Performing

The simple answer is: alienate your audience. This is exactly what Michelle Shocked did last Sunday at Yoshi's in San Francisco.Shocked had built a career over 30 years of activist folk music that targeted a progressive, LGBT friendly crowd.Then, in a moment, she did the equivale...

The night of your album release show should be the biggest night of your career to date. If you've done your job right, the show will be packed if not sold out. The reason more people typically come to album release concerts than your Wednesday night 4 band bill show is because i...

Scott Palahniuk wrote in (via the Request a Topic below) and asked about cover songs and how an opener should order their set. And Ian J wrote in asking: 'they ask you to play for three hours, but having that much original material is hard. Is it singer/songwriter suicide to sing...

I've played countless 'local' gigs with a 4 band bill where everyone had an equal draw, many 'opening' gigs where the headliner clearly brought the majority of the room and I've headlined (both locally and on tour) where I clearly brought the majority of the room.When you're just...

As much time as you spend in your rehearsal space perfecting your sound, it won't mean anything if it's botched coming out of the PA. All the money you spent on new pedals, amps, guitars and strings doesn't matter if the mix is off in the club.The sound guy (or gal) is the most i...

Anyone who has seen my solo live show knows that I have a lot going on on stage. I run multiple instruments and microphones through a mixer into my loop station and out to the house. I have quite a bit of gear setup on stage for a solo artist. I've played over 500 shows and just...

When I was 14 and wanted to learn guitar my mom took me to a pawn shop to get my first guitar. I knew absolutely nothing about guitars and picked the one in our price range that looked cool. It was an electric so we also got a small practice amp. I couldn't tell you what the guit...

Being the opener for a more established act can be one of the best ways to make new fans. I can pinpoint specific opening gigs where I gained a large amount of fans who are still incredibly supportive to this day. I love opening slots for more established acts because I get to wi...

It's not cool to your dude friends to fret over your image but it is almost as important as your sound. If you look like an idiot on stage half of your audience will think that you sound like one (and the other half may not care, but you just lost half your audience before your f...

There's nothing more uncomfortable then going to a show and feeling bad for the artist on stage. It's the feeling you get when you are watching a 13-year-old's piano recital, holding your breath as he clunks out the wrong notes on the brink of tears, while you hope...