a grueling exercise in (mostly) rejection. If you’ve ever done any cold-call sales, or been on a job hunt, or gone to one of those speed-dating events (I haven’t), it’s probably like all those rolled in one.

For every 20 emails you send or calls you make, you might get one response. And if you can get someone on the phone, you might get about two minutes to convince them they should hire you. There are SO many bands and musicians trying to play at a small number of venues, it’s like trying to get a date with the most popular girl in school. Sure, you think your band is great and the venue should book you. What makes you any different from the other 300 bands that sent an email this week? Sometimes, unless you know somebody, you can’t ever get in! And unlike a job hunt, which mercifully ends when you get hired, booking shows never ends. If you get a talent buyer (or bar owner) to bite, you still have to land a gig for the next night! Sure, once you get to a certain level, a booking agent willl handle the dirty work and will usually have the connections to open doors and get you gigs. But an agent won’t even look at you unless you’re gigging enough for him to make a steady commission! So you’re stuck, it seems. But you’ve still got make the calls and try.

When I was growing up on Hilton Head Island, there was a group of men who were the top real estate agents in town, year after year. They had come up in the business together, starting out from the bottom as young men, and eventually became kings of that market, selling the most (and most expensive) properties in the area. The local legend was that they cut their teeth selling Bibles door-to-door during their summers in college, and that experience helped make them the uber-salesmen they became.

I went to school with their kids, and several of their sons actually followed in their fathers’ footsteps after high school, and spent a summer selling Bibles. The way I heard it, every morning they would get dropped off in a town somewhere on the mainland, and they’d walk the neighborhoods and knock on doors trying sell people big, expensive, ornately bound, family Bibles… the kind people used to record births and weddings and funerals in. At the end of the long, sweaty day, they’d get picked up and taken home to start again the next day.

Even at that time, it seemed like a losing strategy, to me. When I was growing up, my mother owned a Christian book store. If someone wanted to buy a Bible, they’d go to a shop like hers, which might not exist in every town. I remember it became a big concern when Walmart started stocking Bibles and selling them for less than she could. Why would anyone make an extra trip, and pay more at her shop, when they could grab a paperback copy of the “Good News” for $6.99 while they picked up some dog food, batteries, school supplies and a pack of undershirts?

Now a person can go to any Walmart, Target, Borders or Barnes & Noble and find a selection of inexpensive Bibles. But guess what? Most people don’t care, because they don’t want one anyway. So if I came to their house and knocked on their door, trying to sell them an over priced, oversized Bible that they don’t want anyway, I’d probably be wasting both of our time.

I feel like that as an artist. People have changed they way they consume music, but we’re often trying to sell them the old way. Most people I know don’t go to concerts very often. They might go see U2 when they come to town, or occasionally go see an indie artist they like, but I don’t know anyone who goes out to shows to just to discover new music. gone are the days when you can set up a P.A. in a field, hand out some flyers and have a few hundred people show up to hear a few local bands. A venue owner really only wants to know if you can put bodies in the room and sell drinks. And lately, the selling drinks part has been easier than bringing the bodies.
And CD sales have been declining for years. Sure, some people want something physical they can hold, but mostly they’ll either download a few tracks to shuffle on their ipod, or they don’t want it at all. And according to a recent report, of the some 13million songs available for purchase online, 11million of them were never even downloaded once! So how does an artisit make it?

I don’t know.

Maybe we’re entering a dark age where few musicians can make a living at it. Or, maybe  there will be a huge “middle class” of musicians who eke out a living, but very few will be known outside of their niche. But for those of us who just have to make music, we’ll keep putting out music. And maybe it’ll spread and somewhere down the line someone will say, “oh, yeah…T.J. Edmond!I love his music!”.

When I played in Hilton Head last week I was introduced to a woman who, upon hearing my last name, said “Oh! Didn’t your mother own the bookstore? I loved going in there!” My mom’s store has been closed for  a decade and a half, and people still fondly remember her and her store.

So maybe there’s hope for me.

I’m heading to Atlanta today to rehearse with Gregg, Bret, and Dave for the shows this weekend. It seems like it’s been a couple months since I’ve rehearsed with the band, and the first time I’ve played with Dave Anthony since March, I think. He’s been up in Philly, doing some film work for the last few months. I’m looking forward to seeing him and working up some songs for the shows! These guys are all such good players, I’m grateful to get to be on stage with them!

Well, I didn’t blog all weekend, because Mary’s computer died and she needed to use my laptop for grading papers. So I’ll try to make up for it this week somehow.

On of the things I want to do with this blog is give you a chance to see into the process of writing new songs, talk about how I wrote it, and let you hear a demo recording of it. It’s an uncomfortable thing to do, though, because the initial demos are inevitably quite rough: the recording sounds thin, my voice is pitchy as I feel out a melody, and the lyrics or structure might change altogether. Just like my wife won’t leave the house without her hair and makeup done, these demos were never meant to be heard. They’re unpolished, rough-hewn sketches full of flaws. (Incidentally, my wife is beautiful when she wakes up, even before the makeup! )

All that being said, the demos are like a polaroid snapshot of the moment when a song shows up. And that’s exciting to me.

(click the play button to hear the track)

Never Sure

This is a song that started to form when I was working in a coffee roasting warehouse in Atlanta. I would bag a couple thousand pounds of coffee each day, and would often kick around songs in my head as I worked. The first verse came to me there:

“All my friends have records, we’re all trying to hit the road

But I’ve never really listened, and they haven’t seen our show

We’re just trying to get some traction, we’re all fighting to be heard

Trying to make our contribution to the soundtrack of this world”

When I wrote that, I was thinking about the fact that nearly everyone I knew was a musician, but many of them I hadn’t actually gone to see them play or listened to their music. We were all in Atlanta, hustling, networking, and trying to be heard amidst a sea of other bands. And we’ve sacrificed quite a lot to chase our creative dream.

But in the end, you can’t be sure you’re ever going to accomplish your dream. And even if you reach it, how long will it last?

It was eye-opening, moving to Atlanta, and seeing the fallout of music careers all around: The sound guy at a local club was in a successful band that had major radio play just a year earlier (I had even covered one of their songs!). The guy  packing coffee next to me was the drummer for a successful artist who had toured the world and played on Letterman’s show. All around town I met great musicians who had been very successful, who were now back in the middle of the pack. How would I fare any better?

The first verse is very specifically about being a musician, which is way more narrow and specific than I like to be in a song, because it’s just not very universal. I prefer to be a little more broad, so that more people can connect with the song. However, the concept of trying to achieve your dreams, and the struggle entailed, is understandable to most people. So the verse might change, but that’s where the song came from.

In the second verse, I wanted to tell a similar story but with a different character. This is a guy who wants a wife and family. He got a job, bought a house and has set everything in place to get married but the piece of the puzzle he can’t find is the woman. He’s alone and waiting.

“I saved a little money and I bought myself a home

but in the early morning hours I still find myself alone

We’re all looking for the future, trying to make it through the night

Lately I’ve been wondering if I’ll ever see the light”

The common thread in both of these stories, is the idea that we’re often chasing a future that might not happen. And perhaps we’re missing out on something in the meantime.

This demo has a middle section that’s too long. I was a little self-indulgent with it, but I like the way it builds to the end. I’m not a lead player, so my solo is really elementary, but there are a few moments I like. I recorded this at home with a condenser mic into Garageband. I used my 12-string guitar, which is an old Hohner model I got for a measley $150 and I love the way it sounds. I over dubbed the harmonies and added a lot of reverb to get the haunting sound.

So that’s it.

I just added a Paypal button for the “It Only Gets Better From Here” CDs on the music page. These are the first run (released as “The Beggars’ Guild” , without the “T.J. Edmond &”) and once they’re gone, they’re gone. So grab a collectible piece of history now while you can!

It’s a really good listen from start to finish, so if you don’t have it, buy yourself a copy and send one to a friend!

I was writing a post yesterday that just wasn’t coming together very well, so I decided to save it for later, when I could get it right.

I spent the day cleaning and doing laundry with my wife, Mary, because my parents and little brother are coming to our place for the first time tonight. A few hours and ten loads of laundry later (Mary likes clothes. A lot.), the place looks spotless. Even my music room is clean, which is a rarity.

We’ve got a two bedroom apartment so I can have my own space to practice, write, listen to music, and tinker with gear. I’ve got a desk and chair, shelves full of books, a couch and ottoman/coffee table, and my stereo and record player. I’ve got all my instruments in there, and the room has a large, walk-in closet that doubles nicely as a vocal book when I want to record something (but it’s starting to be overtaken by Mary’s clothes). I’ve found that having a dedicated creative space is a worthwhile luxury. I think Mary likes it because it helps contain my mess.

Mary is cooking dinner for my parents tonight and, being a true southern girl, she’s an amazing cook. I really got a good one… she’s a model, she’s working on a PhD, she’s funny and sweet, and she cooks a mean steak. I’m still not sure how I managed to pull it off.

My family, my wife, a clean home, and great food. In spite of all the booking and music-related task I’ve got to check off the list today,  I guess nothing else today is more important than enjoying tonight.

On Monday, I talked about the Rolling Stones song “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction“. There’s a great story of how that song came to be. Allegedly Keith Richards woke up in the middle of the night with the riff in his head. He grabbed his tape recorder and recorded the riff  and the lyrics, “I Can’t Get no Satisfaction”,  before passing out asleep. The next morning, he had forgotten all about it and, when he pressed the play button, he rediscovered that glorious riff…followed by a long session of snoring. He brought the riff to Mick Jagger, who finished the lyrics in about ten minutes, and it became their first number-one hit single in the U.S..

Implausible? Perhaps. But I have had a similar experience with songwriting.

Late one night, just before bed, I was strumming my guitar and hit on a progression I liked. I grabbed my laptop and recorded it with Garageband, along with some lyrics that came to mind. I went to sleep and forgot about it. Several weeks later, I rediscovered the recording, and thought,“This is good! I’ve got to finish this!” The rest of the lyrics came almost as quickly as I could write them down, and that’s how I wrote “21″, which has gotten probably the strongest listener response of all the songs I’ve written.

There’s something about the time between being awake and asleep that I’ve found to be a fertile ground for creativity. Your mind is not fully engaged with the day-to-day tasks, and the creative part of the brain is able to surface. I’ve written some great songs in the shower, when I’m still waking up in the morning. Late at night, when I’m winding down from the day, bits of song ideas will come to me and sometimes I’ll stay up for hours trying to coax it out.

I’ve found I can also tap into that creative space during the day. When I’m driving, or doing some repetitive task where I don’t have to think too much, I’ll often work on songs in my head, turning them over and over, singing  or humming a melody, feeling for a lyric. When I first moved to Atlanta, I worked in a warehouse, stacking boxes and straightening them on shelves. To pass the time I worked on songs in my head. “Minnesota (Always Leaving)” came from that summer in the warehouse.

It’s always a struggle to block out time to write and create, but by using the small bits of time here and there, I’ve learned that I can keep an idea simmering until I finish it. And I’ve finished a number of songs this way. I try to record any little idea I get, and lately I’ve started keeping a disc of these unfinished song bits in my car to work on during long drives. Some of these fragments probably won’t amount to much. But some of them just might be great.

Remember, Keith Richards didn’t think much of his little riff, either.

How are you finding time to create?

21 Minnesota (Always Leaving)

Last night I was in Atlanta with my wife, Mary, for a photo shoot. She finished earlier than expected and, since we were in Decatur, we decided to head over to Eddie’s Attic for  Open Mic Night.

Eddie’s is an intimate, acoustic venue that is set up with singer/songwriters in mind. It has a small corner stage surrounded by cozy, cafe table seating, it sounds great, and it’s a place people come to listen, rather than talk over the music. It’s been the center of a thriving songwriter community that has produced artists like the Indigo Girls, Shawn Mullins, John Mayer, and Sugarland. When he was starting out, I’m told John Mayer used to work at the door, taking tickets.

Every Monday night, they have an open mic contest. The winners of each night go on to a final round, held twice a year, and the winner of that night gets a cash prize and time in a recording studio. On any given Monday night you can usually hear aspiring songwriters who can barely play three chords, seasoned hobbyists, and professional troubadors  stopping through on tour.

I’ve played the open mic night a couple of times, and I remember how nervous I was the first time I got up on that stage. It’s tough playing in a bar where everyone is talking and no one is listening to you, but it can be even tougher playing for a crowd that’s quiet and listening to every word! I wondered if I had picked the right songs to play, wondered if the audience would like them, hoped I’d remember the words, and wished my voice would stop quivering.

Watching a nervous first-timer last night, I realized how far I’ve come as a performer. I still get nervous before every show, but I’ve done it enough to know that I can deliver the songs well, and that confidence enables me to push through the nervous energy. I saw another established performer last night who sang and played with a smooth, pitch-perfect delivery and intricate finger-picking technique. Quite simply, he was much more skilled than I am, and it motivated me to practice more! The truth is, there’s always going to be someone better than you, and someone worse. So don’t get hung up on comparing yourself to others, worrying how you measure up.  In my experience, winning a contest has never amounted to much in the long run. Just go out and play and you’ll get better.

That first open mic at Eddies, I didn’t make it past the first round. But I made a contact that night that led to a series of bookings that have been some of the most fun and best paying gigs I’ve done. The best advice I can give anyone who wants to be a musician is:

Play all you can. Have fun. Make friends.

Aside from that, it’s a lot of ugly business. And it’s really not worth doing if you don’t focus on these three things first.