{"id":2015,"date":"2009-06-10T04:48:29","date_gmt":"2009-06-10T12:48:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/?p=2015"},"modified":"2009-06-10T04:55:56","modified_gmt":"2009-06-10T12:55:56","slug":"guy-starts-dance-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2009\/06\/10\/guy-starts-dance-party\/","title":{"rendered":"Guy Starts Dance Party"},"content":{"rendered":"

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What if he had a megaphone.\u00c2\u00a0 And implored those in attendance to join in, telling them he was the new dance king and they’d enjoy participating?<\/p>\n

He’d have been shouted down, if not stoned to death.<\/p>\n

I won’t say the gentleman in this viral video dances as poorly as Elaine on "Seinfeld", but the moves he’s busting are not attractive.\u00c2\u00a0 And his appeal is not his handsomeness, rather it’s his joy and his lack of self-consciousness.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re drawn to those who are not sheep, who do their own thing, who BELIEVE in what they’re doing.<\/p>\n

He’s dancing alone.\u00c2\u00a0 For almost twenty seconds.\u00c2\u00a0 And rather than being right down front, where everybody can see him, he’s in Siberia, on the side of the lawn, way in the back.<\/p>\n

Those two geeks dance together for fully thirty seconds, not needing more people to continue.\u00c2\u00a0 Then, a guy looking like Dan Schneider, the fat kid on "Head Of The Class", comes down and joins them.\u00c2\u00a0 THIS is not a party you want to attend by mainstream parameters.\u00c2\u00a0 These are geeks, they’re to be ignored!<\/p>\n

But twenty five seconds later, new dancers join in.\u00c2\u00a0 They were not recruited, were not sent text messages, were not victims of promotional e-mails they didn’t sign up to get, rather they joined purely on the desire to be a part of the fun!<\/p>\n

Suddenly, a handful of seconds later, it’s a party.\u00c2\u00a0 Then people are RUNNING to join in.\u00c2\u00a0 By the two minute mark, it’s a CONFLAGRATION! It’s the highlight of the gig!\u00c2\u00a0 People don’t want to be left out, they’re trampling others to join in!<\/p>\n

This is the arc of an act’s career today.<\/p>\n

You’re doing your own thing, seemingly in the wilderness, with the goal that a spark ignites others to join in.\u00c2\u00a0 Your main sales point is the fact that you’re doing it.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not about marketing, new media just allows the word to spread faster if you catch fire.<\/p>\n

All those great bands of yore…\u00c2\u00a0 They sounded NOTHING like anything else.\u00c2\u00a0 They weren’t an instant hit, but suddenly Jethro Tull was selling out arenas.\u00c2\u00a0 They weren’t jammed down people’s throats, but word of mouth as to their difference, as to their uniqueness, as to their QUALITY, caused an audience to form.<\/p>\n

The Tommy Mottola\/Clive Davis marketing technique is now a sideshow.\u00c2\u00a0 Wherein you ramp up the publicity to a fevered pitch, so everybody has to buy in!\u00c2\u00a0 Few are paying attention to the mainstream media, album sales are abysmal, people want something different.<\/p>\n

But we’ve still got an industry that’s looking for the secret, how to tap into today’s audience and make a fortune.<\/p>\n

It’s very simple.\u00c2\u00a0 You create something different, that’s good, and hang in there until you hit critical mass.\u00c2\u00a0 And this mass will be decided by the audience!\u00c2\u00a0 If you do anything to goose it, you’ll kill it, or at least cut down its longevity.<\/p>\n

This is anathema to American business.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ve got stockholders!\u00c2\u00a0 We need short term results!\u00c2\u00a0 Wring more money out of the customer!<\/p>\n

Charge more, and people won’t bother experimenting.\u00c2\u00a0 It didn’t cost anything to join this dance party, just like it shouldn’t cost anything to hear your music.\u00c2\u00a0 But if an attendee has a good enough time, he’ll come back NEXT YEAR to Sasquatch!\u00c2\u00a0 Just like someone who loves your music will come see you LIVE!<\/p>\n

Everything’s slow now.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s about perseverance and credibility.\u00c2\u00a0 If you can’t wait…\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re not willing to continue polishing your act, getting better and better, with little revenue to show for it, you don’t belong in this business.<\/p>\n

Just like Phil Schiller got better at giving Apple presentations by doing them, you’re going to get better by doing more shows, by making more recordings.\u00c2\u00a0 Initially Phil was lame, like the kid in the back of the class asked by the teacher to do a social studies presentation.\u00c2\u00a0 Now, years later, forced to take over Steve Jobs’ gig as spokesman, he’s finally good!<\/p>\n

Don’t expect to be good immediately.\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t follow, don’t do what other people already are.\u00c2\u00a0 Seth Godin nailed that re Bing…\u00c2\u00a0 Do we need another Google?\u00c2\u00a0 NO!\u00c2\u00a0 We need something new, and different, that speaks to us, that we couldn’t FORESEE! <\/p>\n

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The next Google<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Your goal is not to do market research, to ask the public what it wants, but to believe in yourself.\u00c2\u00a0 But belief is nothing without practice, without quality.\u00c2\u00a0 And the focus is on music, not marketing.\u00c2\u00a0 So, if you’ve got a great Facebook page, it’s not as good as a great song.\u00c2\u00a0 As for practicing…\u00c2\u00a0 Read "The Talent Code"<\/a> to understand not all practice is the same.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s when you challenge yourself, make mistakes, do something new, that you get better.\u00c2\u00a0 Not when you get together in the garage and rehearse the same damn songs over and over and then play Xbox.<\/p>\n

This video is a metaphor for the music business.\u00c2\u00a0 It happens slowly, you can’t give up.\u00c2\u00a0 But if you’re electric, charismatic, singing material the public can relate to, you can become gigantic overnight!\u00c2\u00a0 (After ten years\/10,000 hours of working in the trenches!)<\/p>\n

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What if he had a megaphone.\u00c2\u00a0 And implored those in attendance to join in, telling them he was the new dance king and they’d enjoy participating? He’d have been shouted down, if not stoned to death. I won’t say the gentleman in this viral video dances as poorly as Elaine on "Seinfeld", but the moves […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-wv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2015"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2017,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2015\/revisions\/2017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}