Welcome back to The Club List, a newsletter about making a business out of what you love.

This is the last long weekend for many of you before a very packed next two months, and so I implore you: once you’re done reading this, log off if you can. You’ve earned this. September will have its own lifting to do.

I had a blast seeing a few of you at Tetchy’s big video rollout at The Broadway in Brooklyn last night, too! That video will be out soon, and you might recognize me in the middle of its insanity for a split second or two. It’s highly individual, highly them, and that lends well to what we’re talking about today.

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Finding Your Canary Yellow

There are certain colors so powerful that they become associated with a brand forever. 

This summer, it’s Charli XCX’s “Brat Green.” You probably saw it in your mind when I mentioned it.

(There’s a very similar, less-saturated color that’s something of a meme among graphic designers. The hex code for it is #B4DA55. Brat Green is at #8ACE00. They share a grid in color pickers, which makes you think #B4DA55 could have been the starting point.)

UPS Brown is another. Not the most vibrant choice, but this color brown is quite literally trademarked by UPS. And you know exactly what it looks like.

But there I was, picking up some extra Post-Its for my office, when I saw the fine print on one of the packages: Canary Yellow is a trademark of 3M.

Yes, the humble Post-It - which doesn’t always come in Canary Yellow! - is so well-known for that color that 3M trademarked its precise shade in the 90’s. Even if you get different colors of Post-Its, every package includes Canary Yellow somewhere. 

It’s protected from use by other sticky note brands. That’s how strongly 3M feels about it. You can use almost the same color and sell sticky notes, but don’t dare use Canary Yellow.

And yet, one of the most interesting things I run across when I work with anyone building a creative business is that they’re generally nervous to really lean in on uniqueness. That shade, that sound, that style. What if people don’t get it? What if it’s too unfamiliar?

But this is the whole point. And an absolutely insane number of people miss it.

Bands? They totally miss it, and miss it often. For example, consider all the blink-182 clones that launched back in their day, without ever getting half as big. I generally dislike pop-punk, but I despise blink-182. That’s a good thing! It means they’re not for me, but they are for a LOT of other people, and they have the history to prove it. But I tend to think that bands who clone them are just okay, or worse…mid. 

Don’t let yourself be mid. Being polarizing is important. 

Companies do it too, in droves. Think of all the SaaS brands (that’s software-as-a-service, for those of you who spend time in the real world) who want to show that their product has a lot of features. This tends to mean that their slogans are incredibly similar to each other, to the point it’s unclear what those products even do without a lot of deeper investigation. That’s because they have their value propositions backward.

Saying what you can do is easy. Showing the purpose behind your work is more powerful, and more fulfilling - but if you aren’t thinking of doing that, it becomes very hard.

There are usually hundreds, if not thousands, of other entities in whatever niche you occupy. Any idea is the result of a mixed bag of influences. But what is your unique intention behind that idea?

And wait - let’s not let this part go by unexamined. Why on earth would it be smart for a corporation to trademark a color? It’s not necessarily so original that no one has a reference point for it.

But like mixing colors in a palette, that single color results from a blend of everything that’s inspired you to get to the point you are at, and it remains your own. 

Maybe it’s the way you mix two styles of music together, or how you interpret a genre to make what you want to hear within it.

Maybe it’s how you utilize a medium to state something it’s not typically used to show. I think of how Richard Serra used sculpture to transform the space it was installed in, and how Lee Bontecou also used sculpture, but to remove space and create a void.

One thing remains obvious, in every discipline. In the same way that every person you’ll ever meet is just a little different from the last, there is something deeply human about finding that exact shade that’s unmistakably yours.

And while there are so many things that work against you when you’re in creative business for yourself, one advantage the artist is always going to have over the corporation is unmistakable humanity. 

There’s a reason that humanity is so valuable to big business.

Lean into yours.

One Thing You Can Use Today

Are you being praised by friends for a component of your work that doesn’t serve the vision? 

Take it out. 

Do it now.

I was close friends with a band some years ago that did one of the smartest things I have ever seen a new band do, to this day. They were a band that split the difference between grunge and pop, usually at volume. But one song on their first EP was a soft, swaying acoustic number. Their friends at the time would often come up after their shows and talk only about how good that song was. 

So, a few months later, they debuted new songs and abruptly stopped playing that song their friends liked for good. Done. I saw about 90 more shows they played, and it never came back once.

And then they got hype. Their crowds doubled, they got on better bills, press started paying attention, and they even got some big TV syncs when their first album hit. How?

Well, I talked with their main songwriter once about it, because I thought it was cool that she defied other peoples’ expectations and seemed to do so intentionally.

And what she told me was a major eye-opener.

She said that she didn’t want to reach only her friends with a song that wasn’t true to the project. She wanted to reach her friends, and new fans, with the project. Period. 

And what I realized was clear: if her friends didn’t like it, then it wasn’t for them, and that was fine. But if others didn’t get it, it’d be over before it started, because the work hadn’t found its audience yet.

So by identifying the odd part of her work and taking it out, that made her double down on making sure the rest of the project was compelling - on its own terms. At the time, the band was pretty heavy and had moments of lightness. So, that’s what she made more of, and it was well-received.

And when they made a follow-up album that was much more textural and melodic, it went for that in a way that was purposeful. No acoustic afterthoughts they weren’t happy with. It was true to the intent, and people responded to it.

When you get feedback on your work that praises the most broadly-appealing parts of it, ask yourself whether the work was what you wanted to say. If it wasn’t what you wanted to say, don’t let people who care about you first and your work second sway you. 

Creative vision requires focus to stick. And only you can be sure of what that vision is.

Track of the Week

Rocket - “Sugarcoated”

One of my great joys in life is in finding a band that hasn’t blown up yet, but will. Rocket is a prime example of another great joy I have in finding: a band that’s clearly fantastic and well on its way to being an even bigger deal than it already is. The Los Angeles-based quartet is touring with Bôa and Ride this fall, but also making some interesting stops along the way and seemingly gearing up to do a whole lot more to follow their excellent debut album Versions of You. “Sugarcoated” is a highlight; if you dig Failure and Superchunk, you’ve got every reason to be listening to this yesterday.

Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

List of Clubs

These are the kinds of clubs I’d like to be in around NYC! Wherever you might find music, art, or a compelling experience under one roof, that’s a club to me. I only list clubs I’d enjoy going to. If I list a client, you’ll know.

Friday, August 30 - Adult., Pelada, Nuovo Testamento @ Knockdown Center
Don’t walk alone near Knockdown Center right now, as people keep mysteriously ending up in Newtown Creek. That morbid note besides: this show is Pelada’s last US show, and you can’t possibly go wrong with Nuovo Testamento, ever.

Saturday, August 31 - Dante Scaglione @ Eavesdrop (free!)
Dante is quietly one of my favorite DJs in New York, and unlike Toribio or Mike Servito (who we’ve talked about at length here), he doesn’t have a built-in crowd yet when not part of a bigger lineup. He should. Absolutely impeccable taste in italo disco, and he’s spinning at a cocktail bar in Greenpoint that has multiple high-end sound systems without depending on bro vibes.

Sunday, September 1 - Mister Sunday Long Weekend Special @ Nowadays
The last Mister Sunday before Labor Day. These are always wild. Two more months of this party, but this one hits differently, and it’s always packed. Get a ticket, don’t show up and expect to clear the door.

Thanks for reading! And now, an image of me in the club…

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