NHT Blog

I remember once writing a weekly blog that I posted on this site, talking about not letting it go to your head if you move to a major music mecca like Los Angeles, Nashville, or New York.  And three nights ago, I was thrilled to see an A-lister remember their roots and take a 20,000-seat amphitheater and turn it into a listening room environment – ev

This past Friday night I was in a restaurant/bar (some might say pub) that has an adjoining patio.  I was seated inside but had a stage in my sights out on the patio.  A band was setup there and I knew they’d be playing soon, which, of course, raises a curious eyebrow, given my more than 15 years running Now Hear This.

The NFL season has started, and you’ll often hear announcers talking about players having to have their head on a swivel.  I could make an argument that regardless of the industry you’re in you should always be doing the same as it relates to watching what else is going on around you that you can learn from. 

I’m sitting in my hotel room with the famous HOLLYWOOD sign staring back at me when I look out the window.  Is it cool?  Sure, of course it is, and especially when you live 2,500 miles away.  I imagine that if I lived here and saw it all the time it might lose its luster.

And that’s exactly the point of this week’s blog.

Congratulations, indie recording artist.  Your new song is out in the world and people can now hear what you have created.  All the time you spent writing, recording, maybe re-writing and/or re-recording, and then getting it mixed, mastered, and distributed was worth it.  It’s okay to take a step back and admire your work. 

It’s fitting that I returned home from a songwriters festival yesterday – the very weekend that Pensacola Beach Songwriters Festival (PBSF) co-founder Jim Pasquale passed away.

The National Football League’s 2021 preseason got underway this past weekend.  Technically you could say it was the week before, as the annual Hall of Fame game was played.  But all teams were in action starting with games last Thursday night and running through this weekend that we just finished.

In the music business there is an ongoing struggle to get fans to purchase downloads, if not CDs (remember those things?), instead of just streaming songs on platforms that pay only a fraction of a penny to the artist each time a listener clicks Play.  This is nothing new and it’s a battle that indie artists fight constantly.

“The best place to start any transformation is education,” said Thad Bullard (a.k.a. Titus O’Neil of WWE fame). Artists often look outside the box for inspiration for lyrics or melody, but what about for transformation of their craft or career?

There’s an expression I heard years and years ago that I really liked and have held onto all this time.  “It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.”  It kind of goes hand-in-hand with treating other people the way you’d want to be treated.  Those both also play into what I wrote about on this site last week.