There Are No Short Cuts

Oh I’m sorry – you mean you joined a band ‘cos it looked cool: sex, drugs & rock and roll – win the label lottery and get a lifestyle in your twenties that other people never see in a lifetime.  Well go borrow a time machine and go back to the 70’s and 80’s because you’re fucked.

If you hadn’t noticed there are big changes happening in the world – the tsunami of optimism that Obama rode into the white house turned out to be a mild swell crashing into the entrenched self interests of the establishment.  Things haven’t gotten better – there are no new jobs, labels aren’t making money – A&R people don’t have coke budgets – aside from the Cola type and even the chicks are better educated and have greater self-esteem than you do.

Unless you happen to be “receiving” from a label exec that still has money – that dream is dead and gone – buried under two decades of excess and the same lack of foresight and responsibility that means that no-one I know has healthcare.

Excuse me – what’s that?  Oh – you’re a musician – what – you’ve studied your instrument – you’ve been writing poetry and song lyrics since you were 4.  You were borrowing dad’s old video camera and have been the family’s home movie maker since you first learned how to edit an audio track.  You and your mates practice 4 times a week and you already have 50 friends who will swear that you really do ROCK!

Then step right up – you couldn’t have been born at a better time.  Everything you need to create a life sustained by music is now in your grasp.  I’m sorry – but we don’t have the shotgun approach that will accelerate your career forward 20 years and have you playing to stadiums by the time you’re 25 – but – if you’re prepared to work at it – play and practice, tour constantly and love the hell out of what you do – then maybe, just maybe you’ll stand on stage and play for 500,000 people.  Wouldn’t that be absolutely fucking amazing! ;-)

Give Your Girlfiend Tim Halperin For Valentine's Day

Tim Halperin's music is piano driven accessible pop / rock – think The Fray, Ben Folds, ColdPlay with an 80’s twist – that kind of thing – he’s got a great distinctive voice that sits nicely on top and he writes the kind of songs that make your girlfriend open up.

But we’re writing about him today ‘cos we want to throw a light on some of the great ideas he’s putting into place to get his career going.  First off – check this video out:

How cool is that – you’ve got another 2 days to get in there.  What a great idea and doesn’t he come across totally charming and genuine on the video – you don’t exactly need a $5k video budget to make this work do you?

What really struck me though his how he’s quite literally “playing to his audience”- clever guy, playing the Sororities – that’s genius!  Not only do you get gigs you get gigs in front of chicks – in their houses – where their rooms are – as I said Genius.

He’s got smart of use of merch with a hook up into Zazzle – a great "Help Tim” page where he tells you how you can help him and how to connect across his various networks – and finally he’s making good use of NoiseTrade – another tool that helps get his music out and about while still allowing him to make dough.

His site design is pretty simple and straightforward – I reckon he could benefit from having a blog – it would put his videos, photography and news into some kind of context. It looks as though he's on the Joomla platform right now - which is fine but not so easy to get blogging.

If Tim entered the #FREECHAOS competition he could win a brand new spangly wordpress site that would make blogging a snap - it would also get rid of those janky urls which must be buggering up his SEO.

Overall however – I think he’s doing a pretty good job.  If that kind of music is your thing – check him out – he makes it really easy to get hold of him.