April 29, 2025 • 47 mins
Today we have one goal: to get everyone in our community prepared for the next illness that might be headed your way. It’s a constant concern for many of us (especially singers) and can threaten our livelihood. The good news is there are things we can do to minimize that threat and manage things in a way that allows for easier decision-making and time for healing with less stress.
When you are healthy, you have 100 problems to deal with, but when you are sick, you have 1
FoCoMA’s mission is to support all Northern Colorado musicians in our community through networking, education, and events because music changes lives. They connect the Fort Collins community through their online directories of artists, audio production, music lessons, music media, music organizations, music shops, recording studios, venues, and youth music providers. Learn more at FOCOMA.ORG and be sure to not miss their festival this April with over 400 local musicians.
We all need to address the challenges with staying healthy and mitigating loss when we fall ill. Let's go head-on together and share our plan that has shown great results, which can be especially valuable as we head into the busy season for us gig workers. Let’s go!
You cannot expect to never get sick, nor can we expect to only get sick when it’s convenient. By using the above recommendations, you can further secure a well-run business by being prepared for these health issues before they occur and having a plan in place that will take care of you first.
**We know how valuable your time is; we appreciate you for spending this time with us and being a part of this community. It is our hope that you feel that sense of community here at Musicians Tip Jar and help us spread the word to make us stronger together. Connect with us at Musicians Tip Jar@gmail and Musicians Tip Jar.com where you can check out all the resources and discounts we have collected just for you! And check out all our episodes now on our YouTube channel!
If you find this information useful, please rate and subscribe to the podcast. Also, slam the Like button if you’re on YouTube so we can help keep you up on the finance side of your music business.
:As always, thanks for joining us, and remember there is already enough for everyone; you just need to know how to get it. Until next time, on behalf of Dave Tamkin and myself, Chris Webb. Stay happy, healthy, and wealthy. Health is our greatest wealth so take care of your body as it’s the only instrument you can’t replace… This is Musicians Tip Jar.
Intro & Outro Music Donated by: The Magi https://www.themagimusic.com
Intro Read by: David “DJ” Lee of The Magi
https://soundcloud.com/rockababyrock
Pictures by: Kit Chalberg https://kitchalberg.com/
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/musicians-tip-jar--4698023/support.
Visit MusiciansTipJar.com for more resources and tools to empower your financial journey.
Intro & Outro Music Donated by: The Magi https://www.themagimusic.com
Intro Read by: David “DJ” Lee of The Magi
https://soundcloud.com/rockababyrock
Pictures by: Kit Chalberg https://kitchalberg.com/
When you are healthy, you have 100 problems to deal with, but when you are sick, you have 1
FoCoMA’s mission is to support all Northern Colorado musicians in our community through networking, education, and events because music changes lives. They connect the Fort Collins community through their online directories of artists, audio production, music lessons, music media, music organizations, music shops, recording studios, venues, and youth music providers. Learn more at FOCOMA.ORG and be sure to not miss their festival this April with over 400 local musicians.
We all need to address the challenges with staying healthy and mitigating loss when we fall ill. Let's go head-on together and share our plan that has shown great results, which can be especially valuable as we head into the busy season for us gig workers. Let’s go!
You cannot expect to never get sick, nor can we expect to only get sick when it’s convenient. By using the above recommendations, you can further secure a well-run business by being prepared for these health issues before they occur and having a plan in place that will take care of you first.
**We know how valuable your time is; we appreciate you for spending this time with us and being a part of this community. It is our hope that you feel that sense of community here at Musicians Tip Jar and help us spread the word to make us stronger together. Connect with us at Musicians Tip Jar@gmail and Musicians Tip Jar.com where you can check out all the resources and discounts we have collected just for you! And check out all our episodes now on our YouTube channel!
If you find this information useful, please rate and subscribe to the podcast. Also, slam the Like button if you’re on YouTube so we can help keep you up on the finance side of your music business.
:As always, thanks for joining us, and remember there is already enough for everyone; you just need to know how to get it. Until next time, on behalf of Dave Tamkin and myself, Chris Webb. Stay happy, healthy, and wealthy. Health is our greatest wealth so take care of your body as it’s the only instrument you can’t replace… This is Musicians Tip Jar.
Intro & Outro Music Donated by: The Magi https://www.themagimusic.com
Intro Read by: David “DJ” Lee of The Magi
https://soundcloud.com/rockababyrock
Pictures by: Kit Chalberg https://kitchalberg.com/
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/musicians-tip-jar--4698023/support.
Visit MusiciansTipJar.com for more resources and tools to empower your financial journey.
Intro & Outro Music Donated by: The Magi https://www.themagimusic.com
Intro Read by: David “DJ” Lee of The Magi
https://soundcloud.com/rockababyrock
Pictures by: Kit Chalberg https://kitchalberg.com/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the show that explores the methods and strategies
on rocking the financial side of your music business. With
over forty years combined experience, here are your hosts, Chris
Webb and Dave Tamkid.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Welcome to Musicians Tip Job, where we talk about musicians
and money, where we spend our time finding health hacks
so that you can stay profitable even when you're hacking
it up. I'm Chris Webb, joined by my co host
and the hack of all Trades Dave Tampion.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Thanks for having me back, Chris web I read this
last night and do I want to be called the
hack of all trades? And then, you know, when I
first started head Above Music, it was just Ham all
the time. Ham. So I put headphones for the logo
on a piece of Ham, and I thought, well, hey,
(00:52):
that's going to offend Chris, so I can't do that.
And I think even Jason at Cassrock Music is like,
you can't do that. You can't put headphones on a
piece of Ham. Don't want to be your brand. And
then when I started head Above Consulting, I had this
one client that just started to be a little ornery
at the end, and he would just right to hack
(01:13):
HAC and write the checkout asshole. But I guess I
am hack of all trades. YE call my company that.
I wish I would have thought of that before I
called it. Had above consulting well.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Today, we have one goal to get everybody in our
community prepared for the next illness that might be headed
your way. It's a constant concern for many of us,
especially singers, and can threaten our livelihood. The good news
is there are things that you can do to minimize
that threat and manage things in a way that allows
(01:47):
for easier decision making and time for healing with less stress.
Today's quote comes from John F. Kennedy. The time to
repair the roof is when the sun is shining.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
When did you change that? Because you had an unknown
and I was all ready to be like, just let
the people know, Chris that this was your quote.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
I know you were going to say that, but that's
actually the second quote because I threw a second one
in there.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Oh okay, let's hear that. I forget I just said that.
Just go for the second one.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
When you are healthy, you have one hundred problems to
deal with. When you're sick, you have one.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Who wrote that. Who's that quote from?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
It's just something I've heard and that's so I don't
know it's yours.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Just put your name on it. It's unknown, Chris, just
take credit.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
I'm not going to do that, all right.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Well, this week's nonprofit is a foco MA Fort Collins
the Musicians Association. Focoma's mission is to support all Northern
Colorado musicians in our community. And they say our because
I still feel that Colorado is my community through networking,
education and events. Because music changes lives. They connect the
Fort Collins community through their online directories of artists, audio production,
(02:58):
music lessons, music media, music organizations, music shops, recording studios
and venues, and youth music providers. Learn more at Folkoma
foca dot org and be sure to not miss their
festival coming up in April. They have over four hundred
local musicians. Should be pretty awesome. If you find this
information and useful, please rate and subscribe to the podcast.
(03:20):
Also slam that like button if you're on YouTube so
we can keep you up on the financial side of
your music business.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
We all need to address the challenges with staying healthy
and mitigating loss when we fall ill. Let's go head
on together and share our plan that has shown great results,
which can be especially valuable as we head into the
busy season of US gig workers. Well, let's go.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
I know we're going to talk about how you can
prevent getting sick. First, I just love that the first
one you put down is drink less alcohol. The hardest
thing in our career since graduating in college has been
to drink less alcohol. And we can say that now
after twenty years of making it, you know, practicing saying
(04:17):
I'm just going to have less. But that's the first
one you put down.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Yeah, Yeah, And we'll talk about it in particular for
singers it's actually even more important, but just in general
to keep your immune system high right. And I should
say that this episode was inspired by the fact that
two weeks ago I had the flu and it was
the first time I'd had the flu in decades, and
(04:42):
it was horrible and I had to cancel two gigs
and I feel like I've not had to do that.
I can't even think of the last time I had
to do that because of illness. And so this brought
about me really looking through all of what I've been doing,
what has worked because the previous year, I didn't get
sick at all, literally at all. So not to say
(05:06):
that some of that's luck, I think, and what you're
exposed to, but there's also these things. So here's our
list of what we think works for us, and certainly
what we have been told through education and through experience.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
I would like to say that you are more of
a trooper when it comes to having the flu. I
saw you about I don't know, maybe four or five
days after the whole week of you being sick, and
I was so happy to see you. Had a lot
of coffee that morning, and you could just tell you're
a little bit different, you know, still trying just to
(05:41):
slowly make it up the stairs. Hey, Dave, good to
see you. Give you a hug. Okay, okay, okay, let's
walk over to the classroom. Dave, and I really had
to adjust. I'm so excited to see you and I
I just got over you know, influenza A and B,
(06:04):
and I know what you're feeling. But I mean I
would have been in bed another week still and you're
you were just keeping on. It's pretty impressive.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Well, there's a funny emotion that goes through me when
I'm really sick. It's like a different reality, you know,
like you sort of I felt like I didn't It
was almost like depression, like I didn't want to really
do anything, and I was upset about the fact that
I didn't feel like doing anything. You know, It's amazing
how that you go from such a productive mindset and
(06:35):
motivated to keep on all of these tasks that you're
trying to execute, to keep up with your goals and
all that stuff, and then when something that this hits,
it's just like I don't want to do anything. I
just want to I just want to be pissed off
in my bed, uncomfortable, like and it's just like a
reality check. And it brings me back to like my
childhood when when big illnesses would hit me and I,
(06:58):
you know, I just wanted to eat pretzels and like
or or the saltines. Everyone needs saltines and like.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
Watch TV, you know, the oyster crackers.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Yeah, totally. So anyhow, these let's start with kind of
our preventative stuff. So these are things that really should
be built into habits. And if you take this career seriously,
which I assume that all of you do, because you're
listening to a podcast about money and music. So we
know that your your intentions are here. So these are
(07:30):
things that that that need to be built into the
just the basics of how you conduct yourself. And as
we said, drinking less alcohol should be at the top
of that list for anybody that feels like that might
be an issue, right, and and for most people in
the United States, it's an issue. Right. There's a lot
of alcohol in this in this country and in the world.
(07:51):
But we shouldn't say that you can't drink at all.
And that's certainly not what we're trying to say. We're
not saying that that is the difference between health and not.
But you know your limit, and you know you also
know that you're the only one. This is what I
say all the time. You're the only one that thinks
you sound better when you drink. And I hold to
that now when I'm playing, I don't drink while performing
(08:14):
at all.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Have you read the Steve Martin autobiography. No, he has
one of the first times he hurt himself after a
drink or two on stage because he was recording everything
and after the set he hurt himself slur a little bit,
and he never had a drink again before a show.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
It's not realizing how you're sounding. That's kind of the
part of the problem with substances.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
But you know, after three or four you sound great,
and who doesn't want to sound great?
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Chris, Yeah, well, yeah, exactly. Second one is stay hydrated,
drinking plenty of water throughout the day. Dehydration can cause fatigue, headaches.
I mean, for us vocalists, it's the difference between making
it feel easy to sing and feel like you're just
constantly thirsty or dry mouth. And then of course alcohol
(09:08):
and caffeine help to dehydrate you, so those things can
also cause more dehydration.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
So we had a conversation about merch the other week,
and I think we address this a little bit on
the last episode. But one thing that sells quite a
bit is reusable water bottles. And that's a great way
to get not only for yourself because you know, you
always have a water bottle on you if you need one,
(09:36):
but just keeping everyone around you hydrated. And it's something
that could always carry with them. So when I ever
go to a concert and artist has a water bottle,
I grab one right away because it's just nice to
have something and also support a music community, but I
carry one with me constantly.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
You know, the debate I always have is whether or
not drinking sparkling water or bubb water or whatever why
you sing? I just I really like it, and so
I drink it while I sing. And there are definitely
times where you're like, oh, I'm gonna burp in the
middle of a line, Like that's definitely because of it.
But I'm in general it doesn't seem to affect me
(10:16):
that much, so I that's just something I do, but
probably would be better off with still water.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
What about coconut water.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
I just don't really like it. I'm usually fasting by
the time I'm performing, which is hilarious. But you know,
because I perform usually at night, and I'm usually fasting
after about six pm?
Speaker 3 (10:33):
So does that make your songs more up tempo?
Speaker 2 (10:36):
It just makes me better than everyone else.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Dave, I don't like my fasting tpe.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Another one is more sleep, more sleep. This is something
that I think a lot of people. I see my
students struggle with this all the time, and I don't
know why, but in the younger years it seems harder
to get accurate, adequate sleep. Most people don't prioritize it.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
That's for well, especially when you're coming off a show
and you have that high of you know, you're adrenaline
still going, you feel good, you got to hang out
with your friends, you made some new music.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
It's hard just.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
To shut all that off. And then, you know, but
you have to schedule morning late sleepings. I think we
were on the road once and we couldn't fall asleep,
and you kept saying, we just have to remind ourselves
that at least we close our eyes and laid there
for a while like that was still rest. And I
take that with me to this day. Even when I
(11:33):
feel like I don't have a full night's sleep, I'm
closing my eyes and my body is resting.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yeah. Well, like last night, I got home probably around
eleven thirty from performing, which was straight after teaching all
day on campus. Who was a long day, And I
crawled into bed right around eleven thirty or so, and
my daughter comes in. I can't sleep. It's like, oh no, no,
(12:00):
you know. I'm going in trying to convince her that
you can't try to fall asleep. Give heard that. We're like, don't.
She's like, I'm trying, so hard, and I'm like, well,
you you can't try like that's how sleep works. You're
supposed to beuse those to relax and allow yourself to
fall asleep. And it's really funny to try to like
explain because I think a lot of a lot of
people do struggle with with sleep quality. You know, like
(12:23):
they might restless, or they you know, to get up
a lot for something, or you know, if you have kids,
like especially young kids, like real young kids. People, they
don't get full nigh sleep, so they just don't have
a choice. There's just a lot of stuff that can
cause sleep disruption. I like to listen to these like
sleep meditations. They help me fall into a deeper sleep
(12:46):
when I'm struggling to fall asleep.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
And can't listen to anything with either like lyrics or talking.
So we have a common ground of just the fan noise, yeah,
or the white noise, just to kind of put you
in that rhythm. But I'll sneak aheadphone in now and then.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Do you ever use brown noise?
Speaker 3 (13:07):
You know what?
Speaker 1 (13:08):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
I don't see color in that way when it comes
to noise, Chris, it's you know, just quality noise. So
I don't know what you're trying to pin me here,
but I don't appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Those noises, those noises, well, there's lots of colored noises
out there for you to choose from, and I do
think that certain ones resonate better for certain people. Can
you hear that?
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (13:33):
What is that? Is that? The kids rolling around?
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Of course? Yeah? There, Apparently they're really.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Skating in the house again.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Gosh, moving forward. Something else that I think disgusts me.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
You brought this next one up when I saw you, is.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
That I see people, and I play a lot of conferences, right,
so like when I'm taking a break, I'll run into
the bathroom. So many people do not wash their hands, adults,
you know, and especially if you're just if you're just peeing. Okay, okay,
but gross, but no, I'm seeing terrible hygiene from adults
(14:12):
that are at business conferences, and it grosses me out
so much. It's such a simple thing to do to
prevent illness from spreading, especially because so much of them
are shaking hands with everybody else there because they're networking,
and they're all touching their face and they're all eating food.
It's disgusting.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
So then this is always a question I've had. I
washed my hands before I used the restroom in Peing
because of everything I've just touched, you know, I don't
need to unzip and put all that in that area.
Then I go, and then I wash my hands afterwards.
But I don't know, that was always interesting to me,
(14:53):
especially with just touching your face, you know, when we
were looking at this outline, I looked up The National
Institute of Health says, on average, a student touches their
face twenty three times per hour, and forty four of
those touches are around your eyes, your nose, or your mouth,
so all the areas you can get sick. And I
don't really think this should count, like while you're driving,
(15:15):
because if you do have to pick your nose, that
is the one place you can just really let go,
you know, and get in there, you know, in the
car because everyone can see you, but you don't think
they can, so you turn to your left of your right,
and then it's a whole it's a whole issue. You know.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Well, you can pick your nose, and you can pick
your friends, but you can't take your friends. Another one
is to never share microphones. Now this comes up a
lot for me playing shows and having people be like,
can I sing a song? And there's a lot of
reasons to say no to that, starting with the fact
(15:52):
that most of them can't sing, and no one really
wants to hear somebody sing poorly. That's the opposite of
why I got hired. But aside from that, it's really
disgusting to share microphone stage microphones with other people. Then
we used to do it all the time, and they
would smell at the bar, right, they'd smell like alcohol.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
Or cigarettes, you can tell.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
And it's just disgusting. But the other reason is because
it's the easiest way. It's basically kissing other people that
touch the microphone to their mouth. You know, you are
literally sharing every germ they got.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
I mean, I question how deep you're getting on that microphone, Chris.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
I mean, I'm almost eating it. I'm not, I'm not.
I mean I use a lot of microphone technique.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Yeah, did you do that before COVID? Did you not
share mics or did COVID really drive that home for you?
Speaker 2 (16:44):
No. I when I started doing when I was in
that period of doing a lot of weddings, is when
I really invested in a couple, really good. You know what,
They're not even that expensive, so you know, like there's
really no excuse to not have your own good microphone,
just by a Sure SM fifty eight beta ideally a beta,
(17:04):
and just keep it on you all the time. I
have like four of them, you know, and they just
come with me everywhere I go. And when I was
playing weddings is when I always brought my own because
they always want They always had one set up for me,
and so I was like, I'm not touching that.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Like two in each front pocket? Is that? What's been
going on?
Speaker 2 (17:23):
However many I need? You know, I never know, Dave.
Sometimes they do break. I've had one break.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
I got one, one is broke, yeah, another one.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
You get a phone in your pocket, you get a microphone. No,
that's the point. No one else gets a microphone. And
the same goes for anything else, like don't share utensils,
don't don't share your food with your bandmates when you're
onto it. I'm sorry, don't do it. Just don't try
to touch every surface as you walk into every venue
on your on tour. Right. I've seen I've heard stories
(17:58):
of some pretty elaborate tempts to not touch anything by
performers on tour because they are doing everything they can.
They take it so seriously to keep themselves healthy that
they won't even touch doorknobs sometimes. Right, certainly they don't
share chapstick.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
Yeah, you can't get sick on the road. It's just
not an option. You do it long enough, you might
even pick up illness on the way, and your body
will just shut down the moment you get home because
your brain is in go mode. Right. Oh, you should
do all these things so you can get home healthy.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Right. I mean when my kids are sick, you know,
which isn't that common, but it's a couple few times
a year, I quarantine from them, and it sucks, but
I have to because you know, I'm the only we
rely on the money that comes from the shows. I
can't get sick, so I have to keep my distance,
(18:55):
and so that's a rough part of that. Sometimes, you know,
I sleep in the guest room.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
How do you do with you know, your vegan Your
road options are definitely slim, I would think, right, or
I mean, yeah, many places off I ninety and Nebraska.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Well, it is the hardest thing about being vegan is
traveling it. Certainly, I mean I've I've been vegan for
like fifteen years, and the only time that it's a
struggle is traveling. And it's certainly what we're really needing
to highlight is that a healthy diet is a huge
way to prevent illness. And people know that, but it
(19:39):
doesn't make them make smarter choices, especially on the road.
They think convenience, they think indulgence. They think ten PM
after they've played a show and had a few beers
and they just want an entire pizza.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
You know, right afterwards, and they go straight to bed.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
And it's a terrible thing for your body to have
to deal with that and then try to keep your
health at the same time.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
But I've done that for years, all those bad things
you just mentioned. It took years of experience to figure
out not to do that anymore.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yeah, you know, the longer your tours are, the more
you get good at this. I think more people that
have traveled for longer periods of time, they really they
get settled into these things. They get settled into eating healthy,
they get settled into not sharing stuff, They get comfortable
with looking to where they're headed. This is how I
deal with being vegan, is I look ahead. So I
know onere of the closest whole foods is if I
(20:29):
can't find a whole foods, it's the second choice is
whatever natural grocery type store they have in the area.
I'd rather go to the grocery store and buy produce,
you know, and some packaged foods and eat that, then
stop anywhere pretty much and try to figure out how
(20:49):
to eat something that's healthy and vegan.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Chat is vegetarian, and we carry a cooler with us,
and it was easy enough to just fill up that
cooler with nuts, protein bars, fruit, and we always have
a little snack with us, which causes us to eat
less and be full on the road, and it's a
less travel time we're getting, you know, where we want
(21:12):
to go. So it's been a nice change and you
save a lot of money.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Totally well, I mean, my problem is if I buy
a bag of chips, I'll eat the entire bag, because
it's like I can't stop. But if you buy me
a bag of like mini carrots, I'll eat the entire bag.
And that's one of those I feel bit guilty about,
and the other one I don't care at all, you
know what I mean. So what you what you store
(21:38):
up I think in the car or the van or
your tour bus or whatever. It really does make a
difference on how good of choices you can make because
it's easier that way.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
You know, having those things can be stressful figuring out
where you're gonna stop, how you're gonna eat, how you're
gonna stay healthy, how do you manage stress on the road,
because that is definitely one of those things you need
to do to keep your immune systems up. Yeah, systems,
your plural immune systems, you.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Have so many, all your chakras right. For me, my
number one thing to do is to take time for
myself and that means to work out. Usually working out
obviously has its own benefits for your immune system and
your health, but even just walks and meditations, time alone
(22:29):
you know something in nature. I think all of those
things boost your immune system. I think all of those
things help keep you feeling good. And if you feel good,
your immune system is stronger.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Especially when you're traveling with someone, to even get away
for a little bit for yourself, I highly encourage, because
as soon as you get to a show, you're on
who booked you, the venue, people, it's just a different
kind of feeling, and then you get back in the
car with someone. Then you're back at the hotel with someone.
(23:02):
So finding that little space for yourself is definitely recommended
to feel a little better at the end of the
day and start your day a little bit more peaceful.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
I saw you put on here too, on the list
to avoid overbooking.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Yeah, because I think we have two different ways. I
guess you and I booked differently. You know, what you
do is different than what I do, and I might
put more of my more of my income towards my
merch websites consulting, so I don't have to book as much.
(23:40):
I could do it when I need to. You have
that option as well with teaching, but you have more
access to gigs. You have diversified more than I have.
You have hotels, your weddings, your original gigs. So I
just thought that might be important to ask, because it's
easy to start overbooking yourself. It's hard to say no
to a gig sometimes, especially when there's a lot of
(24:02):
money involved and the money that you're making compared to
one hundred and fifty dollars gig compared to a corporate
gig or a wedding, which might be ten times that
much to say no to.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Yeah, well, just for the record, I say no to
weddings all the time because I really don't play weddings.
And that's part of this is there's too much stress
involved with them, and I don't like doing them.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Why do you hate love?
Speaker 2 (24:25):
I'm tired of it? You mean your stupid heart mug.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
I'd't even know I was on there.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
I just kidding. But I don't like the stress that
comes along with them very much. And if I had
a slim pickings of corporate gigs, maybe i'd do more.
But I agree, I agree that you can overbook yourself.
Anybody can overbook themselves. And I think depending on all
the other things you've got going on, for me, being
a parent, being capable of balancing all the other stuff
(24:56):
that you prioritize in your life and fitting in your
gar schedule, depending how important of a pillar it is
in your income streams, you really kind of feel it
out based on your situation. And some gigs are two hours,
some are four hours, right, and that matters too, right,
And so there's a lot to balance out individually for
all of us to decide what overbooking really means. But
(25:19):
I can say that there are I have learned to
balance it out where I'll do mostly three shows a
week and then I'll leave like one at least week
in there of just two shows, and it feels like
a treat that week, you know what I mean. It
feels like a reset and it allows me to feel
a little bit less stressed for one of the weeks
before I get back into the rhythm of doing the
(25:40):
three a week. And that's just been my balance on
that stuff.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
I also put protector hearing because tittness in my ear
titness like titness.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
This is why you're eating the microphone. You get a
little titness in your ear. What's going on over there.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
It's competing with the way you sing into a microphone.
It's bad. It's getting bad with time. And because I
didn't wear ear plugs early, I have the loss of
hearing that it's aggravated by screaming loud noises. Everything is
louder to me. It's not that I'm losing my hearing
where everything feels muffled, but if I have to listen
(26:24):
to loud stuff for too long, my ears get fatigued,
and after a while it's I'm a mess. I'm just like,
get me more vocals, you know, anything, And then when
I'm out in the audience, it's just a mess, and
it's happened. It's better now that I've learned that it happened,
because now I'll go to concerts with ear plugs and
I can sleep better because my ears aren't fatigued all day.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
But highly recommend it because I was stupid for so
many years and I'm right next to the ride symbol.
I'm you know, forever, I was on Brian's right side
and that just right in there the whole the whole night. Yeah,
so I'd like to blame Brian, not myself. Let me
rephrase that all Brian Sansom's fault.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Well, truthfully, it is a lot of the drums they are.
The symbols in particular, are very damaging on the ear
if you're close to them. But we should always wear
earplugs in any loud circumstance. We should have them in
your car at all times. You should have them in
your gig bag at all times. Your keychain, sure on
your keychain, you know, when you when you're hanging out
(27:33):
with your spouse, whenever you really with your spouse. I'm
just kidding, but you need to have them at all
circumstances because you it always happens where it's like, oh,
I should have brought earplugs, you know, And so this
is just one of those things. Put it on the list,
Like I'm going to buy three pairs of nice, actual
(27:56):
functioning earplugs, and they're not all the same. You can't
go buy those cheap ones from home depot. You have
to buy ones. I mean, those will still help, to
be honest, but they're going to muffle everything in a
way that doesn't filter in actual sound. It's gonna make
everything sound muffled. So getting good ones will allow everything
to stay clear but reduce the volumes. So the next
(28:19):
section is to talk about singers in particular. I know
we have a lot of singers that I listen to
the podcast, and I think everyone, at least as some capacity,
relies on their voice, whether it might be lecturing or
teaching or singing. So here are my main tips that
I give to my students, and these are things that
(28:39):
I practice myself, and I think that a lot of
this has maintained my ability to play three four hour
shows of singing weekly for years, so I do think
this stuff works. First of all, the obvious one is
to warm up. Now, I don't actually think you need
to warm up much, especially if you're going to sing
a four hour show. You shouldn't warm up too much.
(29:01):
You should just ease into what song choices you make
at the beginning of the show. It's actually better to
just kind of ease into easy vocal sections and you'll
know your songs, which ones are going to push your
vocals and which ones you can kind of stretch a
little bit less taxing at the beginning of your show,
but always warm up to some extent. Sirens. We like
(29:21):
to do sirens a lot, and whatever. You know. You
can pull up a YouTube video of warm ups nowadays
that are fitting to your vocal range and do go
along with the video. It's actually quite easy to find
a million of those now. The other end of this, though,
is to warm down your voice after the show. Do
the same basic routine of like you did in warm ups,
(29:42):
just do them after the show to help your vocal
cords relax so that they don't stay tense after singing
all night.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Humming especially helps take out the swelling in your vocal
cords after a show. You know you mentioned just your voice,
but I also think to be able to stretch your
whole body before you're about to sing. Loosens everything up
from your neck to your shoulders. You know, your shoulder
blades into your chest. All of that needs to be
(30:11):
warmed up. And I recently saw Will Hulk play and
he was backstage beforehand just doing yoga on a mat
just to loosen up his whole body so he could
perform the way he wanted to. And you start that now,
no matter how old you are. It just makes things
so much easier as your career continues.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Totally. It's funny because I do stretches during my setbreak
because I have to, Like I I get like I
have to just stretch because I feel tight after.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
Didn't they ask you to stop doing that in front
of the microphone.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
I just turn around, I face away from the crowd
and lunch.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Touch your toes. Touch your toes.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Now, that's great advice. So stretching really does help, and
it really does help prevent any sort of muscle pulling
if you're singing really hard. Another one is using cocktail straws,
which most of us can get access to at these
events that we play, but or you can just you
can buy some nice ones. They might they buy like
standle the steel ones that that are made for this
(31:17):
in particular warm up straws, but their cocktail size. They're
very thin, and they help to create resistance in your
ta and your cet muscles, so that when you do
these like exercises like a siren through the straw, it
actually helps create the resistance which expands the throat and
allows for that more blood flow to go there and
(31:39):
allows that those focal cords to warm up a little quicker,
and it really helps me with the wine down afterwards.
I like to use the straw, particularly.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
After don't run while you're doing these very important.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Unless you mc jagger apparently that's worked out fine for
him that he's ninety years old running.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
Around still I met with a straw in your mouth.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Oh I see. Another recommendation is to aside from not
drinking while you sing, because it actually alcohol in particular
really does create a lot of dryness and burning on
your esophagus, which you are using a lot of when
you sing, and so the two are doubly taxing. When
the two are combined. I'm sure we all have experienced
(32:20):
that when you sing and drink at the same time
and you notice that raspiness that you get after singing,
but don't stick around. This is whenever possible, and I
if you are going to go stand at a merch table,
try to remove that merch table from the loud space,
because right after you sing is when your vocal cards
(32:41):
are the most fragile. So going to immediately start yelling
and talking loudly in an environment where every other noise
is still loud can be the worst part of damaging
your vocal cords. So if you can avoid that after
the show, that's a really critical part to maintaining healthy
vocal chords night after night is remove yourself from the
(33:02):
loud space, or just don't talk during a lot of
a lot of people will do vocal rest during those sections,
and even during meet and greets, they're just like, I'm
on vocal rest, I can't talk, you know.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Megan Burt is very good at that. I find that
after a show I just scream the word what at
her quite a bit because I can't hear her. But
then I found that even when we're at someone else's show,
she will not talk louder than she needs to to
protect her voice, and it's pretty impressive.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
So I know this coming from the vegan is going
to sound like I'm preachy, but I'm not avoiding dairy
will really also help your vocal cords stay healthier. Darry
creates a false amount of phlegm in them and can
create not only just a little bit of a noise
(33:56):
that you may not want to desire in your vocal tone,
but can also create a lot of extra scratchiness. I'm
trying to clear out that phlamm which.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
Is crazy because most of the news offer pizza right
before you play it.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Yes, right, all right, Yeah, probably won't make you feel
very good right before you show.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
Either.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
The problem with a big don't need a big meal
right before you show. Right. We all know this one,
especially the older you get. The more that's true. Boy,
You get so tired and your body's trying to digest that.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Stuff witness for you?
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Is it? Well?
Speaker 3 (34:29):
You know what I forgot that you did want to
talk about your secret and I think you just call
it the Chris Webs secret because it is the entertainer's secret.
Throat cote, Is that what you're going to.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Say, yeah, yes, So I was just gonna say that
the only thing I've ever found that actually helps with
the intern sort of spray. I know. You can go
to the natural grocery kind of places and find a
lot of herbs that are like throat herbs, and yeah,
they help, they help. They're they're good for building your
immune system, coding your throat a little bit with some ease.
But there's one in particular called Entertainer's Secret Throat Spray
(35:05):
that I got recommended from my E N T. And
I bought it once, and I have sworn by this
stuff ever since it does something. It's so much less disgusting,
first of all than those things that you buy from
natural groceries, which really are foul, and so it's much
less hard to be routinely using. But also it really works.
(35:29):
It will immediately help your throat relax after being used
a lot, and help your vocal cords heal. So sometimes
I wake up and you can't even tell that I
was singing last night. So I really swear by Steven.
And it looks like you're gonna put the link up.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
Yep, it's the white bottle that's for dry throat and
horse voice right there on the plastic bottle. I've used it.
It's awesome.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Yeah. And so the other thing that I think we
should talk about aside this is for everybody, not just
for singers, but is to know when to call it,
know when to cancel your show, know when it's time
to throw in the towel. Right, and just because you
need the rest or you're too sick, right, Certainly, you
(36:16):
don't want to spread sickness. That's one reason to call it.
But let's just kind of be very specific about it.
If you have a fever, like a real fever, call
it right. If you're dizzy to the way you're it's
dangerous to drive, or that lightheaded kind of thing, I
would say, call it. If you have a really bad
(36:38):
sore throat, do not push it. It will only get
worse and take longer to heal, call it lasting. If
you are vomiting, right, which I saw recently, or if
you're dealing with diarrhea or these things that are really
going to make it hard for you to perform, obviously
(36:59):
you need to call it right. And a lot of
us we have so much pride in never missing a show,
and it's also the financial end of it, which we'll
talk about here at the end, but it's really can
be It can be a very emotional thing to have
to call it, but these are things that you should
prioritize because this is about your longevity, this is about
your health.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
I pushed it to the fact to the point where
an ambulance had to come get me. I've also pushed
it where I had to call Mike Ligan to be
like take me, yeah, take me to the hospital, and
they had just put tape all over me. And then
also I've got to the point where I haven't used
the bathroom in so many days that I had to
call and say I can't go just in case something
(37:41):
happens when I get there. No one has ever canceled
for this reason, and I'm like, well, I hate to
be the first because I don't like canceling, but I
remember those three times. Yeah, we have to have a
plan when you know that call it situation comes up.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
And so this came about, and I'm amazed this kind
of did not come about anytime sooner. But for me,
this came about two weeks ago. When I had to
cancel those two shows. I realized that I need to
have a sick account. I need to have my own
PTO fund because musicians that we all know this, we
don't get PTO right. We don't get sick days that
(38:21):
are going to be financially there when we need them
unless we create them right. And so we go through
everything with our financial scale and we talk about emergency funds.
I actually want you to create something separate. This is
maybe not something you can do at the beginning when
you were still doing the first early steps of our
process here. So building an emergency fund is still number
(38:43):
one on this. But once you're in place like a
lot of our listeners are, where you have a lot
of these steps down and you have an emergency fund
in place, it's time to create a PTO fund, a
separate fund that is there for these circumstances. So this
gives you a chance to have a plan so that
if you can't trade the gig, which should be the
first thing you try to do. For some of us,
(39:05):
that's not an option. But depending on the type of gig,
knowing people to call on is another thing to be
prepared with having a list of trusted subs and then
also having a rain date if it's a show that's
for you, right for you, the artist. You can't just
(39:28):
sub it out, so you having a backup date with
the venue is a really important thing to have. Anybody
who's a tour manager knows these things really well, but
for the rest of us, maybe we don't think this
far ahead. Another thing that we've done a lot in
order to not cancel is to just if you can,
if the gig allows to play only instrumentally, if you
(39:49):
can't sing, you know you can be there, but you
just can't sing. That's something that a lot of my
performers have had to do over the years, and it's
a luxury to have that option for certain events, and
some that's just not out of possibility unless that's what
you do anyways, is not saying.
Speaker 3 (40:07):
We were talking a little bit about that on campus,
and I told you I just picked up this Fingerstyle
Beatles book, and there's definitely a slap in the ego
because I really thought I was going to be able
to pick it up and just play these chords with
these melody lines, no problem. But I had a goal
back to day one and to one measure at a time,
(40:29):
one measure at a time. But I'm setting myself up
because if this happens, I want to have something that
gives myself, even if it's within my set time, a
song or two that I don't have to sing over
if I'm doing something solo or like a corporate gig
or hotel or something yeah, outside the you know. But
I mean, even if you're playing original music, if you
(40:50):
could throw in an instrumental, would be awesome to have
that in your back pocket.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Yeah, yeah, And you know, when we're planning this, it
bends if it's two hours or four hours, what are
you going to have to do? So, but all of
this is to say, certainly try to not have to
have a plan to not have to cancel the gig
in every case you can. But if you have to,
then you have this sick fund ready to go, right,
(41:15):
this PTO that you have accrued for yourself. And so
for me, I put five days worth of my average
gig pay into a fund that is now there for
me when I need it. Right, sometimes you'll just be
able to roll with the punches and you won't have
to take this money out in order to deal with it.
(41:35):
Right you maybe you're hitting your numbers over your goal,
and so this is just something you're going to absorb
by having to cancel it. That's great. But in the
case where you're like I was not prepared, this is
a rough month, I can't afford right to miss this,
but I'm sick. Then you have this ability to do
what's right for your body and cancel the gig and
(41:56):
still fund that day for yourself so you don't take
the financial hit. What a luxury, right, What an amazing
gift we can give ourselves to be more professional and
capable of treating ourselves with respect that we want. Certainly,
bands should have this all too, as a backup plan
that they've discussed, so you know whether your solo performer
(42:17):
or a band is still all applies. Incidentally, I wanted
to mention that AFLAC, which you know has kind of
come up as can that be an option, won't work
for us as they don't cover colds or flu issues
at all. So even if you have something like AFLAC
to help protect you, it's not going to cover you
from colds or flus or those types of illnesses. Furthermore,
(42:41):
this is another reason having good insurance plans is financially
critical if you need medical attention. This can make the
difference in thousands of dollars in your situation. So it's
not only that you will lose a little bit of
money from canceling a gig. If you don't have good
insurance or no insurance, this can easily turn into a
six seven thousand dollars incident that is far more damaging
(43:05):
than just losing the one gig or a couple of gigs.
And finally, you can't expect to never get sick, nor
can we expect to only get sick when it's convenient.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
Because we're not all you. I mean, you're every once
every ten years.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
Well, I mean I do all these things, and I
really do think that all that makes a difference. Someday
I'll be paying for therapy because my kids will be like, damn,
it's seen you in months. I've been in the guest room.
I don't know what you mean, you know, but you know, whatever,
prementative is very valuable to me. But by using these
(43:43):
above recommendations, you can further secure a well run business
by being prepared for these health issues before they occur
and having a plan in place that will take care
of you.
Speaker 3 (43:53):
First, what's your action plan for this week? It's so
fun to even ask you that question again. It's been
so long. I know this is only our second one,
but it's been so many months. I get excited for this, well,
this one.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
I really am proud of this one because I and
I know that everyone's gonna have to do this at
a different time. But this is the goal here, right
It's create a PTO fund, a sick fund in another
high yield savings account, and work towards saving one show's
worth of average pay. That fund will be separate from
your advance and separate from your emergency fund. I wanted
(44:29):
to mention that I just was looking at this and
Open Bank, which is a massive bank, and there's one
other two that I can't pull up. Anyways. There are
banks like Open Bank that are offering accounts with four
point seven five percent returns still right now, come on, No,
(44:49):
at the time of this recording, that is true anyways,
and it may it'll fluctuate, but there's others out there
to make sure you pick a bank that you trust.
But you should not be putting this money in something
that's not getting at least three and a half percent.
At this time of this recording, that money those numbers
(45:10):
they add up and it could easily turn into two
shows worth of savings in there after a year or so.
We know your time is valuable. We appreciate you spending
this time with us and being a part of this community.
It's our hope that you feel that sense of community
here at musicians Tipjar and that you'll help us spread
the word to make us all stronger. If they'd like
(45:31):
to get hold of us, what's the best way to
do that.
Speaker 3 (45:35):
You didn't connect with us at musicians tip jar at
gmail a musicians tipjar dot com where you can check
out all the resources and discounts we have collected for you.
Check out all our episodes now on YouTube as well.
If you find us information useful, please rate and subscribe
to the podcast. Also slam the like button if you're
on YouTube so it can help you up on the
finance side of your music business.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
As always, thank you for joining us, and remember there
is already enough for everyone, you just need to know
how to get it. Until next time, I'll be half
for Dave Hampkin and myself Chris Webb. Stay happy, healthy,
healthy and wealthy. Health is our greatest wealth, so take
care of your body. As it's the only instrument you
(46:17):
can't replace. This is musician's tip, Jarrey.
Speaker 1 (46:25):
Somebody.
Speaker 4 (46:29):
Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or
professional advice. Please be sold to appropriate tax financial professional
for individualized advice. Individual results are not guaranteed, and all
these strategies have the potential for profits along operating on
the half
Speaker 2 (46:47):
Of health, the fur Coats furs confectly
Welcome to the show that explores the methods and strategies
on rocking the financial side of your music business. With
over forty years combined experience, here are your hosts, Chris
Webb and Dave Tamkid.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Welcome to Musicians Tip Job, where we talk about musicians
and money, where we spend our time finding health hacks
so that you can stay profitable even when you're hacking
it up. I'm Chris Webb, joined by my co host
and the hack of all Trades Dave Tampion.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Thanks for having me back, Chris web I read this
last night and do I want to be called the
hack of all trades? And then, you know, when I
first started head Above Music, it was just Ham all
the time. Ham. So I put headphones for the logo
on a piece of Ham, and I thought, well, hey,
(00:52):
that's going to offend Chris, so I can't do that.
And I think even Jason at Cassrock Music is like,
you can't do that. You can't put headphones on a
piece of Ham. Don't want to be your brand. And
then when I started head Above Consulting, I had this
one client that just started to be a little ornery
at the end, and he would just right to hack
(01:13):
HAC and write the checkout asshole. But I guess I
am hack of all trades. YE call my company that.
I wish I would have thought of that before I
called it. Had above consulting well.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Today, we have one goal to get everybody in our
community prepared for the next illness that might be headed
your way. It's a constant concern for many of us,
especially singers, and can threaten our livelihood. The good news
is there are things that you can do to minimize
that threat and manage things in a way that allows
(01:47):
for easier decision making and time for healing with less stress.
Today's quote comes from John F. Kennedy. The time to
repair the roof is when the sun is shining.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
When did you change that? Because you had an unknown
and I was all ready to be like, just let
the people know, Chris that this was your quote.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
I know you were going to say that, but that's
actually the second quote because I threw a second one
in there.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Oh okay, let's hear that. I forget I just said that.
Just go for the second one.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
When you are healthy, you have one hundred problems to
deal with. When you're sick, you have one.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Who wrote that. Who's that quote from?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
It's just something I've heard and that's so I don't
know it's yours.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Just put your name on it. It's unknown, Chris, just
take credit.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
I'm not going to do that, all right.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Well, this week's nonprofit is a foco MA Fort Collins
the Musicians Association. Focoma's mission is to support all Northern
Colorado musicians in our community. And they say our because
I still feel that Colorado is my community through networking,
education and events. Because music changes lives. They connect the
Fort Collins community through their online directories of artists, audio production,
(02:58):
music lessons, music media, music organizations, music shops, recording studios
and venues, and youth music providers. Learn more at Folkoma
foca dot org and be sure to not miss their
festival coming up in April. They have over four hundred
local musicians. Should be pretty awesome. If you find this
information and useful, please rate and subscribe to the podcast.
(03:20):
Also slam that like button if you're on YouTube so
we can keep you up on the financial side of
your music business.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
We all need to address the challenges with staying healthy
and mitigating loss when we fall ill. Let's go head
on together and share our plan that has shown great results,
which can be especially valuable as we head into the
busy season of US gig workers. Well, let's go.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
I know we're going to talk about how you can
prevent getting sick. First, I just love that the first
one you put down is drink less alcohol. The hardest
thing in our career since graduating in college has been
to drink less alcohol. And we can say that now
after twenty years of making it, you know, practicing saying
(04:17):
I'm just going to have less. But that's the first
one you put down.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Yeah, Yeah, And we'll talk about it in particular for
singers it's actually even more important, but just in general
to keep your immune system high right. And I should
say that this episode was inspired by the fact that
two weeks ago I had the flu and it was
the first time I'd had the flu in decades, and
(04:42):
it was horrible and I had to cancel two gigs
and I feel like I've not had to do that.
I can't even think of the last time I had
to do that because of illness. And so this brought
about me really looking through all of what I've been doing,
what has worked because the previous year, I didn't get
sick at all, literally at all. So not to say
(05:06):
that some of that's luck, I think, and what you're
exposed to, but there's also these things. So here's our
list of what we think works for us, and certainly
what we have been told through education and through experience.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
I would like to say that you are more of
a trooper when it comes to having the flu. I
saw you about I don't know, maybe four or five
days after the whole week of you being sick, and
I was so happy to see you. Had a lot
of coffee that morning, and you could just tell you're
a little bit different, you know, still trying just to
(05:41):
slowly make it up the stairs. Hey, Dave, good to
see you. Give you a hug. Okay, okay, okay, let's
walk over to the classroom. Dave, and I really had
to adjust. I'm so excited to see you and I
I just got over you know, influenza A and B,
(06:04):
and I know what you're feeling. But I mean I
would have been in bed another week still and you're
you were just keeping on. It's pretty impressive.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Well, there's a funny emotion that goes through me when
I'm really sick. It's like a different reality, you know,
like you sort of I felt like I didn't It
was almost like depression, like I didn't want to really
do anything, and I was upset about the fact that
I didn't feel like doing anything. You know, It's amazing
how that you go from such a productive mindset and
(06:35):
motivated to keep on all of these tasks that you're
trying to execute, to keep up with your goals and
all that stuff, and then when something that this hits,
it's just like I don't want to do anything. I
just want to I just want to be pissed off
in my bed, uncomfortable, like and it's just like a
reality check. And it brings me back to like my
childhood when when big illnesses would hit me and I,
(06:58):
you know, I just wanted to eat pretzels and like
or or the saltines. Everyone needs saltines and like.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
Watch TV, you know, the oyster crackers.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Yeah, totally. So anyhow, these let's start with kind of
our preventative stuff. So these are things that really should
be built into habits. And if you take this career seriously,
which I assume that all of you do, because you're
listening to a podcast about money and music. So we
know that your your intentions are here. So these are
(07:30):
things that that that need to be built into the
just the basics of how you conduct yourself. And as
we said, drinking less alcohol should be at the top
of that list for anybody that feels like that might
be an issue, right, and and for most people in
the United States, it's an issue. Right. There's a lot
of alcohol in this in this country and in the world.
(07:51):
But we shouldn't say that you can't drink at all.
And that's certainly not what we're trying to say. We're
not saying that that is the difference between health and not.
But you know your limit, and you know you also
know that you're the only one. This is what I
say all the time. You're the only one that thinks
you sound better when you drink. And I hold to
that now when I'm playing, I don't drink while performing
(08:14):
at all.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Have you read the Steve Martin autobiography. No, he has
one of the first times he hurt himself after a
drink or two on stage because he was recording everything
and after the set he hurt himself slur a little bit,
and he never had a drink again before a show.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
It's not realizing how you're sounding. That's kind of the
part of the problem with substances.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
But you know, after three or four you sound great,
and who doesn't want to sound great?
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Chris, Yeah, well, yeah, exactly. Second one is stay hydrated,
drinking plenty of water throughout the day. Dehydration can cause fatigue, headaches.
I mean, for us vocalists, it's the difference between making
it feel easy to sing and feel like you're just
constantly thirsty or dry mouth. And then of course alcohol
(09:08):
and caffeine help to dehydrate you, so those things can
also cause more dehydration.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
So we had a conversation about merch the other week,
and I think we address this a little bit on
the last episode. But one thing that sells quite a
bit is reusable water bottles. And that's a great way
to get not only for yourself because you know, you
always have a water bottle on you if you need one,
(09:36):
but just keeping everyone around you hydrated. And it's something
that could always carry with them. So when I ever
go to a concert and artist has a water bottle,
I grab one right away because it's just nice to
have something and also support a music community, but I
carry one with me constantly.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
You know, the debate I always have is whether or
not drinking sparkling water or bubb water or whatever why
you sing? I just I really like it, and so
I drink it while I sing. And there are definitely
times where you're like, oh, I'm gonna burp in the
middle of a line, Like that's definitely because of it.
But I'm in general it doesn't seem to affect me
(10:16):
that much, so I that's just something I do, but
probably would be better off with still water.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
What about coconut water.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
I just don't really like it. I'm usually fasting by
the time I'm performing, which is hilarious. But you know,
because I perform usually at night, and I'm usually fasting
after about six pm?
Speaker 3 (10:33):
So does that make your songs more up tempo?
Speaker 2 (10:36):
It just makes me better than everyone else.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Dave, I don't like my fasting tpe.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Another one is more sleep, more sleep. This is something
that I think a lot of people. I see my
students struggle with this all the time, and I don't
know why, but in the younger years it seems harder
to get accurate, adequate sleep. Most people don't prioritize it.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
That's for well, especially when you're coming off a show
and you have that high of you know, you're adrenaline
still going, you feel good, you got to hang out
with your friends, you made some new music.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
It's hard just.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
To shut all that off. And then, you know, but
you have to schedule morning late sleepings. I think we
were on the road once and we couldn't fall asleep,
and you kept saying, we just have to remind ourselves
that at least we close our eyes and laid there
for a while like that was still rest. And I
take that with me to this day. Even when I
(11:33):
feel like I don't have a full night's sleep, I'm
closing my eyes and my body is resting.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yeah. Well, like last night, I got home probably around
eleven thirty from performing, which was straight after teaching all
day on campus. Who was a long day, And I
crawled into bed right around eleven thirty or so, and
my daughter comes in. I can't sleep. It's like, oh no, no,
(12:00):
you know. I'm going in trying to convince her that
you can't try to fall asleep. Give heard that. We're like, don't.
She's like, I'm trying, so hard, and I'm like, well,
you you can't try like that's how sleep works. You're
supposed to beuse those to relax and allow yourself to
fall asleep. And it's really funny to try to like
explain because I think a lot of a lot of
people do struggle with with sleep quality. You know, like
(12:23):
they might restless, or they you know, to get up
a lot for something, or you know, if you have kids,
like especially young kids, like real young kids. People, they
don't get full nigh sleep, so they just don't have
a choice. There's just a lot of stuff that can
cause sleep disruption. I like to listen to these like
sleep meditations. They help me fall into a deeper sleep
(12:46):
when I'm struggling to fall asleep.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
And can't listen to anything with either like lyrics or talking.
So we have a common ground of just the fan noise, yeah,
or the white noise, just to kind of put you
in that rhythm. But I'll sneak aheadphone in now and then.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Do you ever use brown noise?
Speaker 3 (13:07):
You know what?
Speaker 1 (13:08):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
I don't see color in that way when it comes
to noise, Chris, it's you know, just quality noise. So
I don't know what you're trying to pin me here,
but I don't appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Those noises, those noises, well, there's lots of colored noises
out there for you to choose from, and I do
think that certain ones resonate better for certain people. Can
you hear that?
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (13:33):
What is that? Is that? The kids rolling around?
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Of course? Yeah? There, Apparently they're really.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Skating in the house again.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Gosh, moving forward. Something else that I think disgusts me.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
You brought this next one up when I saw you, is.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
That I see people, and I play a lot of conferences, right,
so like when I'm taking a break, I'll run into
the bathroom. So many people do not wash their hands, adults,
you know, and especially if you're just if you're just peeing. Okay, okay,
but gross, but no, I'm seeing terrible hygiene from adults
(14:12):
that are at business conferences, and it grosses me out
so much. It's such a simple thing to do to
prevent illness from spreading, especially because so much of them
are shaking hands with everybody else there because they're networking,
and they're all touching their face and they're all eating food.
It's disgusting.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
So then this is always a question I've had. I
washed my hands before I used the restroom in Peing
because of everything I've just touched, you know, I don't
need to unzip and put all that in that area.
Then I go, and then I wash my hands afterwards.
But I don't know, that was always interesting to me,
(14:53):
especially with just touching your face, you know, when we
were looking at this outline, I looked up The National
Institute of Health says, on average, a student touches their
face twenty three times per hour, and forty four of
those touches are around your eyes, your nose, or your mouth,
so all the areas you can get sick. And I
don't really think this should count, like while you're driving,
(15:15):
because if you do have to pick your nose, that
is the one place you can just really let go,
you know, and get in there, you know, in the
car because everyone can see you, but you don't think
they can, so you turn to your left of your right,
and then it's a whole it's a whole issue. You know.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Well, you can pick your nose, and you can pick
your friends, but you can't take your friends. Another one
is to never share microphones. Now this comes up a
lot for me playing shows and having people be like,
can I sing a song? And there's a lot of
reasons to say no to that, starting with the fact
(15:52):
that most of them can't sing, and no one really
wants to hear somebody sing poorly. That's the opposite of
why I got hired. But aside from that, it's really
disgusting to share microphone stage microphones with other people. Then
we used to do it all the time, and they
would smell at the bar, right, they'd smell like alcohol.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
Or cigarettes, you can tell.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
And it's just disgusting. But the other reason is because
it's the easiest way. It's basically kissing other people that
touch the microphone to their mouth. You know, you are
literally sharing every germ they got.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
I mean, I question how deep you're getting on that microphone, Chris.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
I mean, I'm almost eating it. I'm not, I'm not.
I mean I use a lot of microphone technique.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Yeah, did you do that before COVID? Did you not
share mics or did COVID really drive that home for you?
Speaker 2 (16:44):
No. I when I started doing when I was in
that period of doing a lot of weddings, is when
I really invested in a couple, really good. You know what,
They're not even that expensive, so you know, like there's
really no excuse to not have your own good microphone,
just by a Sure SM fifty eight beta ideally a beta,
(17:04):
and just keep it on you all the time. I
have like four of them, you know, and they just
come with me everywhere I go. And when I was
playing weddings is when I always brought my own because
they always want They always had one set up for me,
and so I was like, I'm not touching that.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Like two in each front pocket? Is that? What's been
going on?
Speaker 2 (17:23):
However many I need? You know, I never know, Dave.
Sometimes they do break. I've had one break.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
I got one, one is broke, yeah, another one.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
You get a phone in your pocket, you get a microphone. No,
that's the point. No one else gets a microphone. And
the same goes for anything else, like don't share utensils,
don't don't share your food with your bandmates when you're
onto it. I'm sorry, don't do it. Just don't try
to touch every surface as you walk into every venue
on your on tour. Right. I've seen I've heard stories
(17:58):
of some pretty elaborate tempts to not touch anything by
performers on tour because they are doing everything they can.
They take it so seriously to keep themselves healthy that
they won't even touch doorknobs sometimes. Right, certainly they don't
share chapstick.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
Yeah, you can't get sick on the road. It's just
not an option. You do it long enough, you might
even pick up illness on the way, and your body
will just shut down the moment you get home because
your brain is in go mode. Right. Oh, you should
do all these things so you can get home healthy.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Right. I mean when my kids are sick, you know,
which isn't that common, but it's a couple few times
a year, I quarantine from them, and it sucks, but
I have to because you know, I'm the only we
rely on the money that comes from the shows. I
can't get sick, so I have to keep my distance,
(18:55):
and so that's a rough part of that. Sometimes, you know,
I sleep in the guest room.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
How do you do with you know, your vegan Your
road options are definitely slim, I would think, right, or
I mean, yeah, many places off I ninety and Nebraska.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Well, it is the hardest thing about being vegan is
traveling it. Certainly, I mean I've I've been vegan for
like fifteen years, and the only time that it's a
struggle is traveling. And it's certainly what we're really needing
to highlight is that a healthy diet is a huge
way to prevent illness. And people know that, but it
(19:39):
doesn't make them make smarter choices, especially on the road.
They think convenience, they think indulgence. They think ten PM
after they've played a show and had a few beers
and they just want an entire pizza.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
You know, right afterwards, and they go straight to bed.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
And it's a terrible thing for your body to have
to deal with that and then try to keep your
health at the same time.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
But I've done that for years, all those bad things
you just mentioned. It took years of experience to figure
out not to do that anymore.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yeah, you know, the longer your tours are, the more
you get good at this. I think more people that
have traveled for longer periods of time, they really they
get settled into these things. They get settled into eating healthy,
they get settled into not sharing stuff, They get comfortable
with looking to where they're headed. This is how I
deal with being vegan, is I look ahead. So I
know onere of the closest whole foods is if I
(20:29):
can't find a whole foods, it's the second choice is
whatever natural grocery type store they have in the area.
I'd rather go to the grocery store and buy produce,
you know, and some packaged foods and eat that, then
stop anywhere pretty much and try to figure out how
(20:49):
to eat something that's healthy and vegan.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Chat is vegetarian, and we carry a cooler with us,
and it was easy enough to just fill up that
cooler with nuts, protein bars, fruit, and we always have
a little snack with us, which causes us to eat
less and be full on the road, and it's a
less travel time we're getting, you know, where we want
(21:12):
to go. So it's been a nice change and you
save a lot of money.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Totally well, I mean, my problem is if I buy
a bag of chips, I'll eat the entire bag, because
it's like I can't stop. But if you buy me
a bag of like mini carrots, I'll eat the entire bag.
And that's one of those I feel bit guilty about,
and the other one I don't care at all, you
know what I mean. So what you what you store
(21:38):
up I think in the car or the van or
your tour bus or whatever. It really does make a
difference on how good of choices you can make because
it's easier that way.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
You know, having those things can be stressful figuring out
where you're gonna stop, how you're gonna eat, how you're
gonna stay healthy, how do you manage stress on the road,
because that is definitely one of those things you need
to do to keep your immune systems up. Yeah, systems,
your plural immune systems, you.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Have so many, all your chakras right. For me, my
number one thing to do is to take time for
myself and that means to work out. Usually working out
obviously has its own benefits for your immune system and
your health, but even just walks and meditations, time alone
(22:29):
you know something in nature. I think all of those
things boost your immune system. I think all of those
things help keep you feeling good. And if you feel good,
your immune system is stronger.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Especially when you're traveling with someone, to even get away
for a little bit for yourself, I highly encourage, because
as soon as you get to a show, you're on
who booked you, the venue, people, it's just a different
kind of feeling, and then you get back in the
car with someone. Then you're back at the hotel with someone.
(23:02):
So finding that little space for yourself is definitely recommended
to feel a little better at the end of the
day and start your day a little bit more peaceful.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
I saw you put on here too, on the list
to avoid overbooking.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Yeah, because I think we have two different ways. I
guess you and I booked differently. You know, what you
do is different than what I do, and I might
put more of my more of my income towards my
merch websites consulting, so I don't have to book as much.
(23:40):
I could do it when I need to. You have
that option as well with teaching, but you have more
access to gigs. You have diversified more than I have.
You have hotels, your weddings, your original gigs. So I
just thought that might be important to ask, because it's
easy to start overbooking yourself. It's hard to say no
to a gig sometimes, especially when there's a lot of
(24:02):
money involved and the money that you're making compared to
one hundred and fifty dollars gig compared to a corporate
gig or a wedding, which might be ten times that
much to say no to.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Yeah, well, just for the record, I say no to
weddings all the time because I really don't play weddings.
And that's part of this is there's too much stress
involved with them, and I don't like doing them.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Why do you hate love?
Speaker 2 (24:25):
I'm tired of it? You mean your stupid heart mug.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
I'd't even know I was on there.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
I just kidding. But I don't like the stress that
comes along with them very much. And if I had
a slim pickings of corporate gigs, maybe i'd do more.
But I agree, I agree that you can overbook yourself.
Anybody can overbook themselves. And I think depending on all
the other things you've got going on, for me, being
a parent, being capable of balancing all the other stuff
(24:56):
that you prioritize in your life and fitting in your
gar schedule, depending how important of a pillar it is
in your income streams, you really kind of feel it
out based on your situation. And some gigs are two hours,
some are four hours, right, and that matters too, right,
And so there's a lot to balance out individually for
all of us to decide what overbooking really means. But
(25:19):
I can say that there are I have learned to
balance it out where I'll do mostly three shows a
week and then I'll leave like one at least week
in there of just two shows, and it feels like
a treat that week, you know what I mean. It
feels like a reset and it allows me to feel
a little bit less stressed for one of the weeks
before I get back into the rhythm of doing the
(25:40):
three a week. And that's just been my balance on
that stuff.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
I also put protector hearing because tittness in my ear
titness like titness.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
This is why you're eating the microphone. You get a
little titness in your ear. What's going on over there.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
It's competing with the way you sing into a microphone.
It's bad. It's getting bad with time. And because I
didn't wear ear plugs early, I have the loss of
hearing that it's aggravated by screaming loud noises. Everything is
louder to me. It's not that I'm losing my hearing
where everything feels muffled, but if I have to listen
(26:24):
to loud stuff for too long, my ears get fatigued,
and after a while it's I'm a mess. I'm just like,
get me more vocals, you know, anything, And then when
I'm out in the audience, it's just a mess, and
it's happened. It's better now that I've learned that it happened,
because now I'll go to concerts with ear plugs and
I can sleep better because my ears aren't fatigued all day.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
But highly recommend it because I was stupid for so
many years and I'm right next to the ride symbol.
I'm you know, forever, I was on Brian's right side
and that just right in there the whole the whole night. Yeah,
so I'd like to blame Brian, not myself. Let me
rephrase that all Brian Sansom's fault.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Well, truthfully, it is a lot of the drums they are.
The symbols in particular, are very damaging on the ear
if you're close to them. But we should always wear
earplugs in any loud circumstance. We should have them in
your car at all times. You should have them in
your gig bag at all times. Your keychain, sure on
your keychain, you know, when you when you're hanging out
(27:33):
with your spouse, whenever you really with your spouse. I'm
just kidding, but you need to have them at all
circumstances because you it always happens where it's like, oh,
I should have brought earplugs, you know, And so this
is just one of those things. Put it on the list,
Like I'm going to buy three pairs of nice, actual
(27:56):
functioning earplugs, and they're not all the same. You can't
go buy those cheap ones from home depot. You have
to buy ones. I mean, those will still help, to
be honest, but they're going to muffle everything in a
way that doesn't filter in actual sound. It's gonna make
everything sound muffled. So getting good ones will allow everything
to stay clear but reduce the volumes. So the next
(28:19):
section is to talk about singers in particular. I know
we have a lot of singers that I listen to
the podcast, and I think everyone, at least as some capacity,
relies on their voice, whether it might be lecturing or
teaching or singing. So here are my main tips that
I give to my students, and these are things that
(28:39):
I practice myself, and I think that a lot of
this has maintained my ability to play three four hour
shows of singing weekly for years, so I do think
this stuff works. First of all, the obvious one is
to warm up. Now, I don't actually think you need
to warm up much, especially if you're going to sing
a four hour show. You shouldn't warm up too much.
(29:01):
You should just ease into what song choices you make
at the beginning of the show. It's actually better to
just kind of ease into easy vocal sections and you'll
know your songs, which ones are going to push your
vocals and which ones you can kind of stretch a
little bit less taxing at the beginning of your show,
but always warm up to some extent. Sirens. We like
(29:21):
to do sirens a lot, and whatever. You know. You
can pull up a YouTube video of warm ups nowadays
that are fitting to your vocal range and do go
along with the video. It's actually quite easy to find
a million of those now. The other end of this, though,
is to warm down your voice after the show. Do
the same basic routine of like you did in warm ups,
(29:42):
just do them after the show to help your vocal
cords relax so that they don't stay tense after singing
all night.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Humming especially helps take out the swelling in your vocal
cords after a show. You know you mentioned just your voice,
but I also think to be able to stretch your
whole body before you're about to sing. Loosens everything up
from your neck to your shoulders. You know, your shoulder
blades into your chest. All of that needs to be
(30:11):
warmed up. And I recently saw Will Hulk play and
he was backstage beforehand just doing yoga on a mat
just to loosen up his whole body so he could
perform the way he wanted to. And you start that now,
no matter how old you are. It just makes things
so much easier as your career continues.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Totally. It's funny because I do stretches during my setbreak
because I have to, Like I I get like I
have to just stretch because I feel tight after.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
Didn't they ask you to stop doing that in front
of the microphone.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
I just turn around, I face away from the crowd
and lunch.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Touch your toes. Touch your toes.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Now, that's great advice. So stretching really does help, and
it really does help prevent any sort of muscle pulling
if you're singing really hard. Another one is using cocktail straws,
which most of us can get access to at these
events that we play, but or you can just you
can buy some nice ones. They might they buy like
standle the steel ones that that are made for this
(31:17):
in particular warm up straws, but their cocktail size. They're
very thin, and they help to create resistance in your
ta and your cet muscles, so that when you do
these like exercises like a siren through the straw, it
actually helps create the resistance which expands the throat and
allows for that more blood flow to go there and
(31:39):
allows that those focal cords to warm up a little quicker,
and it really helps me with the wine down afterwards.
I like to use the straw, particularly.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
After don't run while you're doing these very important.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Unless you mc jagger apparently that's worked out fine for
him that he's ninety years old running.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
Around still I met with a straw in your mouth.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Oh I see. Another recommendation is to aside from not
drinking while you sing, because it actually alcohol in particular
really does create a lot of dryness and burning on
your esophagus, which you are using a lot of when
you sing, and so the two are doubly taxing. When
the two are combined. I'm sure we all have experienced
(32:20):
that when you sing and drink at the same time
and you notice that raspiness that you get after singing,
but don't stick around. This is whenever possible, and I
if you are going to go stand at a merch table,
try to remove that merch table from the loud space,
because right after you sing is when your vocal cards
(32:41):
are the most fragile. So going to immediately start yelling
and talking loudly in an environment where every other noise
is still loud can be the worst part of damaging
your vocal cords. So if you can avoid that after
the show, that's a really critical part to maintaining healthy
vocal chords night after night is remove yourself from the
(33:02):
loud space, or just don't talk during a lot of
a lot of people will do vocal rest during those sections,
and even during meet and greets, they're just like, I'm
on vocal rest, I can't talk, you know.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Megan Burt is very good at that. I find that
after a show I just scream the word what at
her quite a bit because I can't hear her. But
then I found that even when we're at someone else's show,
she will not talk louder than she needs to to
protect her voice, and it's pretty impressive.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
So I know this coming from the vegan is going
to sound like I'm preachy, but I'm not avoiding dairy
will really also help your vocal cords stay healthier. Darry
creates a false amount of phlegm in them and can
create not only just a little bit of a noise
(33:56):
that you may not want to desire in your vocal tone,
but can also create a lot of extra scratchiness. I'm
trying to clear out that phlamm which.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
Is crazy because most of the news offer pizza right
before you play it.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Yes, right, all right, Yeah, probably won't make you feel
very good right before you show.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
Either.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
The problem with a big don't need a big meal
right before you show. Right. We all know this one,
especially the older you get. The more that's true. Boy,
You get so tired and your body's trying to digest that.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Stuff witness for you?
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Is it? Well?
Speaker 3 (34:29):
You know what I forgot that you did want to
talk about your secret and I think you just call
it the Chris Webs secret because it is the entertainer's secret.
Throat cote, Is that what you're going to.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Say, yeah, yes, So I was just gonna say that
the only thing I've ever found that actually helps with
the intern sort of spray. I know. You can go
to the natural grocery kind of places and find a
lot of herbs that are like throat herbs, and yeah,
they help, they help. They're they're good for building your
immune system, coding your throat a little bit with some ease.
But there's one in particular called Entertainer's Secret Throat Spray
(35:05):
that I got recommended from my E N T. And
I bought it once, and I have sworn by this
stuff ever since it does something. It's so much less disgusting,
first of all than those things that you buy from
natural groceries, which really are foul, and so it's much
less hard to be routinely using. But also it really works.
(35:29):
It will immediately help your throat relax after being used
a lot, and help your vocal cords heal. So sometimes
I wake up and you can't even tell that I
was singing last night. So I really swear by Steven.
And it looks like you're gonna put the link up.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
Yep, it's the white bottle that's for dry throat and
horse voice right there on the plastic bottle. I've used it.
It's awesome.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Yeah. And so the other thing that I think we
should talk about aside this is for everybody, not just
for singers, but is to know when to call it,
know when to cancel your show, know when it's time
to throw in the towel. Right, and just because you
need the rest or you're too sick, right, Certainly, you
(36:16):
don't want to spread sickness. That's one reason to call it.
But let's just kind of be very specific about it.
If you have a fever, like a real fever, call
it right. If you're dizzy to the way you're it's
dangerous to drive, or that lightheaded kind of thing, I
would say, call it. If you have a really bad
(36:38):
sore throat, do not push it. It will only get
worse and take longer to heal, call it lasting. If
you are vomiting, right, which I saw recently, or if
you're dealing with diarrhea or these things that are really
going to make it hard for you to perform, obviously
(36:59):
you need to call it right. And a lot of
us we have so much pride in never missing a show,
and it's also the financial end of it, which we'll
talk about here at the end, but it's really can
be It can be a very emotional thing to have
to call it, but these are things that you should
prioritize because this is about your longevity, this is about
your health.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
I pushed it to the fact to the point where
an ambulance had to come get me. I've also pushed
it where I had to call Mike Ligan to be
like take me, yeah, take me to the hospital, and
they had just put tape all over me. And then
also I've got to the point where I haven't used
the bathroom in so many days that I had to
call and say I can't go just in case something
(37:41):
happens when I get there. No one has ever canceled
for this reason, and I'm like, well, I hate to
be the first because I don't like canceling, but I
remember those three times. Yeah, we have to have a
plan when you know that call it situation comes up.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
And so this came about, and I'm amazed this kind
of did not come about anytime sooner. But for me,
this came about two weeks ago. When I had to
cancel those two shows. I realized that I need to
have a sick account. I need to have my own
PTO fund because musicians that we all know this, we
don't get PTO right. We don't get sick days that
(38:21):
are going to be financially there when we need them
unless we create them right. And so we go through
everything with our financial scale and we talk about emergency funds.
I actually want you to create something separate. This is
maybe not something you can do at the beginning when
you were still doing the first early steps of our
process here. So building an emergency fund is still number
(38:43):
one on this. But once you're in place like a
lot of our listeners are, where you have a lot
of these steps down and you have an emergency fund
in place, it's time to create a PTO fund, a
separate fund that is there for these circumstances. So this
gives you a chance to have a plan so that
if you can't trade the gig, which should be the
first thing you try to do. For some of us,
(39:05):
that's not an option. But depending on the type of gig,
knowing people to call on is another thing to be
prepared with having a list of trusted subs and then
also having a rain date if it's a show that's
for you, right for you, the artist. You can't just
(39:28):
sub it out, so you having a backup date with
the venue is a really important thing to have. Anybody
who's a tour manager knows these things really well, but
for the rest of us, maybe we don't think this
far ahead. Another thing that we've done a lot in
order to not cancel is to just if you can,
if the gig allows to play only instrumentally, if you
(39:49):
can't sing, you know you can be there, but you
just can't sing. That's something that a lot of my
performers have had to do over the years, and it's
a luxury to have that option for certain events, and
some that's just not out of possibility unless that's what
you do anyways, is not saying.
Speaker 3 (40:07):
We were talking a little bit about that on campus,
and I told you I just picked up this Fingerstyle
Beatles book, and there's definitely a slap in the ego
because I really thought I was going to be able
to pick it up and just play these chords with
these melody lines, no problem. But I had a goal
back to day one and to one measure at a time,
(40:29):
one measure at a time. But I'm setting myself up
because if this happens, I want to have something that
gives myself, even if it's within my set time, a
song or two that I don't have to sing over
if I'm doing something solo or like a corporate gig
or hotel or something yeah, outside the you know. But
I mean, even if you're playing original music, if you
(40:50):
could throw in an instrumental, would be awesome to have
that in your back pocket.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Yeah, yeah, And you know, when we're planning this, it
bends if it's two hours or four hours, what are
you going to have to do? So, but all of
this is to say, certainly try to not have to
have a plan to not have to cancel the gig
in every case you can. But if you have to,
then you have this sick fund ready to go, right,
(41:15):
this PTO that you have accrued for yourself. And so
for me, I put five days worth of my average
gig pay into a fund that is now there for
me when I need it. Right, sometimes you'll just be
able to roll with the punches and you won't have
to take this money out in order to deal with it.
(41:35):
Right you maybe you're hitting your numbers over your goal,
and so this is just something you're going to absorb
by having to cancel it. That's great. But in the
case where you're like I was not prepared, this is
a rough month, I can't afford right to miss this,
but I'm sick. Then you have this ability to do
what's right for your body and cancel the gig and
(41:56):
still fund that day for yourself so you don't take
the financial hit. What a luxury, right, What an amazing
gift we can give ourselves to be more professional and
capable of treating ourselves with respect that we want. Certainly,
bands should have this all too, as a backup plan
that they've discussed, so you know whether your solo performer
(42:17):
or a band is still all applies. Incidentally, I wanted
to mention that AFLAC, which you know has kind of
come up as can that be an option, won't work
for us as they don't cover colds or flu issues
at all. So even if you have something like AFLAC
to help protect you, it's not going to cover you
from colds or flus or those types of illnesses. Furthermore,
(42:41):
this is another reason having good insurance plans is financially
critical if you need medical attention. This can make the
difference in thousands of dollars in your situation. So it's
not only that you will lose a little bit of
money from canceling a gig. If you don't have good
insurance or no insurance, this can easily turn into a
six seven thousand dollars incident that is far more damaging
(43:05):
than just losing the one gig or a couple of gigs.
And finally, you can't expect to never get sick, nor
can we expect to only get sick when it's convenient.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
Because we're not all you. I mean, you're every once
every ten years.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
Well, I mean I do all these things, and I
really do think that all that makes a difference. Someday
I'll be paying for therapy because my kids will be like, damn,
it's seen you in months. I've been in the guest room.
I don't know what you mean, you know, but you know, whatever,
prementative is very valuable to me. But by using these
(43:43):
above recommendations, you can further secure a well run business
by being prepared for these health issues before they occur
and having a plan in place that will take care
of you.
Speaker 3 (43:53):
First, what's your action plan for this week? It's so
fun to even ask you that question again. It's been
so long. I know this is only our second one,
but it's been so many months. I get excited for this, well,
this one.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
I really am proud of this one because I and
I know that everyone's gonna have to do this at
a different time. But this is the goal here, right
It's create a PTO fund, a sick fund in another
high yield savings account, and work towards saving one show's
worth of average pay. That fund will be separate from
your advance and separate from your emergency fund. I wanted
(44:29):
to mention that I just was looking at this and
Open Bank, which is a massive bank, and there's one
other two that I can't pull up. Anyways. There are
banks like Open Bank that are offering accounts with four
point seven five percent returns still right now, come on, No,
(44:49):
at the time of this recording, that is true anyways,
and it may it'll fluctuate, but there's others out there
to make sure you pick a bank that you trust.
But you should not be putting this money in something
that's not getting at least three and a half percent.
At this time of this recording, that money those numbers
(45:10):
they add up and it could easily turn into two
shows worth of savings in there after a year or so.
We know your time is valuable. We appreciate you spending
this time with us and being a part of this community.
It's our hope that you feel that sense of community
here at musicians Tipjar and that you'll help us spread
the word to make us all stronger. If they'd like
(45:31):
to get hold of us, what's the best way to
do that.
Speaker 3 (45:35):
You didn't connect with us at musicians tip jar at
gmail a musicians tipjar dot com where you can check
out all the resources and discounts we have collected for you.
Check out all our episodes now on YouTube as well.
If you find us information useful, please rate and subscribe
to the podcast. Also slam the like button if you're
on YouTube so it can help you up on the
finance side of your music business.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
As always, thank you for joining us, and remember there
is already enough for everyone, you just need to know
how to get it. Until next time, I'll be half
for Dave Hampkin and myself Chris Webb. Stay happy, healthy,
healthy and wealthy. Health is our greatest wealth, so take
care of your body. As it's the only instrument you
(46:17):
can't replace. This is musician's tip, Jarrey.
Speaker 1 (46:25):
Somebody.
Speaker 4 (46:29):
Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or
professional advice. Please be sold to appropriate tax financial professional
for individualized advice. Individual results are not guaranteed, and all
these strategies have the potential for profits along operating on
the half
Speaker 2 (46:47):
Of health, the fur Coats furs confectly
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