Brzowski: Blazing Your Own Trail

Posted by Justin Boland on Sep 02, 2008 | 0 Comments

What’s worked for you in 2008, in terms of promotion and marketing? What tools, websites and software have been helping you keep organized and spread the message?

Making interesting music is the most important component.

Beyond that, hard work in terms of bringing your music to the people where they live. Websites like myspace,facebook, and message boards can be helpful, but they are no substitution for hand-to hand flyering and touring.

For face-to-face flyering, what works for you? What’s the best approach, and what kind of mistakes have you learned to avoid?

Well, the first thing in a local sense is to hit whom you know. From there, they will bring their friends who may not be familiar with you, simply on the strength. Some people use flyers as an an excuse to talk to girls, which is fine, but to be real, you may get a date but not make a fan.

Hit up people with similar street hustle when traveling to ensure that you will at least have the core audience of someone musically related to you present.

How do you get mentally prepared for shows these days?  Is there any kind of ritual or system to that?

My ritual is hyper-activity.

A level of irritability pervades before shows; running around the club, adjusting the set list to fit time-slot and mood, making calls, networking, making nice with the soundperson. All the while taking the time to talk to fans and friends in the area and be sure they are having a good time. After all, the music may be dark and the mood heavy, but hell, we are hanging out in a bar on a Wednesday, so let’s make this a party.

What advice would you have for first-timers in terms of booking gigs, being prepared, and delivering the goods?  What are the most common mistakes you see other cats making?

1. Listen to people’s music before you holler at them about a show. Fans of Jadakiss don’t want to book Swordplay. (Swordy would never be guilty of this, I’m just using his name for realistic coloring)

2. After some years in the game, you allowed to say no to “opportunities” that, in fact, are not truly furthering your master plan.

3. Just because you can make $4000 in your city does not mean fans anywhere else have heard of you.  Be modest when asking guarantees unless you are touring with Guns N Roses or the ghost of Jerry Lee Lewis. This does not mean undercut yourself either, just be sympathetic to both sides when negotiating.

4. …and never,ever, hit me up on the interweb and ask me to check your beats for sale if i don’t have a working relationship with you personally. Your beats are probably trash if you have to whore them to people you don’t know. Fuck your presets.

You’ve got a reputation for killing it onstage.  Would you say live shows are the core of your gameplan or just one octopus arm?

Live shows are the best way to prove to your audience that you are indeed worth their money.

The other “arms” are always in the process of becoming: new albums, growing a name in multiple markets at once, etc. Right now I’m looking around at who is interested in my next album and can put some financial heft behind it. After 3 years of writing and revising, I’m not going to hand over my creative offspring to just anybody.

Right now Delusional Records and Milled Pavement are talking about dropping it collaboratively, and its smelling pretty good, as those folks are like family.

Now that you’ve gotten a number of projects completed, what kind of changes have you made to how you prepare for new albums now?  What are the hidden details you’ve learned to plan for?

The most important thing personally, is to work quickly, but not call something finished before you are happy with it. My time is finite (I work 50 hours at shit jobs to live in a hellhole in a newly gentrified city), so I have to take advantage of every free moment I have. When you release a project, you will not be present to personally prop it up, as opposed to a live performance. You have to be able to step away and know that your work will stand on its own.

Insofar as hidden details, just tack on an extra 2 months to your initial deadline, especially when other collaborators are involved. Nobody takes your art as seriously as you do. This goes for press/radio/vendors as well.

How do you balance collaborations and networking without over-extending or exhausting yourself?  Is there a conscious strategy or is it an unspoken martial art?

Man, it’s been a blur the past two years trying to strike a homeostasis between homelife/dayjob/commitments and the torrent of work to be done by a serious d.i.y. artist.

I still have not stuck it quite right. Its a challenge to go from Music Mode to Job Mode, to Booking Mode, to Relationship Mode and so on. The most important thing is to shut off the phone and computer for a day or 2 each week and just present where you are. I am exhausted perpetually…Dog Tired in the Fast Lane.

Insofar as collabs, I’m always honored to contribute if I know and enjoy the artist. I have collabs with Georg Korg(Russia), Moderskeppet (Sweden), and k-the-i??? all dropping this year on various albums, as well as an ep w/ Monsieur Sai (france). Staying busy.

Do you think the European hip hop scene is more open to collaboration and experimentation than the US these days?

Absolutely. Those folks are always reaching out to other artists for guest spots and collabos, and never really worried about purism…which is truly an an antiquated notion in our current cultural climate. The States still abide by relatively provincial standards set by the artists making good in NY/LA/Chicago/Houston. Check out the new Andrromak album for a perfect example of a release with global reach. At least 5 countries are represented.

Have you experimented with digital distribution services for your music?

I only sell digitally after the physical copies are nearly extinct, and my homies Milled Pavement have a deal with IODA, so I have that covered. I plan to re-press “Blooddrive Vol.2” again before making it available digitally. I am not really interested in digital-only releases, buying or selling. If a friend asks me to contribute to a digi-comp or whatever, I will on the strength, but it is not preferred. I just don’t see that sort of release as legitimate. Any asshole can have a website and release music these days. In the Myspace/Facebook/Serrato/ipod era, it is very difficult to sift through and find who is doing music in a tangible fashion….vs. hobbyists. Respect is due to the dj’s+ fans who still buy music in a physical format.The new album will likely come out digital shortly after the physical, just to move with the times,though thiat will not be my decision this time around. I may sound like a dinosaur, but who wants to leave their mark as a folder of mp3’s? If I had my way, all my releases would be vinyl and cassette only.

Do you handle your own recording and mixing?

I record at home, but all the mixing and mastering is done by the super-villain Agent 8. I am techno-deficient by comparison.

What would you like to see change in the music business over the next 5 years?

Brzowski: I don’t know if my desires about the state of the business are really relevant to voice. I am more interested in being able to achieve a level of sustainability within it.

I would like to see vinyl continue it’s upswing, and relocate Agent 8 to Easy Street.