On Saturday I flew home from bonny Tacoma for the summer, and on Sunday I played with Jonathan Coulton and Paul & Storm at Largo at The Coronet… and boy are my arms tired.
I’ve seen Jon Brion at the Largo twice, and so being able to crawl around backstage and stand next to his piano was enough for me; Largo’s “no talking, no electronics” policy during shows makes the venue feel strangely church-like to me anyway, not even considering its somewhat golden roster of regular players.
But I got to play there. Excuse me? No. NO. That can’t be right.
There was a 5.0 earthquake apparently (which I will interpret as the state yawning open to welcome me home??) but only a few people in the venue claimed to have felt it — the fact that so many people casually Twittered about it at the break is a testament to either (1) how jaded Californians are when it comes to earthquakes, (2) how intensely Paul & Storm rocked, or (3) both.
Also met Weird Al [who needs no hyperlink], and Wil Wheaton*, and saw the back of Felicia Day’s head. Met @lonelysandwich, though I didn’t realize who he was until I’d gotten in the car and the boyfriend said “So I noticed you met @lonelysandwich too,” and I was like “WHAT.” @JadeSnake made me some startlingly awesome sets of self-referential SweetAfton23 pins, I recognized fellow Song Fu-er Jarrett Heather on sight (as much to his surprise as mine, it seems), and assured @Colleenky that she is in no way creepy. (If I ever gig for myself, I am going to distribute “Hello My Name Is” stickers at the door, upon which you write your name AND your Twitter/YouTube handles if applicable, because I know that there are more of you whom I met but I couldn’t put faces to [user]names.)
I’ve been a guest of the trio thrice before and so I thought I’d be used to it by now, but half of the internet was there. (I’m surprised that there was no State Of The Union-type designated survivor to remain behind, given the convergence of important geeks at this event. What if the earthquake had taken out the venue? Who would lead the geek masses?**) I was less talkative and more nervous than I’ve ever been at one of these things — My mom says I did “Road Trip” in double time, and I will not disagree — but in spite of my withdrawn awkward teenager-ness I had an amazing time. I’m told that one day I’ll get savvy and start selling CDs and t-shirts and that, but even then hopefully it will still be this surreal to tag along behind my betters like this; I hope I never get used to it, and that these shows are always as overwhelming and humbling as they are now… and if my head does get too big one day, I hope it’s long after JoCo and Paul&Storm have gotten sick of me and left me to fend for myself.
Speaking of selling shirts…. Though we discussed it briefly on Sunday, Paul & Storm have now publically nudged me via Twitter/Minions towards selling shirts. I’ve taken preliminary steps towards opening up an online shop, but scary EIN-dealings aside, I’m not sure how I feel about selling swag on the whole. It feels weird to sell shirts without touring, but it feels weird to tour without an album. So basically I have to release an album, which I already knew. Could I tour on an EP? I could stitch together an EP at this point. But how could I afford to tour without the profits from t-shirts? But how can I sell shirts without touring? It’s the Grandfather Paradox of merch.
N00B.
I’m not good at blogging. There are so many characters, and me with so short an attention span. I suddenly have to construct whole cogent paragraphs, instead of just snappy fragments. You can’t make a twoosh out of a blog post — Where’s the sense of efficiency and accomplishment?
*Respective anecdotes:
1. Weird Al’s was the first musical concert I went to. Ever. It was on March 3, 2000 at what is now the Grove Of Anaheim, and I went with my best friend since pre-school for her birthday. It was pouring rain that evening, and on the freeway on the way to the venue our car got struck by lightning, killing our car radio but thoroughly amping our 10-year old selves for the show.
2. I confess, I was probably the last geek on earth to follow Wil Wheaton on Twitter. I did not know who he was before I went to a David Sedaris reading at UCLA, and after I Twittered about it I was bombarded with @-replies to the tune of DON’T YOU REALIZE THAT @WILW IS IN THE SAME ROOM AS YOU RIGHT NOW? So when the show was over I followed him. …No, that sounds creepy, try again: When the show was over I drove behind his car until he got to his house. There, that’s better.
**Well actually, I guess the designated survivor was Nathan Fillion?
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Going to a show and being recognized by one of the performers was a little surreal. But I’m glad we got the chance to chat. The show, of course, was a great time.
Thanks for the mention! BTW, the “no electronics” policy was no match for our zombie (another JadeSnake creation). He managed to record the whole thing: http://www.box.net/shared/ol97kk7foz
(Note: The gain was accidentally set to low, and it was recorded through a zombie shirt, so it’s pretty faint at times, especially the spoken parts. Though I’m told that if you listen using mp3gain, it’s just fine.)
Here’s a suggestion as to how to break in to this whole touring/merch thing:
1. Release an album. Yes, a whole album, not just an EP. Yeah, I know, you’re a bit away from that yet. Keep working, it’ll come.
2. Once you’ve got some money from the album, get some shirts designed and run. Set up an online store. At this time, it’s okay to announce your first tour.
3. Tour. I’d suggest starting in Texas (for entirely selfish reasons, not because you should actually start here), but let’s face it, you’ll start with the Left Coast, because that’s where you are.
After the tour starts, we’ll re-post your Wikipedia page. The deletionists won’t be able to say anything then.
I totally second the idea of name tags with YouTube and/or Twitter handles. In fact, RL names aren’t nearly as useful as online handles. My RL name is very non-descript, save for my middle name, which as I have noted, actually does mean “the Great”.
Molly, please tell me you will also be at PAX this year. You were awesome, and we need to hear more of your stuff.
After seeing you at the Largo on Sunday, I have bought all five of the tunes you have available – and there’s more where that came from!
For the record, I would follow Nathan Fillion to Hell. New Zombie Apocalypse Plan: find Nathan Fillion! Excellent.
If you make shirts, I’ll be sure to buy one. Hell, Nina’s now a huge fan of you and Derek and shows both of your musics to everyone she knows. I bet you could sell a shirt to her too.
Thanks for continuing to share. It’s tremendous fun to be able to read about these things and get your thoughts on them.
2001: A Space Odyssey references are so 9 years ago.
Otherwise, curse this vast nation which keeps events with such potential for an internet black hole (due to the sheer mass of internet personalities in one place) well on the wrong side of the country, from my point of view.
I WOULD see this about five minutes before going to LeakyCon. =/
*will read laters*
Yay, I’ve just watched 2001: Space Odyssey.
When will you tour in Europe and in which cities?
Don’t fogert that you have lots of awesome covers too. The Detroit Cobras have recorded and toured for more than a decade on nothing but Motown covers and mostly lost B-sides at that. You’ve accomplished plenty to tour. I wouldn’t sweat the order that you are doing things so much as celebrate that you are doing them period. Note: Below is surf guitar legend Dick Dale with some pretty direct business advice to young musicians. My favorite documentary filmmaker Errol Morris self-produces mostly using funds he generates from working in advertising selling things like beer. Short of the Medicis giving you a patronage, you need moolah to travel to gigs, buy instruments and stuff. You have expenses. Peeps aren’t free. Go ahead and push the swag. Now on to Dick Dale…
Thanks for the great show last Sunday. It was wonderful to finally get a chance to hear you live.
I’m so glad you liked the buttons. I completely forgot to take pictures of them for myself. Is there any chance I could get a copy of the picture your mom took of us?
I suggest you start dropping hints on twitter that you are considering a “Molly Lewis T-Shirt Design Contest.” If there is some interest there, post the contest to YouTube, similar to what Julia Nunes did. (It was a good idea. It worked for Julia. And nobody will say…”Hey, she’s copying Julia Nunes!” Even if you are.)
Then take the top three designs and set them up on something like CafePress.com http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/sell/index.aspx?area=learn&page=learn
No, I don’t work for CafePress.
Let it be known that the WINNER of the design a Molly Lewis T-Shirt contest is whichever design sells the most merchandise. That give impetus to the designers and their friends to actually SELL those designs.
The Winner gets a fabulous prize package that includes being thanked by name in a SweetAfton23 video, signed memorabilia and whatever else strikes your fancy. Make it known that you will OWN the design at the end of the contest.
Then, if things sell well on CafePress, you can take the best selling design to a cheaper shop for mini-mass production to distribute to family and friends and to sell at concerts, events and by direct orders.
The CafePress (or some similar outfit) is nice, in that you don’t have to worry about the logistics of fulfilling orders. You don’t have to package, mail or take credit card numbers. You just hope your designs sell well enough to get y0u the scratch to fund an album, a tour, or just more merch.
Anyway, it’s a way to stick your toe in the merchandising pool without too much initial investment.
Good luck with Song Fu. But my sincerest hope is GöDZ PööDLZ is able to present a worthy challenge.
Also, don’t be afraid to directly ask advice from Coulton, P&S or Len Peralta, folks who have done the merch thing before.
By the way, if you have a contest, I WILL enter. Rock on.
Don’t forget that you have lots of awesome covers too. The Detroit Cobras have recorded and toured for more than a decade on nothing but Motown covers and mostly lost B-sides at that. You’ve accomplished plenty to tour. I wouldn’t sweat the order that you are doing things so much as celebrate that you are doing them period.
Note: Below is surf guitar legend Dick Dale with some pretty direct business advice to young musicians. My favorite documentary filmmaker Errol Morris self-produces mostly using funds he generates from working in advertising selling things like beer. Short of the Medicis giving you a patronage, you need moolah to travel to gigs, buy instruments and stuff. You have expenses. Peeps aren’t free. Go ahead and push the swag. Now on to Dick Dale…
Hmm. Okay. I think I’ve got a solution to this whole album/touring/merchandise thing.
1. You make stuff.
2. I buy like 100 copies of each of the things you start selling.
3. You get money.
4. Using that money, you make more stuff.
5. Repeat steps 2 through 4 indefinitely.
But in all seriousness, when you start selling stuff it’ll work – for me, at least – pretty much exactly like it did with when you started selling mp3s. I’ll be buying it the second I know it’s for sale.
I wonder if you’re aware that you sound wonderfully creepily like a female version of Jeffrey Lewis (yes, that’s a compliment) and no it had nothing to do with the post, just needed to be said.
Just do it.
Argh, I thought about going to this show but I didn’t know you’d be there! I just figured, hey its a JoCo show and I really want to go, but there will be others.
Alas, I missed out on great uke action. Foolishness!
The king of pop is dead, now it’s your turn Molly…not to die of course, but to become the new queen of pop.
Greetings from Germany
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