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

I’m still buzzing from the KAWS opening at The Drawing Center in NYC last night, which is a living history of the last 150 years of contemporary drawing from KAWS’ personal collection. The Drawing Center is free. If you’re even passingly interested in modern art, you should go before it ends in mid-January. It’s like seeing an incredibly dense, small space version of the Museum of Modern Art, through the lens of an artist whose work has managed to bring music, high art, and cartoons together in a way I find more aspirational now than I initially noticed.

If you’re in the music industry and in New York next week, you will see me in Manhattan and Brooklyn both - especially if you’re hitting up A2IM and Jump.Global’s events. Let’s grab coffee or a drink. It’s a perfect time of year for that.

Club’s Choice, Vol. 2 is out! I periodically put together playlists that collect the highlights from everything I’ve been seeking out over the last few months, including indie rock, indie pop, punk, metal, hip-hop, electronic, darkwave, and other genres. It’s not always easy to put a Club’s Choice playlist on shuffle, but that’s the whole point: they’re between 25-35 songs tops, and they’re always meant to command full attention for the artists in them. Because I know how hard it is to cut through as an emerging act, I don’t highlight anything that’s bubbling up to my usual music press reading; many of the acts in these are among my favorites from international conferences right now but probably aren’t touring heavily yet, and some have under 1,000 streams. No current clients, a couple prior Track of the Week picks, and this week’s Track of the Week up front. Beyond that, I trust my ears.

You can click the lime below to stream on Spotify or Apple Music. Bonus: follow @clubschoice on Instagram for visual mini-features slowly coming out for every one of these, and for purposes yet to be explained. Thank you to my friend Tara for debuting it to her Substack ahead of this.

The Club List is powered by beehiiv, the best newsletter platform I’ve ever used. Want to try it out? This link will give you a 30-day trial and discounts past that. I may make a small commission from this.

A Case For Wonder

I witnessed a really great interview the other day. Jeremy Sirota, the CEO of Merlin, was in discussion with Lawrence Peryer (host of Spotlight On and involved with a whole lot of other things as a producer and music industry-facing creator) as part of a series hosting them called The Smartest People in the Room. Sirota was asked why he wanted to work in the music industry, and as he explained it, “I’m not a musician, but I’m in awe of musicians.” Musicians, he observed, are so capable of doing something he can’t that it’s endlessly fascinating to him. Sort of like magic.

I’m from the opposite perspective. I’ve been making music my whole life. First I was a singer, finding my way around old Beatles records with a mom who trained as a concert soprano. Then I found guitar, and from about age 9, I was singing and playing, separately and together. I dabble in recording techniques and synthesizers somewhat regularly. I wrote my first song at 12, had my first band at 17, and co-wrote and released an album with my friends during pandemic lockdowns that was well-received enough to see US print magazine coverage. I picked up a music minor during college just to get some voice training and learn the basics of written theory.

And here I am, 15 years to the day that a visit to NYC for CMJ 2009 permanently cemented that music was what I wanted to do for work, telling you that I also have never stopped being in awe of musicians.

It is important to remain in wonder of creative energy. There is a ton of validity in Sirota’s approach. For me, I feel I only gain more wonder for it, the more deeply I understand it.

I used to be that guy who would stand at shows and think, “I could play that part better.” Then I matured into the guy who would think, “I would play that part differently, but I think it’s so cool that they’re playing it.” Now, I hear or see something that grabs my attention and just think, “Wow, it is so sick that they are playing this right now.”

I’ve come from a place of trying to say my own thing, to accepting how people express themselves in their own ways, to really genuinely loving the fact that anyone dares to express themselves meaningfully for others to listen to in a world that is filled with so many difficulties.

Here I stay, perpetually in awe and motivated to help, when I see artists sacrificing their time and resources to be part of an industry where the first step towards being successful is breaking even. 

Think about that. The modern dream of music, financially, is sustainability first - and then to amplify that into something career-shaped.

Yes, this is why I do the work that I do for musicians. I have seen the angles from which the music industry’s deck is stacked, and I care fanatically about dealing artists a better hand. There is a middle class to be expanded here, where more should be able to get ahead.

It’s also the reason I extended my work to include visual artists, as well as creative-minded companies that intrigue me. A lot of modern struggles - forced entrepreneurship being among the biggest of them, if you’re an artist - are universal, and require professional focus to help solve.

That focus wouldn’t be possible for me to maintain, or for anyone making things, without that awe intact. In all sides with creative industries, it’s deeply important to keep a sense of wonder. If your sense of wonder about it is going, it’s worth changing up your approach. 

This isn’t accounting, or day trading, or insurance adjusting. If you don’t care, you’re done. You have to stay excited, even if it requires making yourself a little uncomfortable.

New collaborators. A new company. A different band. Fewer shows. Fresh clients. 

Being a little jaded if you’ve got a lot of experience in one part of the creative game is one thing. What you don’t want is to lose touch with your love for creative work. Aside from the top 0.1% of performers and executives, few can justify getting into music, art, or anything adjacent for the money alone. 

Along the way, I’ve heard some music pros say, “Well, if I’d been good in school, I wouldn’t be doing this.” This is junk self-talk, and you shouldn’t listen to these people. I had a choice to make between journalism or physics when I was going into college because I’d enjoyed their component parts the most in high school, and journalism ultimately won out because it put me in the closest proximity to college radio. College radio led to working at CMJ, then to radio promotion, then to co-founding Marauder, and then everything I’m doing now. That’s a straight line with intent.

I had an online station in the UK blasting stuff I’d never heard before, the entire time I was writing this, and I maybe only found two or three songs I wanted to skip. That’s why I’m still here.

It’s hard to be in a creative field consistently. I’ve had my time to imagine other paths, and I always come back to working with creative energy. It feels as if all I wish to do, when I’m not making something for myself, is to help someone else stay on their version of this path. To me, creativity is the closest I can stand to the source of life, and even when it’s incredibly difficult, it is a privilege.

One Thing You Can Use Today

Here is something worth understanding about any business idea.

If you are in position to implement an idea and then do it fundamentally better than your competitors, it’s a good idea.

If you are in position to implement an idea that has clear demand and few or no competitors, it’s a great idea.

And if you are in position to implement an idea that you know will work but has no competitors at all, it will be an amazing idea - once people understand what your intent is and how it works.

I have had a few conversations over the last couple weeks that have led me to this train of thought. Being original carries risk and requires more education for your ideal customers, but it has an insane potential for reward.

And yes, this wholly extends to being an artist, too. Especially if you don’t fit cleanly into a specific genre.

Be brave.

Track of the Week

Balderdasch - “A Room for One”

Restlessly cinematic. A voice with immaculate control, shifting from gorgeous melodies to spoken word and peculiar tics capable of amping the usual tense-and-release of verse-chorus structures to unbearable degrees. Her production skills are, in themselves, a voice. That’s Balderdasch, a rare multi-talent whose craft suggests Björk-level inventiveness, pure theatre without pretense, and striking musicianship that samples from multiple generations at once. “A Room for One” opens her new EP Control the Ending; it was the easy pick for opening track on Club’s Choice, Vol. 2, and it’s just as easy to focus on here. If there is any justice in this world, you will read a lot more about her in the years ahead.

UK friends: she’s at Two Palms in London tonight. This club’s for you.

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, October 11 - Italomatic @ Earthly Delights
New venue in Ridgewood, hosting the best Italo disco party in town, on the second full weekend of my favorite month of the year. You already know where I’ll be.

Saturday, October 12 - Nowadays Nonstop
All-night dance party, on a bank holiday weekend? If you’ve never gone to a Nonstop (let alone Nowadays), this is the one to try.

Sunday, October 13 - Art and Type Magazine Launch Party @ Purgatory (free, suggested $5-10 donation)
We love a magazine launch around here, whether it’s the first issue or a few issues deep. Even better: this doubles as a DIY zine/collage night. If you’ve never made one, Sunday is a great time to start.

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.