SonicJive Manifesto

Article III - Take A Strong Stand

BUZZWORD: EMPOWERMENT

(just an aside here: the word buzzword is in fact a buzzword, and as I have stated on numerous occasions I am very anti-buzzword, but use them only as a means of stressing a point in verbiage that is more common than it should be - a condition commonly referred to as "if you can't beat them - join them" - and by no means should this be interpreted as me endorsing such use.)

George W. Bush - "We chose this course of action to help create greater robusticity in the financial industry" - Gotta love BUZZWORDS that aren't really words at all - but I digress. Read on, please.

Trying to be all things to everyone inevitably leads to meaning too little to anybody. You have to have confidence in your own ideas. Deciding what you want your band to stand for must come from a firm set of well thought out beliefs that you are prepared to defend on any battleground.

The guy (or band) who believes in himself the most usually comes out on top. So what if not everyone likes you? Most people don't like you anyway - they certainly don't dig on me and I am okay with that. The ones that do mean the most to me and I am inseparable from them. So make those who do dig on you your loyal friends and supporters forever, and if you still need to be loved by the newbies, be equally strong in defense of what you stand for.

Classic example - the guy who acts one way around his friends and completely different around his girlfriend. Be unilateral in how you treat EVERYONE. The same goes in promoting yourself and your band. Your core fans - the ones who have been with you from day one - need to be just as important, in fact more so, than all the newbie fans who jump on your bandwagon.

We all know Al Gore lost the election in 2000 due to the chad incident in Florida. But the fact of the matter was that he couldn't even earn the delegates from the state in which he was Governor, Tennessee. Had he earned those electoral votes, Florida would not have mattered and Gore would have won the Presidential nomination. He neglected the very people that launched his political career in his search to amass popularity elsewhere.

This happens in music all the time and is the reason why so many bands lack the power to sustain success. Never forget your roots. I am from Chicago, born and raised, and I have left a few times and plan on eventually moving somewhere else again. My father used to say, you can take the boy out of Chicago, but you can't take Chicago out of the boy.
Take a strong stand for who and what you are and never waiver. Remember who you are and where you came from and who got you where you are now, for those people will help you get exactly where you want to go.

You are now on the road to sustaining success.