Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand
by krisis
Some comments that got cut from this chatty Trio, and chords for “Tempted”… [Read more…] about Trio Season 6 – Suite #5: Morning Light
by krisis
A sample of what I had to say in this Trio…
Something Real
I’ve really learned a lot about my own songs, and about having some confidence in sometimes doing something different. There are many songs of that nature – many of which are about Elise – from throughout the years that aren’t in one of my “normal genres,” whatever they may be. And the song gets sidetracked.
22 Steps, by Andy Stochansky
It was one of those moments that you sometimes can have at a concert where the whole room went silent. Afterward everybody knew they had seen something major. It’s a wonderfully crafted song – I hold it up against “Every Breath You Take.”
What It Is
It’s from the complete opposite end of the spectrum of our relationship than “Something Real.” It’s unusual in that it never quite feels finished … it came all in one shot, but when I play it it’s never quite right.
Trio – the original singer-songwriter web session – returns for its sixth season featuring my original music, recorded live and DIY in my bedroom. You can download this Trio, or listen to a previous Trio:
by krisis
I am profoundly tired.
The day that preceded that condition included some crazy legwork at the office, as well as three hours of hosting LP’s new Wednesday night open mic @ Intermezzo at 31st and Walnut.
However, the root cause of the weariness extends back several days, during which I have been trying to squeeze in more content than a day can hold. Much of that content has been wedding-related.
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I love all the dire wedding warnings that come from every quarter when you first get engaged. I suppose it’s a cultural hazing thing? I just don’t get it. Each of our favorite weddings were relatively lacking in insanity and drama according to the various brides. Also, we’re both OCD project managers with the same taste in everything.
Right. Remind me to come back and read this post in about twelve months and see what I have to say about it.
Well, I’m back a week shy of one year later to report that I still agree with that sentiment. Maybe you should ask me again in two more months.
In the past year I’ve discovered that weddings don’t have to be difficult projects filled with temper tantrums. We’ve certainly had some stressful moments, and we’ve argued and disagreed over a few things. I’m sure that’s true for every couple, no matter how in-sync they are. Yet, on the whole the entire planning process has been … well, mostly just fun.
It helps that we’re both OCD project managers with experience in communications and event planning. Elise methodically steers the critical path of our overall project plan, and I own a subset of tasks – one of which recently resulted in booking the fantastic Alexandra Day to play our cocktail reception. Anything that deviates from the plan is addressed or eliminated. Several cagey or uncooperative vendors have been jettisoned prior to signing a contract. All four sets of parents have been supportive and barely meddlesome. Whenever we get stuck we ask our parties for advice; they have solved every problem we’ve come up with so far.
The past week has been especially active because we mailed our invites on Monday. They are definitely amongst the top five most awesome wedding invites I have ever laid hands or eyes on. Not coincidentally, all five invites on my most-awesome list were at least partially self-designed and hand-made, with every aspect of their formats customized to the personality of the couple.
Elise and I started discussing our ideas for invites as early as January. At the time our wedding was still fresh news, rendering it the lead-in topic of every conversation. Since invites were one of the few things already underway I was eager to talk about our ideas to everyone. Surprisingly, I heard a handful of puzzlingly dismissive comments, usually along the lines of the following:
Me: “… and, we’re designing and producing our invites by ourselves!”
Them: “Oh, I guess you’re trying to cut costs, huh?”
Me: “Not really. We both do similar projects all day at work; we thought it would be fun to do one together.”
Them: “Yeah, sure, it’s neat when people find a way save money on their wedding.”
Me: “Actually, it’s more about designing exactly what we want.”
Them: “Yeah, sure, and you can do it really cheaply that way.”
Me: “I don’t think we’ll save very much. It’s just that we’ll have control over the quality.”
Them: “Yeah, sure, but they won’t be as nice as invites you buy out of a book.”
Me: “Um… [bangs head against the counter]”
Ultimately we did save some money on materials compared to “customized” wedding invites available from a book or online. But, that wasn’t the point, and it isn’t even a fair comparison. The definition of “custom” in commercially produced invitations is vastly different from our own, which features unique text and layout, high-end specialty paper, a bevy of custom shapes and die-cuts, and hand-embossing.
To get a better sense of how “cheap” our invites really were, I sought out a more realistic comparison. I showed a final invite to one of the senior designers at work and asked her to quote what she would charge to produce them as a freelance project.
Once she was done calling in other members of her team to marvel at our amazing paper, she conservatively estimated that she would have charged at least $700 for the design (not including costs for comps), $500 or more for the time Elise spent on hand-assembly (some of which she would have sent to a vendor for digital die-cut), and a 10-15% markup on our material costs. And, that doesn’t account for our hours of debate over colors, paper weights, fonts, and content, or our extensive usability testing with a series of prototypes,
Essentially, Elise put in the commercial equivalent of more than $1200 worth of woman-power into our invites. If you also factor in her material costs, we just sent out a fleet of invites valued at over $21 a piece, not including postage. And that’s the conservative estimate.
I haven’t done too much market research, but I don’t think that’s very “cheap” in comparison with the industry average, no matter what your definition of “custom.”
I think that even the cost-cutting crowd from above would appreciate all of the effort … if they received an invite. Which they didn’t. Why? Because I cut their rude asses from the guest list months ago … even before we paid for venues, meals, and dresses they were more interested in how much our wedding cost than in how much it was about us.
(Aside from that alteration, our final guest list was nearly identical to the list we originally drafted a year ago this week. Again, why does this cause people stress? It’s pretty simple. First, when you get engaged write out a list of all of the people who you might like to see when you get married, as well as those who want to see you when you get married – not because they expect to be invited or because they are calculating the tab in their heads, but because they care about you. (If you are me you will supply a draft of this list along with the engagement ring.) Then, check with your parents and close friends to see if you forgot anyone important (and by important I mean important to you). Next, stratify your full list in some way – like, small-wedding vs. large-wedding, must-invite vs. should-invite, A-B-C-D lists, 80/20 rule, or whatever. Once you have established a budget and looked at some venues it will be clear which version of that stratified list you can afford to invite. Finally, send invites to those people. The end. If that means you wound up cutting a cousin in favor of a co-worker, so be it. Life goes on.)
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As part of the invite process Elise built a staggeringly detailed web site that matches the overall look of our wedding “campaign,” and on it she placed the first three entries in my series of ten engagement posts.
Seeing as the wedding quickly approaches, I’m thinking I should write the other seven in pretty short order.
And rent a tuxedo. And buy my wedding band.
And go to sleep.
by krisis
Last night Arcati Crisis played our first true headlining set inside of the Philadelphia city limits, in a fantastic space upstairs from Zot Restaurant, sharing the bill with our good friends Lindsay Wilhelmi, Andra Taylor, and Nate Dodge.
In my increasingly frequent travels in the Philly music scene I often feel like an amateur, and in open-miking I still am. There are Philly artists who have honed the art of open mike to a fine, fine point, and are able to score kudos from a crowd of strangers on every outing.
I’m not that. But, I am a communications professional, a project manager, a Lyndzapalooza organizer, and a reformed amateur theatre junkie, and I brought all of those experiences to bear on what turned out to be an amazing show. I designed the flyers, I worked with all of the performers come to a consensus on our schedule, I provided a sound system in a pinch, and I refocused lights and worked the crowd throughout the night.
I don’t mean that to sound like I take credit for our night, because if I had done all of that of that for a four-hour solo Peter show I wouldn’t have garnered nearly the same amount of support or success. Just as there’s something magical about the harmony of Arcati Crisis, there was something special about sharing a real bill with Lindsay after how hard we’ve worked on our music together over the years, and about sharing a stage with our new friends Andra and Nate, who energize and inspire us with every performance.
Would the flyers have been as cool if I hadn’t been designing on their behalf? Would the schedule have been so intuitive without their brains? Would the PA have been worth carrying up the stairs without Lindsay to strike a balance on the initial mix? Would the lights be worth refocusing without a bill of compelling performers to watch?
I can’t take credit for combining the four of us – to that we owe our thanks to David Simons of Five Year Plan Entertainment, who gave us all the chance to be heard, and to be heard together. It was a rare bill where I could cross-promote every artist with the confidence that our audiences would seamlessly overlap.
My dad arrived to the show early and held court at the bar for the duration, and every time I stopped by he was ready with a polite litany of ways we could improve for our next show. We need a bigger board with an off-board equalizer, and maybe a compressor. Sandbags for the bottom of mic stands. Better eye-lines. Performers closer to the audience. Stop by ahead of time to check out the lighting situation.
If you’ve followed my history with my father at all, you know that it’s rare for us to find an intersection of interests, and it was fascinating to hear him so effortlessly detail all of the credible, tangible ways we could improve for our next show.
At one point in the conversation I interjected.
“Dad, we will do everything you just said. But, realize that it used to be that we had no mic stands to even sing into, so I bought those. And then we didn’t have mics that were good for Gina and I, so I bought those. Then Lyndzapalooza needed a PA system, so I bought that. And, Gina and I couldn’t get anyone to pay attention to us without quality recordings, so I bought a digital recording interface and spent the last year mixing and burning demos.”
My point was well-taken, just as his was by me: success requires steady progress; milestones require constant motion.
It was a year ago today that Arcati Crisis made our Philadelphia debut at the Tin Angel, playing three newly learned songs in a brief set during a lineup of almost a dozen other performers – mostly strangers. As great as that felt, and as inspiring as the support from friends and family was, I don’t think we could have imagined that a single year later we would be playing for five times that long to twice as many of our dearest supporters on a bill of talented friends.
I am truly blessed to be a part of a community that continues to support the evolution of our music. I will continue to do everything within my power to make sure it gets heard.
by krisis
Writing songs that are too difficult for me to play is ever-so-slightly counterproductive, don’t you think?