The Mad Poets – LIVE at the Warehouse! Saturday, March 24, 2012

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The Mad Poets – LIVE at The Warehouse! – March 24, 2012

Pinterest: Pinterested or UnPinterested?

A lot has been discussed on and off the internet about the practicality and effectiveness of using Pinterest in business.  Some have lauded it, while others have denigrated it.

Some thoughts…

In researching the initial concept behind Pinterest, I believe it was primarily designed as a social media tool that allows people to connect through sharing personal or public internet images they can easily and quickly “pin” to their page’s subject “boards.”   And quite honestly, I do believe it was initially geared towards or at least favored by stay-home doctors’ and bankers’ wives, soccer moms, hobbyists, dreamers, etc.

Regardless of its inception, small businesses are now using it to sell or draw attention to their mom-and-pop-shopped, home-manufactured “widgets.”  Will anyone get rich quick?  Probably not quickly, but it’s too early yet to measure the returns on their investment, which is free (as long as the pinning doesn’t become addicting, time equaling money).  As far as its effectiveness, remember that Twitter and Facebook seemed to exist only as an excuse for high school students NOT to do their homework or get to their next class on time.  Now look at how businesses are using both.

For service industries, such as music performance, it’s a little more difficult to see Pinterest’s potential usefulness, but I do believe it is there.  What can using it hurt?  It’s free, and once the boards are in place, it’s almost effortless – just a matter of pinning (sharing) images and videos, by the way.  Does your band have a video currently on YouTube?  Do you have promotional images of your band or logo?  Then toss them up there!  Why not?!  Someone who normally may not see your band WILL now see it, even if he or she doesn’t “re-pin” the image or video.  Boast your band!  Create a board that has logos of the clubs you’ve played in, or want to play in.  Make a board of your band’s influences.  Make another board for your merchandising!  Pictures are eye-catching.  Pinterest could create for you a wordless resume in images for your band.  I find the possibilities intriguing, a picture to me being worth more than a thousand words.  And even in saying that, each image has a space for a “description.”

Additionally, once developed, Pinterest could become quite valuable.  Anything could potentially become “the next big thing.”  The public couldn’t live without MySpace and Friendster, and now they are both graveyards.  Everything is transient.  If books, magazines and CDs can die off as they are presently doing, so can Facebook, YouTube and music downloading (in its current form).  More than anything, if people are in fact flocking to Pinterest in waves, then take advantage of it!

I like Pinterest if only for one reason: publicity.  It’s useful to a band, like with Twitter.  Just today, I got an email conformation that a specific venue I have been trying to get the Mad Poets to play in is now following us on Twitter.  Meaningless?  Maybe…but maybe not.  I do know this: Someone – because of their affiliation in some capacity with that venue, who is obviously working for that venue – has now seen the name, “The Mad Poets.”  That’s great!  We are a band that structures its processes in building our following a lot like how the Grateful Dead did: one fan at a time.  As far as Pinterest goes, five people whose names I don’t recognize have already “re-pinned” some of our Mad Poets images (automated confirmations, including the name of the “pinner” are emailed).  We’ve only had our account up with Pinterest for a couple of days!  One last question I pose to you: Can your band suffer from too many people being made aware of its name?!

For a musician or band not to use any and every promotional resource available to them, especially ones that are free, just because they can’t see the potential worth of that resource, is just being short-sighted!  ALWAYS think outside of the box in ALL that you do, especially when it comes to promoting yourself and your music!

The Mad Poets – LIVE at DeMito Time! – February 25, 2012

The Mad Poets – LIVE at the Elbo Room – Thursday, February 2!

The Mad Poets – LIVE! at Rinaldi’s After Dark, Chicago, IL – Friday, January 27, 2012

Street Player: My Chicago Story, By Danny Seraphine

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Danny Seraphine, the bandChicago’s co-founder and drummer extraordinaire from 1967 to 1990, has written the first book by any current or former member about the 70s and 80s iconic band.

Seraphine, born in Chicago’s New Little Italy, received the bulk of his education on some of the toughest streets in the city.  As a high school dropout, Seraphine had two choices in life: become a low-level, mafia street thug; or become a professional drummer.

His selection as a replacement drummer with Jimmy Ford and the Executives introduced Seraphine to future long time playing partners, saxophonist Walt Parazaider, and tragic guitar legend, Terry Kath.  When their services in that band fell through, the three joined a local cover band called, the Missing Links.  Eventual dissatisfaction with the type of music they were playing, as well as the shoddy performance venues they were forced to put up with, motivated them to form a new kind of horn band.  This project would feature no “front man,” be 100% about the music, and be comprised of the best players they could find in Chicago.  Membership in this new band of brothers, which was soon to known as the Big Thing, additionally included trumpeter Lee Loughnane, trombonist Jimmy Pankow, and piano/organist Robert Lamm.

After signing a management deal with James William Guercio, and also securing bassist Peter Cetera, the band made it’s way out to California.  Renamed Chicago Transit Authority, then simply Chicago, the band endured many hardships before acquiring fame.

However, it could be strongly argued that Chicago’s toughest hardships occurred after they attained the success they longed for.  As Seraphine describes – sometimes broadly, while at other times in great detail – the mental breakdowns, jealousies, infighting, physical altercations, infidelities, minor scandals, mismanagement, serial writer’s block, financial blunders, one band member’s defection, and the untimely death of their guitar genius all point to one major contributing factor: drugs.

I always wondered why there was never a book written by Chicago about Chicago, and now I have my answer:  Who in the band would WANT their story told truthfully?!  There are many sad and dark tales hidden behind that silk-screened, Coca-Cola lettered logo.  It would be easy to condemn Seraphine (who was fired from the band for reasons that depend upon which side of the issue you ask) for writing this autobiography if it wasn’t for the fact that he seems to assign blame to himself as much as anyone else he writes about, and keeps all the who-had-affairs-with-whom discreetly out of his story, unless he is speaking about himself.

As much as I have admired Chicago, which goes as far back as when “Make Me Smile” and “25 Or 6 To 4” were new songs, my biggest gripe with the band has NEVER been about their inability to replace the irreplaceable Terry Kath.  No, my beef involves how they switched from being the innovators of their craft to being the followers of trends, like the period immediately following Kath’s death (disco, and their fading use of quality horn arrangements).  By the 1980s, Chicago was no longer simply following trends but rather chasing after them (drum programming, rock/power ballads, and little to sometimes no use of the horns)!

Sure, their musical performances from the very beginning of the band’s career have pushed the envelope at times (Walt Parazaider’s unique solo in “Movin’ On” from Chicago II comes to mind), and yes, I wish I had a dime for every time they said the words, “I don’t know,” in their lyrics.  But the instrumentation, band and horn arrangements, vocal leads and harmonies, song and chord structuring, album production, and sheer drive (that they possessed at least once upon a time) made Chicago a fascinating, fantastically exciting band to listen to THAT DOES warrant inclusion into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!

Okay, okay – end of sermon.

Seraphine delivers here an intriguing retrospective about his time withChicago.  Well written and possessing a good storytelling sense, this interesting look into the inner workings of a band that was never fully as respected as it should have been, makes Street Player an excellent read.