A Little Help From My Friends

One of my main goals in 2012 is to immerse myself in the Bay Area music scene. Though I played over 125 gigs last year, the vast majority of them were wineries, farmers markets, and private parties -- events where I was the only performer. It makes me think of an excerpt from an interview with ?uestlove, the drummer from The Roots that I read last year on Hypebot. One of the central points of the interview was his belief that artists are better off as part of a movement:

"We were racking our brains on how to escape from the pack, how to matter...we looked at every successful artist. We pored over charts in industry magazines going back decades, looking for commonality. And what we found was that anyone who was successful was not isolated. Besides a couple of one-hit wonders in the '60s...every big act was part of a larger movement. The Beatles were by no means by themselves. The British Invasion also meant that you had the Stones, the Kinks, The Who..."

With that in mind, I'd like to tip my cap to a few artists that have been very influential to me:

Will Dailey

I met Will during my freshman year of college when he was hosting an open mic outside of Boston. He was freely giving of his advice and for every milestone that I achieved when I was living in Boston, he was directly involved in some manner. My first supporting slots at both The Paradise Lounge and The Paradise Rock Club were opening for Will and he produced my first full-length.

Will released his self-titled album, Will Dailey & The Rivals on Universal Records last year.

Cahill

When I graduated from college, I was planning on moving home to save some money as I figured out how to make a living performing music. I had met Scott and Bob, the songwriting duo Cahill, just a few months prior and they would absolutely not allow me to move home. Instead, they talked me into moving in with them. We were both entering our first year as acts in the Faneuil Hall Streetperformer program and were trying to build up notoriety in the college market. For the two years that I lived with them, we compared notes, songs, techniques, gripes, and played way, way too much Mario Kart.

Cahill is currently self-producing and recording their third full-length. They are still mainstays on the college market and Scott is still an inferior Mario Kart racer. Their most recent release is Where We Go From Here.

Taylor Brown

One of my first shows upon moving to the Bay Area was at a small restaurant in Danville. I arrived there and met Taylor who had, by some sort of error, been booked for the same show. Instead of letting us duke it out for the gig, the restaurant decided to cancel our performance altogether. They bought us dinner out of consolation. We ended up hitting it off and started comparing notes for getting gigs. I moved in with Taylor in January of 2011 and since then he has served as the artistic right-brain counterpart to my logical (somewhat neurotic) left-brain businessman. We have performed together a number of times and Taylor played on and co-produced The Hourglass EP.

Taylor just released his new EP, Secret Smile along with a music video for the first single, “Chemistry”.

Conclusion – I am indebted to all of these artists, am happy to call them all my friends, and use them as encouragement this year as I continue to put myself out there and get more familiar with the fantastic music scene that the Bay Area has to offer.

During this blog, I listened to Will Dailey's Torrent: Volumes 1 & 2