Week 9: Disco! In the Panic Room

Don’t aim for flawless, 

‘Cause some of your best art is made with chalk on your sidewalk, it’s 

Gone when you wash it off, it’s 

Not made for fame or profits, 

It’s looking back and giving all you got to top it – Bug Hunter

The song “Disco! In the Panic Room” by Bug Hunter has some really fun lyrics, but this snippet resonated with me. Art oftentimes is created from an accident or playful musings. I remember during the first rehearsal I attended for this project, the band spontaneously decided to cover a new song, and it sounded amazing! They didn’t want to arrange or record this song, instead opting to just play around. 

I went to a mini concert with a lineup of three bands consisting of college students. The headlining band had amazing crowd control, I’d say at the level of a band on tour. Through some digging on Instagram, they shared an interesting fact about their first original single. The singer of the band happened to think up a chorus while sitting at a bus stop. That chorus spurred the rest of the members to pitch in with lyrics and create a full fledged song. 

Throughout that concert, the musicians were having fun. They mirrored the crowd’s energy, took song suggestions, and overall made it feel like a real concert. I particularly enjoyed how they involved the crowd in singing their original song. Usually, the audience screams the lyrics to a known song along with the band. However, the chorus of their song allowed the crowd to repeat a word back to them, which made the song interactive and wonderful to hear live. 

While we don’t have any original songs out, some covers that we recorded have been mixed and mastered with cover art attached. I chatted with my advisor about plans for releasing the music and he gave me some tips. While most of the pre-release material regarded the money and copyright aspect, some important things were audience involvement and pacing. 

If there was more time for this project, I would have gone through more items on his pre-release checklist. These would have involved changing the profile photo of my instagram account with every release and creating an email list of listeners. We agreed on creating a post for the new song (instead of a reel), which would play a short snip of it. The song’s release will be announced on a story and will direct followers to the YouTube channel. 

Live performances are tougher than expected to schedule, because most busy streets have a sign up system. Another avenue, however, is radio. I contacted a radio station which has live music nights on air, and hopefully, one of my bands can perform there. 

The headlining band of the “concert” I went to is called “Six of Spades”, and their original song is called “Take”. You all should take a listen!

Hopefully we will get music released next week! While it is AP week for all the High Schoolers participating, I’ll continue to contact artists, venues, and even a radio station to try to have my bands perform live. Stay tuned for more!