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

If you’re just joining from last week’s edition, hello there! I don’t always cover news here, but I do always write about what I think is relevant to people with creative businesses. Thanks for sharing and for your responses to it. The overarching story about Spotify fraud, and those falsely accused, has plenty more pages to be written. (Also, let me know if you enjoy getting these issues on Fridays. I’m inclined to move in that direction weekly.)

For my part, I rolled out a consulting package I’m very proud of this week that’s designed to benefit artists across disciplines. It focuses on two core parts of marketing a business: understanding it (discovery) and then mapping ways forward (strategy). Go check out the Discovery Package at meintheclub.com, and once you’re there, notice that it’s all readable on a single scroll but optimized for mobile phones. This is how most people read sites now, and that’s important to take note of if you’re building a page of your own. I’m not a web dev, but I made mine in Wordpress with some template modifications and a lot of persistence. Knowing where you want to wind up is half the battle with these things, always.

Today, we’re going deep on a personality quirk that’s far too common in music industry vets and some artists (and what to do about it), and we’ll also touch briefly on what the “Right Amount” of social media posting is for any creative business.

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The Culture of No

There is an unspoken thing that happens to many people’s brains, once they’ve been in the music industry for some time.

One way of explaining it is a thing I’ve said as advice to artist managers and colleagues many times: “There are two kinds of people who work in music past the age of 30: people with outstanding tools they got from therapy, and sociopaths.”

That bit of advice is a separate issue all by itself!

But what I see more overtly, and a facet that tends to unify both sides of the coin, is that people lose their initial luster. Faced with a perpetually uncertain working landscape and inundated by music that may not resonate with them, they excessively safeguard the love for artistry that got them into the business in the first place. And with that, they join what I refer to as The Culture of No.

If you have inquired about a new business practice or method to a practitioner of The Culture of No, you know this well. It’s almost like a religion, with a set of mantras that barely gets to half a page in length.

“Why would we do that?”

“What makes you think that would work?”

Any variant of these rhetorical questions, mixed with a hint of derision and an oddly-activated stance that’s sort of like a junkyard pitbull but with a barely-concealed undercurrent of fear, is both their prayer and their sermon.

How does this happen?

Well, on a certain level, it’s relatable. And I say this as a veteran of it all, with a well-developed sense of sarcasm to temper my joys and fondness for absurdity. When I was a first-year full-timer in music, you can barely imagine how astounded and motivated and a little awed I was, all at once. (If you were there, I’m sure you remember.) So, however you may read me now is an incredibly chilled-out version of that. At 25, I was both a young man and a fire burning into the night.

Fortunately, I’m still quite tapped into my joy. And I also find it infinitely more interesting to try and define myself by what I care about, rather than what I don’t. But if you’re a label A&R who openly avoids bringing up your job when you meet new people in the wild, or a publicist on your fifth follow-up with your 200th outlet about an artist that doesn’t understand why they aren’t getting covered yet, there is a very real pressure to bottle up what you love and put it in a cage.

In those situations, what you love can become a vulnerability, when confronted with what you might only like - or with what others might like. Especially because most people love what they’re making, and you’ve probably stuck your neck out for those people and gotten cut for it at least once.

But here’s the thing you have to remember: if you overcorrect to defend that vulnerability, it starts your brain on the road to becoming the jaded “ski slope enthusiast with a cigar behind a big desk” persona you probably got into music not to be. Someone putting their heart and soul into their work deserves a start from “maybe,” not a start from “no.”

And if you’re an artist, this “protect my sense of inner artistic vision” impulse can be destructive to your work, too! Illustrators and designers don’t really get the luxury of ignoring trend if they’re full-timers. But, wow, do I ever see it with bands.

I have known SO many bands over the years who say things like, “Well, my favorite music is shoegaze from the 90s, so I don’t listen to anything made after My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless.” So, wait. You’re cool with not wanting to add anything to…a 33-year-old album, because you fear new influences will taint it? At that point, are you playing originals, or are your originals just covers?

Art is communication, sometimes with yourself. About what you see, what you want.

Life is change. 

Being convicted in what you do is cool, and important. But don’t mistake shutting out growth for defending your work.

When I see niche artists in any genre that intentionally don’t listen to anything current, they sound…grey. Maybe technically sound, maybe functionally correct, but they don’t sound plugged into life around them. It’s not anti-trend in the cool, underground, envelope-pushing way. It’s safe.

And when I talk to people who start from “no,” it’s hard to feel too compelled by what they’re doing or pushing.

Fashion, of all creative industries, gets this innately. Diana Vreeland, the 60s-era editor-in-chief of Vogue, had a famous statement that’s frequently misattributed to Coco Chanel: “Elegance is refusal.” But to understand that phrase, another of Vreeland’s quotes, about fashion magazines and what she was trying to do at Vogue in the 60’s, is equally notable: “Most people haven't got a point of view; they need to have it given to them—and what's more, they expect it from you.”

I don’t think Vreeland was right in her generalization about the masses, but she got the importance of having something to say, and also that it’s based on an exchange.

You can’t say no to everything around you if you aren’t also saying yes to defining what is intrinsic to you, at the same time. I have other people’s art already. It’s all right there, easy to access. But I want to know what yours is like. Not what mine is like. That’s a different conversation. Tell me about yours.

If you’re working with creative people, it’s worth always taking care to examine their point of view, and see how it impacts your own. A seemingly basic human principle of conversation, right? But so many forget it.

Starting from no is how you become a dinosaur. 

Starting from maybe allows for growth.

One Thing You Can Use Today

I get a lot of questions from clients about how they should go after social media and what the right tempo is. And, just so you hear it from me…

You do not, under any circumstances, have to update all of your stuff all of the time to be effective. But updating it some of the time, always, is great.

Consistency is more important for social media than intensity. Intensity in small doses is totally fine, and even encouraged when you have a big new record to talk about, or a client doing good things, or artwork you’re thrilled to have finished.

I do help people plan out content calendars as part of my strategy work, and those make your life a lot easier when you have a creative business and are keeping your socials running. But even if you are struggling to stay smooth with this, at the end of the day, a steady trickle of water can add up to a river.

Many artists aren’t naturals at social media. They get to where they think they have to force a conversation that doesn’t interest them. And to that, I’d say it’s also fully possible to share occasional updates that are strategic - tour updates, show announcements, etc. - and have that be what you do, especially if you’re consistently building a mailing list. Yes you can benefit from being on TikTok, for example, but lots of artists benefit as much from parking it and then just posting on it very rarely.

What you never want to do, unless you have a very good strategic reason for why, is to go totally quiet. That record you put out in February? You can still post something about it every couple of weeks. Why not? Your fans won’t get annoyed, they’ll be happy to remember they liked it.

How your socials are set up - and how you’re using them to funnel interest in your work - is a separate conversation. But in general, you do not have to be the loudest or chattiest person in the room, you just need to be at the party. Say what you need to say, and then, don’t totally abandon saying it.

In other words, just try to be in the club.

And yes, making something consistently (rather than feeling obligated to do the mechanical stuff every single day) is also a good option to keep your creative practice moving, too.

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, July 26 - MoMA PS1 Warm Up
The G train is not having a good time this summer, but let’s not make that MoMA PS1’s problem. This is always, without fail, one of NYC’s best weekly dance parties during the summer months. Worth it, even if getting home proves tricky.

Saturday, July 27 - Tomb Mold with Horrendous @ Brooklyn Monarch
Tomb Mold is arguably the best death metal band to hit in the last 10 years (I prefer them to Blood Incantation, though you can make the argument). Horrendous is also very good. I really hope we see Saint Vitus Bar come back before the end of the year, because Monarch is fine but they’re sorely missed.

Sunday, July 28 - Tiki Disco @ Knockdown Center (free with RSVP before 5pm)
It’s Tiki Disco. It’s one of the most consistently fun dancing times on Earth. And I, frankly, am overdue for it.

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

The Club List is a newsletter from MeInTheClub.com. All issues are available at TheClubList.net. To inquire about marketing services for your work, contact [email protected] and include "Services” in the subject line.