joebrown

The Dirty Spot #1: The Venetia Fair's Joe Brown on the ups and downs of pursuing a musician's career

Being a smaller band that didn't get the immediate success of the slew of bands that have gained semi-stardom in the scene can be tough.  My bandmates (in the Venetia Fair) and I have seen countless bands with the same cookie-cutter song writing formulas, the same nasally high pitch singing, and the same br00tal frontman jump from local heroes to fan favorites in what seems like seconds, while we've been busting our asses coming up with unique material that we truly take pride in.  We've scratched our heads in frustration, but always hang onto our integrity hoping that our originality and perseverance pays off. 

I hate sounding like a whiny bitch, but thats part of what this blog is about.  I don't care how many posts you see on Facebook or Twitter where an artist or band says “I do this for the music, not for the fans,” I can almost confidently say that statement is not 100% true.  The truth is that every musician has an ego.  We have to have one.  The same as every Olympian has to believe that they can win gold.  If you don't have the ego, you don't have the motivation to win.  Every band thinks their music is worth listening to.  They want the attention.  Hell, I'm guilty of it.  Of course I want my band to succeed.  The frustration of being in a band that you pour your heart and soul and all of your energy into with little result is overwhelming at times.  However, there are few people I know that would trade in the overall experience of it all for a 9-5. 

Lets face it, we're kind of dead beats.  We're college dropouts.  Either the system failed us or we are all too stubborn to face “the real world.”  Our parents are upset with us.  We're constantly thinking about what life could have been like had we just did what our guidance counselors told us.  We could be living it up with all of our friends on weekends after the weekly grind.  We wouldn't have to skip that crazy night at the bar because we had band practice, or more commonly, we “just don't have the money for that.”  Instead, we're still living off our parents or our girlfriends.  Some of us have moved on and have worked any job that will let us leave for months at a time while we chase our dreams. 

It's not all bad, though.  If it was all bad, I don't think we would do it.  Remember when I said it wasn't 100% true musicians only do it for the music?  Well… thats still true, but a lot of that percentage IS for the music.  We do what we do because we love to do it.  Why else would we?  Theres no payoff (for now at least) and we don't have the groupies like you may think we do.  But we do love writing and playing music.  And we do love riding around the country in a van with all our friends. 

Some of my friends from high school asked me if I wanted to go on a road trip with them recently.  They were so excited that they could get away from work for a week and drive around aimlessly to see stupid shit that they saw on the internet.  My response was that I couldn't go because I had work to do with my band.  I didn't feel bad about it.  I get to go on road trips with my best friends all the time AND we get to play music to people that WANT to listen.  And if they don't want to listen, we shove it down their stupid little throats anyways.

I think my band knows how to operate on the road just as good as any other band.  Us kids in the Venetia Fair know how to have a good time while getting shit done at the same time.  Of course, we get frustrated sometimes with shitty shows and douchebag attendees, but we get some pretty intense and crazy stories from them. 

This blog is about those stories.  The ridiculous stories and the shit stories.  There are plenty of both.  Seeing as this is the first blog of many weekly updates to come, take this as sort of an introduction.  Get ready for some real weird shit.  And some real vulgar shit.  There won't be many stories that you would want your parents reading.  And please, take my whininess with a grain of salt… I'm not that much of a pussy.  It's just my musicians ego getting in the way.