Welcome to Episode 43 of The Better Band Bureau Podcast

It is time for another episode of the Better Band Bureau podcast. My name is James Cross, and I’m here with Aaron Gingras of suburban Samurai. How are you today, man? I’m doing so well.

It’s starting to feel like fall, and I’m into it. We were talking a little bit before we started taping, so I’m going to try to connect these $2. We’ve got fall getting chilly, spending more time indoors. Maybe. And it sounded like you had something that you’d have a lot of fun with indoors. I do, and I just want to say that first of all, when it comes to fall, I am into it. But as soon as it gets toe winter, I am so over it. Oh, that’s a good one.

Ah, that was not planned. Ladies and gentlemen and anyone else listening to this episode that was off the cuff. Thank you, Erin, for tossing me that bone I need I need a, like, step my game up. Oh, my gosh. I think for the sake of the podcast, you actually just need to have every gun in your head before I say it so you can avoid it. And I don’t make these terrible puns on the podcast anymore. I think that’s really what it comes down to, but yeah, to answer your question, it is good timing for fall and winter because I’m stoked for those of you who don’t know me personally, which is probably most people listening to the podcast.

I like gaming, especially when it comes to Flight Sims. Microsoft just released a new flight simulator title, which looks absolutely amazing last week at the time of recording, by the time it’s comes out will be like a month ago. Anyway, that flight simulator does not run on Mac. So in the last week, it’s actually only two days ago, but it feels like last week. You can tell what I’ve been doing the last couple days I received from a very generous human being a really awesome eight core AMG rising gaming computer. Whoa!

Which kicks flight Sims. But so I’m very stoked. And now I can also going back like 10 years, play skyrim for the first time, cause that didn’t cooperate with, like, boot camp on Mac. It wasn’t really a fan like all these other games that I’ve missed out on for the past 10 years of being a Mac person, So I am very stoked. If anybody listening happens to be a fan of Flight Sim, 2020 feel free to shoot me an email James at the Better band bureau dot com and let’s go flying.

Or just ah, if you are on steam, you can add me lead, underscore airplanes So it’s let airplanes with the line in between and ah, hit me up there. But ah, for flight sim. I play that through the Microsoft store, so just hit me up via email and we’ll figure out how to connect there. But yeah, that’s my new and exciting news is I can finally play games again. That sounds so fun. I’m stoked. I’m caught between being super stoked for you, cause that sounds so fun.

But also you mentioned Skyrim being like 10 years ago, and that just like that was like a gut punch, like you’re because you’re totally right. And I feel so old. So that is that’s so awesome to because that’s an awesome game. Yeah, Another friend of mine called me out on that like, Ah, I was like, Oh, yeah, you know, Skyrim is on ultra like it Auto detected ultra graphics and it goes like, Well, that’s 10 years old like No, it’s only like five or six years old is, like noted, it came out in 2011.

It’s almost 10 0 as, like get out. No wonder I can run it on ultra. Uh, well, the joke’s on them, cause I from what I remember, it’s pretty awesome. So, yeah, and I mean anything made in the past 10 years or so. Computers air getting ever more powerful. But anything made 10 years ago would still be able to do like basic stuff running operating systems, browsing the Web, any kind of work stuff, which is also, you know, that’s why so many 10 year old Mac books are still worth a lot of money.

Like I have a 2011 Mac book. I am just looking up what that goes for on eBay, and they’re going for, like, 400 or $500. When I paid. Only, I think was 2200 for it. Knew when I went off to college. I send they hold their value because, yeah, they’re old. But it’s not like 10 years ago you would never get a 10 year old computer because they were like an eighth of the power. But now it doesn’t really matter, because you can still do all the basic necessities of, like office work on a 10 year old computer.

As long as it’s not broken, it’ll work fine. That makes total sense. But that had, like, not really occurred to mutual just now of the super curious to see, like I don’t know if, like HP or something starts to implants. Um, amazing and secret spyware on their own computers to like, I don’t make them crash. After 2. 5 years, you have toe buy a new one or something, or maybe it’s like you’re forced into ah, like a phone style like subscription, you know, monthly payment or something, cause I don’t know.

That’s so cool that you’re you could totally basically do anything on anything that’s 10 years old at this point. Television to yeah, with phones there already, seeing people are holding on to them longer because the technological leaps aren’t as large anymore. Now it’s all about the camera, at least for the iPhone. But I gotta say, Aren’t you recording our episode right now on like a 10 year old Mac book? There you go, 2008 13 inch MacBook. Yep, yeah, so that one’s 12 like that’s anyway. I should stop nerdy out about technology now.

I just had to share my excitement. Thank you for asking about the and but yeah, for anyone who is looking for a computer and you don’t need to do anything super intensive, you know, look for a good quality used Mac book. Make sure that whatever model you’re buying doesn’t have any known issues like the early 2011 Mac book pros that always have that graphics cards die. I would know I’m on the fourth one, Thanks Apple for replacing it for free every single time, anyway, that all aside, it’s time to talk about our actual topic, which has nothing to do with computers, I suppose, until the very end will get there.

But, Aaron, why don’t you go ahead and let the audience know what we’re going to talk about today and go ahead and jump right in with it? So we’re talking about daily habits these days. A lot of us are shut in or in one way or another, less physically social than we used to be. And so we’ve sort of done some thinking. And we actually I think this topic was suggested by a better Band bureau member. And if I’m recalling correctly, they’re just, you know, wanting to hear about some of things that either as ah tech guru or a musician, or a little bit of both or something else entirely well, you could do everyday to kind of like keep your chops up and keep member.

So we split this into three categories, and the first one is musician. The first bullet point under that is, it’s easy. It’s obvious it’s practice. I’m a drummer. So the bullet point I created with breakfast for the drummer out there, that means, you know, obviously if you’ve got a kid If you’ve got a space, use that you’re lucky a lot of people don’t. But even if you don’t have a space, you can be super super loud in every day all the time. That also could mean, you know, practicing rudiments on.

You know, you got your sticks, right, So you could practice rudiments on your couch on your on your desk. You could practice sort of been saying your downtime while watching TV. You could, you know, play with your fingers or with your wrists on your steering wheel when you’re waiting. Ah, really, really super long stuff like I do that. It’s like that might be something that’s closer to, like a nervous tic, but still, it’s productive. Um, so, you know, point being practice, and if you have to get a little creative with that, you’re going to get extra brownie points at the end of the day for being creative and still getting that work done, you’re going to keep your chops up, and that’s what matters.

So practice, practice, practice. Yeah, agreed. And I would say that’s something some of these things, like when we get into the next section, it’s probably gonna be stuff that’s only more of a weekday Focus. But for practicing your instrument in your craft, you know, if that’s really something that you’re passionate about, that should be every single day of the week. Unless you know something terrible happens and you just absolutely can’t. If you can even get 10 minutes in a day, that’s better than spending one day a week playing for an hour.

Just having that muscle memory built up every day anyway. The next thing we wanted to talk about is just learning by watching. And if you go back to Episode 41 with Christian James of James and the Giant Sleep. They talked extensively about learning by watching, and in that case it was about video techniques, mostly, but also slightly about playing music. So if you follow artists who are inspiring to you, if you subscribe to their YouTube or follow them on instagram, that will be really useful to you because you will become more creative by watching what they dio.

Either you’ll get this energy and say, Hey, I want to do something that’s that awesome and you can either learn what they’re doing, and that’ll influence your future writing of whatever part you’re writing, whether it’s drums, vocals, anything that you play or it’ll just kind of give you more ideas based on that right away. If you want to listen to Christians episode, just head on over to the better band bureau dot com slash 41. That’s the number for one, and you can check out that episode or you can, of course, find it in your favorite podcast app.

I definitely recommend that episode. Christian has a lot to talk about, and I think they’re really on amazing, creative not just as a musician, but in so many different aspects. And really Christian just has a great head on their shoulders When it comes to setting priorities is how I would put it because they have a goal, and that’s what they’re gonna dio. It doesn’t matter what they have to do to get there, but they’re going to get it done and speaking and getting stuff done. Ah, the next bullet point dozens of both practice and watching and being inspired by others and getting stuff done, and that is upload your own content.

So say you haven’t been out playing shows every night, every other night, every week, every month, whatever for the last you know, six months like the rest of us. One thing you are still able to do upload your own content. You know, chances are you’ve got a smartphone where you’ve got some sort of access to some sort of technology that would let you upload something to the Internet. So if you’re able to do that, the thing that I’m picturing is I’m a drummer. Up until very recently, I wasn’t this lucky.

But for the last couple of months I moved and I looked into moving into a spot where I am able to be pretty loud within reason. And so I’m taking advantage of that opportunity to make some drum videos. I’m doing a little bit of this, a little bit of that. And the idea is, even though I cannot be out physically in front of people playing by myself or with my band or or anything else that’s still away for you, toe a be creative and sort of practice.

I don’t say practice stage presence, but practice of performance. You know, whether it’s still, you know, a real production, a real performance front to back or whether it’s you video taping yourself, trying to learn a new part, learn a cover song, whatever it is, it’s an engagement with your audience in a different way. But it’s still a super, super meaningful way that sort of ties into the idea of, you know, using musician being an extension of your band. And a lot of people would be into that.

It’s a way to sort of peek behind the scenes. Maybe it’s you know, how something gets done behind the scenes or, I mean, a lot of people. If they like your music, chances are they wouldn’t mind getting to know you, especially if the way in which they can do that is, you know, watching you figure out the drum part or a bass part or, you know, Saks part, whatever it is, it’s interesting. It’s relatively easy to dio, and it keeps you relevant. And that’s more important now, arguably than ever, definitely.

And I think I just want to give a shout out to somebody who does that amazingly well. On Instagram. His name is also James. His profile is at J. The Dark Knight. No spaces, no underscores nothing like that, just J. The Dark Knight. And he is in the band. The Unit 33. But what cut my eyes? Basically, he does multiple post a day with different covers from different bands, and he’ll just basically sit down and record a cover for each song on an album and then release it slowly over the progress of a month.

But he’ll be doing multiple albums at the same time from different bands. And so last month in July, he did a bunch of Motion City soundtrack songs, which is there one of my favorite bands, and that’s how I stumbled across his profile. But it’s just so cool to see, like, you know, I am not a huge social media person, but I always enjoy seeing his coverage pop up on the feet. It’s like, Oh, cool, there’s another cover like, What is it now? Because you never know what’s gonna be next.

And you know, they’re bands that maybe I’m not as big a fan of and other bands that I’m more into, but he’s got quite a variety going, and it’s amazing to see that he posts. I think like two or three videos, a day every single day. I definitely recommend if you need some inspiration on what To post go check out at J the dark knight on Instagram Or go look at Aaron’s page, which I think is at I am Aaron Jing Gris, right? Yep. Is there an underscore in there somewhere?

Nope. Not even fancy enough for an underscore. Okay, all lower case. One word. Perfect. Yeah, because you have a bunch of drum stuff on there, and so just having some content to put out their daily is great. Even if you didn’t record it that day, feel free to batch it. Batch it and nobody will know, you know, unless you tell them you did it all in one day. Nobody will know, but have that content going out there because people will see that it’s just a great habit to get into.

So, Aaron, I’m actually gonna let you tackle this next one as well, because this is something that you’ve been doing lately. I think you can give more context to it than I could. Oh, sure, it’s sing kind of weird and maybe out of left field and kind of, you know, niche. But you’re not everybody’s a singer but personal example here I’d never and I probably never will really consider myself a singer. But you know, again, we’ve all been home more than not lately year and I’ve been putting a real focus on my vocals over like the last You know, 5 to 6 months.

Both, you know, improving my just the vocal ability itself, but also again is a drummer like you can kind of separate your limbs, your arms in your legs and your fingers and all sorts of things coming out of your torso like drummers usually do, and percussion players usually dio. But you can kind of separate. Your voice is well, and that’s like, Ah, whole another challenge If you want your mind blown and I’m sure most everybody listening, I can think of a drummer who also, you know, maybe they’re not the lead singer, but they at least provide backing vocals.

And there are a lot of drummer lead singers out there to her incredible but point being. If you’re into challenging yourself uniph, it’s not just like you standing in a room and singing and learning a new skill, which would also be awesome but just personal example is a drummer. It’s totally like figuring out you have another limb that you need to separate, and it just kind of throws like a really creative, constructive monkey wrench in the whole thing. Um, you know, if you want to learn to sing when you’re playing drums or any instrument, I just say drums because I’m a drummer.

You’re gonna have to relearn how to play some parts that you thought were pretty easy before. And so it’s going to kind of challenge you in interesting ways, and it’s gonna force you to kind of come at very familiar parts in new ways and from new directions, which, for me is a really cool thing. But then also, even if you’re not trying to sing and drum of the same time, if it’s just, you know, another layer, another thing to consider. I’ve found that I think of parts even more melodically than I typically would when I’m trying to write a drum part because, you know there was another component. Teoh.

I’ve always done that a little bit. But since putting a little bit more effort into that directly has been noticeably, I’m thinking about again the same parts that I’ve been playing for years or longer in a different way, and it’s super cool. So again, sing discover that extra limb and separate it and just, you know, the whole idea is it could be singing to be whatever else but find a way to come. It’s something familiar from her new direction, and you might learn something new about yourself and on that note air.

In a few weeks ago, after the episode, we did. I know it was 41 or one of the previous ones. We were in Irving out about music, and you shared the name of an amazing banned from, I think Montreal or somewhere in Quebec. Oh, yeah, Who was that? Oh, mute. They’re so good. Yeah, I checked out a couple of their songs, and they sound killer. So if anyone wants to check out a band with a really amazing drummer who sings, they will be in the show notes at the Better band bureau dot com slash 43.

That’s the number for three. But moving on into our next overarching category, we’re gonna talk about business because as much as it’s important to keep your musical chops up. You know this The better Band Bureau podcast always brings it back to business. Because remember, your band is a brand. Your brand is a business. So it doesn’t matter what your focus in the band is, whether you’re the general manager of the band or you have a specific role, you know, audio video booking, organizing the merch, doing social media or really whatever section of the band you control.

Because we have a really extensive list here. That’s a total tongue twister. If I try to read them all, there’s like 20 things on this list. I’m impressed that you put all these down out of thin like here’s three examples. That’s good enough, but it’s good to stay in touch with people who have similar focuses. So if you’re doing the mixing and the recording for your band, communicate with other audio engineers. Even if they aren’t. Musicians themselves be in a Facebook group for recording engineers and be in a good one because there’s some Facebook groups out there.

For engineers that literally every day is like what dog is best. It’s like that’s not really adding value. Find a group where people discuss valuable tips more than just the basic. How do I start this? Unless that’s where you are? But if that’s where you are, I wouldn’t go to Facebook Group because people are just gonna argue about what dog is best anyway. For whatever topic you’re in, find a group that you’re comfortable interacting in learning with and grow that sense of community. Have some people on your friends list that you can hit up and share tips way they’re asking questions, troubleshoot together things like that.

It all comes down to not being in a bubble. If here in a bubble, how are you gonna learn new techniques? You might discover something new and useful, but chances are other people are doing things better than you, and you can learn from them. If you just communicate with them and listen to what they have to say, One place you can do that is the better Band Bureau Facebook group. If you’re interested in joining a community with over 300 artists who are interested in growing their businesses, you can head on over to better dot band slash group again, that’s better dot band slash group or just search for the Better Band Bureau on Facebook, and we would love to have you there.

Like I said, that’s a great place to communicate with over 300 other D I Y artists, musicians and creatives who are interested in learning as well as sharing what they already know. The next bullet is really just all about keeping in the loop. Reading, watching, subscribing to industry publications and other educational sources. You know there are a million and one different outlets that you can find out there, but to name a few, you know you have pull star. You have whatever gear publication you like for your instrument.

You have things like Billboard. There are other. Resource is like high pot that I think they do a really good job of presenting a smattering of, ah, different industry news all in one spot. Graham Cochran, other online educators and teachers who you trust. And of course, you’re a super easy thing to do would be, you know, if you have ah, Google account, you can set up Google alerts and really get pinned you at any point. There’s something that’s published based on like a certain keyword, whether you’re in a band or solo artist or, you know, you like thunder guitars.

Whatever it is, feed Google a bunch of keywords and then you’re going Teoh, you know you’re not gonna get bothered by a bunch of stuff, and you have to sift through it and figure out what you’re interested in or not. Chances are if you get think it’s gonna be because you fed them one of the key words and you know you’re going to be into it. So in short, just keep up the date, keep reading, keep an eye out for anything that might be interesting to you and keep on learning.

Yeah, absolutely. And on that note, you should definitely set up a Google alert for your band name. That’s something you need tohave. And if you have a band name that has a lot of other stuff popping up for on that alert, that’s probably a sign that you don’t have a very good band name because that means that people won’t find you if they google your name because they’re finding all that other stuff. But it’s very important in that way. You contract stuff and you might find out that, you know, some Blawg wrote about you and you didn’t even know.

But now you do, because you have the Google alert set up. So that’s actually something that’s really important to Dio. And I’m now thinking, you know, most people probably don’t know about that. So I’m gonna, at some point do like a quick little how to on how to do that. Because people need to do that for their band. And you could do it for your personal name too, you know, for me, like if I did that for James Cross, there’s hundreds of us in the world I would just get spammed.

But if you have a unique name like I don’t know how Maney Aaron Jing gris is, there are definitely not nearly as many James crosses. So if you were to do that for your name Erin, you might actually get pretty quality result If all of a sudden, like somebody posts about Sub Sam and mentions your name, Yeah, I’ll either get think about the band or myself or, um the other guy with my exact name who went to the same college I did, which was like, no, really weird never happened to me before, but it’s either gonna be about me or him, so I still like those odds.

So I’m still going to be doing that. Yeah, that’s pretty funny. I already did it. But if I hadn’t already done it for myself in the band and other stuff, I would totally do it. Now it’s super easy. And like you, said James, it’s a great way to figure out like there’s somebody out there who’s totally into you and you have no idea. It’s a great way to make your day or I don’t really like this is much, but it’s also a really great way to keep an eye out.

If somebody is totally throwing you shade, it’s a good way toe. Participate in what it is to, ah, damage control as well. So it’s totally a win win either way, absolutely. And for those of you listening, you better believe when I say that every major brand has a Google alert or something similar set up because they want to track every single time there brand is mentioned, they’ll go so far as to get APS that track Twitter mentions without the at so it will be like, Hey, somebody said A T and T, but they didn’t tag you like here all the tweets and there’s like 20,000 tweets of people complaining about how terrible A T and T is or how much they love it.

But I’ve find that unlikely in comparison. But anyway, yeah, setting up a Google there is super easy, and that’s a great way to stay up to date. And when he set it up, it’ll let you choose how often you want it. I would say daily that way, you don’t get spammed if there’s, like 20 results all of a sudden for your band. But anyway, moving on, it’s time to talk about you. All these daily habits are great, but guess what? They’re not going to get done if you have not set time aside for yourself, cause if you don’t do that, you’re gonna get burned out.

So to avoid burnout, take some time out of your day to focus on yourself. We actually did an entire episode about this. It’s Episode 32. Don’t let burnout ruin your career. How to separate yourself from your art. You can check that out at the better band bureau dot com slash 32. That’s the numbers three in two. Listen to that episode to hear us go deep into how to avoid burnout so you can still do music and business. What you really want to do. If you’re a musician, that’s what you want to dio.

But you need to take care of yourself. So the first thing is, take at least 30 minutes a day to do something you truly enjoy. And when I say this, I mean put it on your calendar, even if it’s like from 8 to 8 30 at night. Put in there like this is my time. At this time I’m going to do what I want to dio that could be reading a book. Whether it’s, you know, fiction, nonfiction, whatever you want, it should be what you enjoy. Playing video games, taking a walk.

The point here is that this is something you want to do. It’s not something you should do where you have to do. This is time for you. If you have kids, maybe that’s playing with your kids. Or if you have a dog, you know, playing fetch, you know, whatever it is do something that you love to dio. Maybe that’s practicing your instruments some more. But honestly, I would say, Even if you love practicing your instruments so much, you’re already doing that daily. Find something else that you love to do to, so you have a little variation there throughout your schedule.

So on top of that, after you take at least 30 minutes to do something you truly enjoy, take another 30 minutes to do the things that you don’t want to do, but should. Whether that’s, you know, working out whether that’s cleaning well, whatever it is, you’re gonna knock that thing off. Your list might not be fun in the moment, but you’re going to feel good about doing it, and then it gets done, and then you have the rest of the day to either continue to do things that you enjoy.

Do somewhere could do it ever else, but that’s a great strategy to use. Just keep on the ball and keep productive. So, really, by scheduling in time for yourself in advance, you know it’s your time. It’s time for you to work on your mental health and do the things that will help you keep up your other daily habits in the long run. Our whole point with this episode is to talk about the habits that will help you grow a successful business. So while you might be perfectly happy if you’re only focusing on what makes you personally happy and ignoring the other things, the reason to set habits is because when you’re in a habit, you are going to do those things because it’s a habit.

If it’s not a habit, you’re not gonna end up doing the things you don’t want to dio, because you never do them. So you’ll say, Oh, I can do it tomorrow and then tomorrow becomes the next day and so on. It’s vital if you want to become a better musician, practice every single day. Like I said earlier, even if it’s only 10 minutes. Practice practicing for 10 minutes once a day. Every day is way better than practicing for an hour or two once a week because it gets you in that rhythm no pun intended, and it helps you keep that habit and going.

Whereas if you practice once a week, it’s so easy to say. I don’t feel like it. I’ll just do it next week. And then you missed the whole week of practicing because you only practice once week anyway. When it comes to your business, these are things that you have to do every day. Now graduate again. There are some things that you might only join weekdays, like responding to non urgent emails. But checking in on the Facebook groups that you network in. That’s important. You should do that at least once a day.

It takes five minutes. Educating yourself. You should never stop learning. That doesn’t mean you have to sit down and take a course every single day. But go through a couple lessons of something. Watch some YouTube tutorials, learn something, just keep it going so you don’t fall out of that habit. And then, of course, coming back to personal. It’s all about making sure that you have the emotional capacity and the energy to do the business habits that you’ve set in place and the musical habits that you’ve set in place to keep practicing.

Because without those, you’re just gonna be nothing but personal habits, which is fine if you’re happy with that. But like I said, you are not going to be progressing in your career, and you are not going to be progressing as a musician if you aren’t doing all three of thes on a daily basis. And remember, each of these three categories has different sub points to, so you have to make sure that you plan out your time well and use it effectively. So you’re not wasting time. But you also still have time to enjoy doing things you love.

That is it for this episode of the Better Band Bureau podcast. Thank you so much for listening, and I hope that you’ve made a weekly habit of listening to our podcast. If you haven’t yet, go ahead and subscribe in whatever player you are listening to, or if you’re listening on our site, you can head on over to better dot band slash. Listen to find us in your favorite podcast app and subscribe there. It’s really important to build good habits, as we talked about in this episode. So if you’re interested in sharing about a habit that you want to start and maybe get some accountability from group members, head on over to better dot band slash group or just search for the Better Band Bureau on Facebook and join our group directly posting the group about what haven’t you want to build, and you might find somebody who’s trying to do the same thing.

Then you will have an accountability buddy Next week will be back with Amazing interview with Aaron Zimmer, of least of all sound recordings. I’m really excited for you all to hear that. So that will be out next Tuesday at 6 a.m. Eastern time. Be sure to tune in and listen to that interview. Erin had some really good stuff to say. It was an absolute pleasure to have him on the show. So again, we’re looking forward to that. That will be out next Tuesday at 6 a.m. Until then, have an awesome week.

Stay safe. And, of course, as always, keep rockin