Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

krisis

Krisis has been creating Crushing Krisis since 2000, writing songs since 1996, and reading comics since 1991. He is a Customer Success and Digital Brand Strategy executive, serial organizer, parent, and feminist, among other things. Based in Philly through 2017, he now resides in Wellington, NZ.

Don’t let your vote go uncounted in PA!

by

Here’s a public service announcement from the awesome folks at Skeleton Balls comics, because the only election result that will truly make me happy this November is knowing that every one of my friends and readers took the opportunity to vote.

If you aren’t already aware, Pennsylvania recently passed Voter ID law that is effectively a cynical act of voter suppression targeting lower income residents and young people. And, let me speak from experience here, it is an awful feeling to show up to cast your vote and be told you are unable to submit a ballot. Please don’t let that happen to you.

Art and valuable info by Skeleton Balls Comics.

For more information on the Voter ID requirements in PA, see the VotesPA website. They also have a handy polling place look-up tool! Pertinent: Even if you don’t have ID, you cannot be denied your right to vote – you should still be allowed to cast a provisional ballot.

Also, the Pennsylvania Department of Heath is reportly issuing free Birth Certificates, if you need one to get a new PA driver’s license or passport. The webpage only mentions refunds for certifications requested earlier this year, but I think that’s because they’re now for free? Unclear.

Unsure if you are registered already? There’s a simple web look-up tool that will tell you, along with advising on your polling place.

100% turnout, people! Let’s make it happen! The best result of an election is not your favored candidate winning – it is the vast majority of the American people engaging in our electoral process.

Who are your people?

by

With Jake exported to lovely Rochester, New York for  little while, Gina and I have retooled our mid-week rehearsal into a sort of combo rehearsal, business meeting, new material audition, and general goofing-off night.

Which, honestly, is not so different than what it was when Jake was around for it, but now it’s been officially christened as such.

One of the things we talked about last night was something that came up over impromptu dinner with Matthew Ebel and Nan at #140Conf in June.

Matthew is an indie musician who is totally on the path of 1000 True Fans – and he makes it work spectacularly with steady touring and releases combined with a subscription service and webcasts. He was also the first ever musical director of the conference. I’ve wanted to sit down and chat with him ever since a brief run-in with him at the 2010 conference, so I was psyched to catch up with him about touring, songwriting, and our shared love of Amanda Palmer.

Eventually, conversation turned to my own motley collection of musical acts. Matthew set down his drink, stared me down across the table, and said, “Who are your fans?”

Now, I’m not so delusional as to think I have a massive fan base across all of my acts, but we’ve accumulating our steady listeners over the years. I began to stammer about them, but Matthew cut me off.

“Look, you’ve got friends who dig you. Fine. That’s not what I asked. I said, ‘who are your fans?’ Your people?”

This is the rabbit hole that Gina and I headed down last night. Matthew’s point to me over that dinner was that it’s all well and good to have fans here and listeners there, but it pays to know who your true demographic is. Twenty-something 70s nostalgics? Steam punk enthusiasts? X-Men fans?

It’s basic marketing, and I do it at work all the time at the start of a new project. We produce ad campaigns towards a specific audience, so why not do the same thing for our music?

I guess some musicians might shy away from this whole concept because it’s not artistic, or some frilly bullshit like that. Whatever. In the old, “find a label to be your patron” model of music, there was some marketing person and their intern out there scrambling to figure out your target audience so you could focus on being an ARTISTE.

Well, now your target audience is your patron, as it should be – and it’s your job to know who they are. Figuring out who they are doesn’t mean you have to write songs just for them or anything like that. It’s just a matter of fishing where the fish are. If all the Star Trek fans dig your music, then you better be playing it somewhere where Star Trek fans congregate. Matthew’s point was that putting together that thousand-plus fans is a little easier to do if they aren’t all one-off transactions.

So, who are our people? I don’t know. People in Philadelphia and People on Twitter are apparently categories too large, and People With an Endless Fascination With the End Times But Not In a Morbid Way might be a little too specific.

We’ll figure it out.

(Thanks to Mr. Ebel for a delightful dinner, and for hopefully being gracious about all of the misquoting of him I just did above. Be sure to check out his Lives of Dexter Peterson.)

smash in the studio

by

I haven’t recorded much new music for you since we moved into our house in 2010, which is downright odd, since now I have an entire music studio to produce in instead of an itty little 12’x12′ home office slash studio slash dressing room slash equipment shed.

The space is a plus and a minus. It’s a plus to not have all of my guitars piled up on top of each other in my walk in closet so I can never play any of them. The minus is, I’m only really working in the studio if I’m working in the studio. Do you catch my drift? It’s not like I’m trying to choose a shirt to wear to a party and taking a quick listen to a mix, or EQing vocals between blog posts.

Just after agreeing to try being a band, as shot by @SuzyMags. Yes, I am wielding a neon green yoga mat, like the fucking rock star I am.

I spent yesterday locked in the studio, building an acoustic track from scratch for my new covers side project, Smash Fantastic.

I know, I know – another project? Am I ever going to make a freaking blog post, let alone focus on a band?

My excuse is that Smash Fantastic really plugged a hole in what I want to be doing. I love cover songs, and I love big-voiced woman. I tend to err in those directions for my own solo sets, but there’s only a pretty specific audience for my covering Kelly Clarkson and Lady Gaga.

Plus, let’s be honest, when am I every playing solo anymore?

Enter my friend and colleague Ashley. She has the pipes for those sorts of songs, but not an outlet for the sound. After a few months of messing around progressed to having a serious repertoire and a pair of performances, it seemed like time to have a demo.

Thus my day in the studio – first alone, and later with Ashley, covering one of our favorite songs line by line.

It felt really good. Not just the recording of it, but the knowing what I was doing, and the having the space to execute my vision without clearing a pile of clothes from where it was hanging over a microphone stand.

Now I just have to spend enough more time in the studio to turn the sum of 28 multi-track recordings from Arcati Crisis, Filmstar, and Smash Fantastic into actual, listenable songs.

I guess what I’m saying is: new music, coming soon!

place complaints in the circular file

by

I am conducting an experiment in post-Vermont tranquility: no more complaining.

I don’t think it will be very hard, as I’m not really a complainer by nature.

Wait, let me phrase that a little more carefully so it’s not used against me in the future.

Complaining about complainers who complain about complaints.

I’m not an idle complainer. I don’t see much point in deriding what I don’t have the will or want to change, unless of course I’m doing it under the guise of writing  scathing critique for our collective entertainment. Otherwise, I’m usually much more focused on what I can do and improve on my own than concentrating on what the people around me or doing wrong.

Yet, lately I find I have plenty of idle complaints about the world around me. People not trying hard enough, not working as a team, complaining too much. Complaining about others complaining too much! What if they complain about my complaining too? It’s like an Ouroboros on Scully’s back, swallowing itself again and again.

That’s not me. It makes me unhappy, and I feel unlike myself.

So here is my proposal for myself and all of you. We stop making complaints. Period. I don’t care if its about waiting in line, or that annoying thing your partner does in the kitchen, or the one thing that drives you the craziest in the entire world. Complaining connotes something having power over us, like telling it our true name.

Inside, I’m going to issue improvements. Corrections. Fixes. Every time I want to idly bitch about something that’s wrong, instead I am going to turn it into something that’s right.

Either that, or write a very scathing critique of it.

Farewell, Vt.

by

This was one of my favorite sights on Route 7 when we last visited Vermont. I made E pull a ridiculous turn in the middle of the highway so I could get a photo of it this time.

The business behind it has a FOR SALE sign up, so who knows if it will be there next time.

No, I did not inquire to see if the statue could be purchased a la cart.

Now for another eight hours of driving.