So last Sunday we had our big Sound Off! meeting with the other bands participating, and it was definitely a good learning experience. There was a panel of EMP employees working on Sound Off who briefed us on what to expect, and then a panel of Jason Finn (drummer, Presidents of The USA), Kerri Harrop (manager of Mad Rad), and Michael Jaworski (Virgin Islands, founder of Mt. Fuji Records) moderated by Ben London of Grammy U filled us in on what it takes to make it in the industry today. They talked a lot about how important having a community around you is, touring (“you’re going to be sleeping on a lot floors” - Jason Finn), and their personal histories.

During the break we had a meet and greet, and good god am I horrible at meet and greets. Fortunately for me (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it) I was with a bunch of musicians, and musicians aren’t really known for their social graces. Don’t get me wrong, everyone was very nice (especially Us on Roofs, possibly the nicest people I’ve met in my life), but this is how the average conversation went:

Me: “Hey guys I’m Ryan from Great Waves, what band are you guys from?”
Them: “We’re from (band name) we really like/love/dig your music”
Me: “Thanks man, you guys are great as well!”
Them: “Thanks a lot”
(Awkward silence)
Me: “Soooooo…”
Them: “…Yeah”
Me: “OK” (smiles awkwardly, slowly backs away)

God I’m awkward. Whatever, at least I wasn’t as bad as some of my bandmates, who conveniently all had to go to the bathroom right as we were encouraged to meet the other bands cough cough PAUL WILL ELLIOT cough cough. Nice one guys.

We also had a show last night, the ACOUSTAX show at KTUB, and well…it wasn’t our best show in the world. That’s ok though, I’d rather be working out the kinks over a month before Sound Off instead of a week before, and Chris the guy in charge of booking was very gracious and nice so it’s always worth it to meet guys like that.

Anyway, we have a really awesome show next week with Sound Off bands Candysound and A Cozy Kitchen so you should really try to make it out. It’s this Saturday, January 23rd at 7pm at The LAB.

That’s it for this week guys, have a good one.

- Ryan