Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? Ask Fan Landers! Critic Jessica Hopper has played in and managed bands, toured internationally, booked shows, produced records, worked as a publicist, and is the author of The Girls' Guide to Rocking, a how-to for teen ladies. She is here to help you stop doing it wrong. Send your problems to her -- confidentiality is assured, unless you want to use your drama as a ticket to Internet microfame.

Fan,
I'm an artist who put out a debut pop record last year that did relatively well. It sold enough to put me in the black and ended up with a good deal of great press. However, when I signed my initial deal I was relatively unknown and signed to a small subsidiary of a UK label with options for more records. Since then the smaller subsidiary is dissolving and the larger label would like to take me on. Lots of this is good, I enjoy working with the label people for the most part and I know they will go to bat for me. However, I don't feel like I especially fit in with the roster on this larger label and there is a part of me that would like to use this opportunity to find an even larger worldwide label with more reach and artists I feel akin to. Do I stick with the people I have a decent working relationship with or do I take the risk of jumping ship?
L'Artiste

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Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? Ask Fan Landers! Critic Jessica Hopper has played in and managed bands, toured internationally, booked shows, produced records, worked as a publicist, and is the author of The Girls' Guide to Rocking, a how-to for teen ladies. She is here to help you stop doing it wrong. Send your problems to her -- confidentiality is assured, unless you want to use your drama as a ticket to Internet microfame.

Dear Fan,
We're having a really hard time finding an audience. We have a solid album, and no one has heard it. We play an absolutely killer live set and we can't get enough people to come and see us play. The people who do make it to our shows always have a great time and we get a lot of good feedback. We've started to solve the problem by doing showcases, where eight bands play and this tends to draw a larger crowd, but we are READY to move on and do great things. I admit I am clueless at marketing, at generating interest, even the basic aspects of talking to people about my music. I know there's no magic formula, but I'd really appreciate any tips or advice you could give about what I could work on. We are genuinely talented and we keep making progress, I just feel we are capable of so much more.
Sincerely,
Us

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- Should I Stay In the Closet For the Sake of My Rap Career?
- Is My Band Accidentally Aiding a Right-Wing Extremist?

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Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? Ask Fan Landers! Critic Jessica Hopper has played in and managed bands, toured internationally, booked shows, produced records, worked as a publicist, and is the author of The Girls' Guide to Rocking, a how-to for teen ladies. She is here to help you stop doing it wrong. Send your problems to her -- confidentiality is assured, unless you want to use your drama as a ticket to Internet microfame.

Dear Fan,
This isn't just a music question, but I hope that's OK. Since about a year ago I've been the hypeman for an better known MC. Not famous, but people know us in our region. He's gay, I'm bi. Neither of us are out really and I didn't know he was til we got on tour together. He's older and farther along getting established, he's got mixtapes. I do stuff on my own but people have been knowing me mostly since I joined with him. I know if we both came out people would think we are together and have "the gay MC" or "______'s gay hypeman" or with my name always overshadowed by him. At the same time, I am not about to be telling him not to. What do I do?
Anonymous

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- Fan Landers: Is My Band Accidentally Aiding a Right-Wing Extremist?
- Fan Landers: Should I Publicly Shame My Mooch of a Bandmate?

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Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? Ask Fan Landers! Critic Jessica Hopper has played in and managed bands, toured internationally, booked shows, produced records, worked as a publicist, and is the author of The Girls' Guide to Rocking, a how-to for teen ladies. She is here to help you stop doing it wrong. Send your problems to her -- confidentiality is assured, unless you want to use your drama as a ticket to Internet microfame.

Dear Fan,
There is a boutique amp manufacturer who I've had a relationship with for seven years who makes amps that I love. They give me a huge discount on amplifiers and ask nothing in return. I've visited their shop a few times, and that's where my problem starts. The owner of the company has politics that I can't stand. Not just differing views, but really extreme, uneducated, and uninformed. And they definitely aren't shy about it -- there are posters all over the shop, bumper stickers on the company vehicle, constant talk radio blasting vitriol. I've been thinking about getting a new amp lately because every time I play through my current amp, I just think about this person's politics and get bummed out. What should I do?
Your pal,
"Rick"

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Last week, 50 Cent took to Twitter to tackle an issue few rappers have dared address: the sin of masturbation. He even went so far as to offer a handy four-step guide to avoiding the temptation to debase yourself:

Step 1: To avoid the urge to masturbate stop going to porn sites.

Step 2: Make a conscious decision not to turn your head after people walk by you.

Step 3: Do not go to strip clubs.

Step 4: Do not look at lust filled magazines.

We appreciate 50's commitment to defeating the scourge of onanism, but there's one thing lacking from his advice: Not all of us are in strip clubs or surfing porn sites when we're visited by the ungodly urge. A lot of us are just simple 50 Cent fans, driven over and over to the sin of self-abuse by none other than Curtis himself.

For your spiritual benefit, we'll share our own four-step plan to stop masturbating to 50 Cent.

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- The Fall Of Curtis: How September 11, 2007 Changed Everything For 50 Cent
- 50 Cent Is Done With The Album-Releasing Game

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Are you a musician? Is your band having issues? Our new advice columnist, who we're going to call Fan Landers (a/k/a Jessica Hopper), is ready to give you Real Talk about any problems your musical outfit might be having -- whether professional, practical, or sartorial. Send your problems to sotc at villagevoice dot com; confidentiality is assured, unless you want to use your drama as a ticket to Internet microfame.

Fan,
I've been the core of an act with someone for 10-plus years. We were pretty loosey-goosey on the money end of things for a long time, mostly because there wasn't much of it. I was putting up the front money, but I wasn't losing much, so I let it slide. Fast-forward to a couple of years ago when we formalized the business end of things between the two of us -- I leveraged a loan to try and give things another push (in addition to other things I was already covering) and am still not being reimbursed for the other
guy's half of expenses -- he seems to think his bar tabs even out for the travel and promotional expenses I've laid out for. And while we're on the eve of things getting legal, I've been getting advice from several people to go the "public humiliation" route -- to make him look like the cheap, self-centered guy he really is. I find the suggestion astonishing -- do you see any beneficial reason to proceed in that fashion?
-Anon.

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Take it from these non-failed musicians: Don't put out that album.

By Daniel Hopkins

Ask a Failed Musician, is a new column from our sister music blog at Dallas Observer, in which Daniel Hopkins helps struggling musicians make sense of their careers and offers advice. Whether or not it will work, who knows? It obviously didn't work for him. But then again, he was on Kimmel once, so there's that.

See Also:
- When To Call It Quits And When To Commit
- Advice On Getting Famous And Maybe Being Too Old For The Rock Band Lifestyle
- How Can I Bootstrap My Way To Pop Stardom?

To kick this thing off, rather than answering a troubled musician's query, I'll simply give advice to all new bands who are embarking on a musical venture that will result in probable good times and almost certain commercial failure.

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Are you a musician? Is your band having issues? Our advice columnist Fan Landers (a.k.a. Jessica Hopper) is ready to give you Real Talk about any problems your musical outfit might be having—whether professional, practical, or sartorial. Send your problems to sotc at villagevoice dot com; confidentiality is assured, unless you want to use your drama as a ticket to Internet microfame.

Dear Fan,
I have the good fortune of being in the new band of a well-known indie rocker, whose most famous bands were active in the 90s. He is encouraging the rest of us to bring our own song ideas to the band. Here's where I'm stuck, though. How do I psych myself up for doing this?

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Are you a musician? Is your band having issues? Our advice columnist Fan Landers (a.k.a. Jessica Hopper) is ready to give you Real Talk about any problems your musical outfit might be having—whether professional, practical, or sartorial. Send your problems to sotc at villagevoice dot com; confidentiality is assured, unless you want to use your drama as a ticket to Internet microfame.

Dear Fan,

I was inspired by your q and a from last week about how a mainstream pop-y musician can make it big. I have a similar question, except it's about how a DIY, underground, basement show playing, kind of scummy party band can make it big. Here's the deal: we are an awesome band that is beloved by our community. We regularly pack the basements of DIY spaces and can draw about 150 people to an established venue. Those shows usually get favorable mentions in the free weeklies in our large city. We've gone on six tours, all of them (very small) money makers. We've released a few albums and been written up by cool magazines, and we even got a bad review in Spin. We are like so many other awesome DIY bands in this regard. But!

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Are you a musician? Is your band having issues? Our advice columnist Fan Landers (a.k.a. Jessica Hopper) is ready to give you Real Talk about any problems your musical outfit might be having—whether professional, practical, or sartorial. Send your problems to sotc at villagevoice dot com; confidentiality is assured, unless you want to use your drama as a ticket to Internet microfame.

Hi Fan,

I'm a solo male pop singer and songwriter with a very mainstream/Top 40 sound. People often describe me as the male Katy Perry. However, having a mainstream sound in relative obscurity is proving to be a difficult thing to manage. From the indie/DIY standpoint, it's hard to get gigs; no one's really putting on a local pop concert. Few bars/clubs/venues cater to this sound unless they're bringing in a major label act. And I'm getting the sense that, though my genre is massively popular across the globe, people will only start to care once I've become famous. I believe that most pop music becomes popular after repeat plays (thank you, radio), but how do you get them to play it? I'm feeling caught in a catch-22 in that many pop artists today become famous first (reality TV competitions, bedroom covers on YouTube) and then put out music.

Is there any hope for someone like me trying to do it the old-fashioned rock way (write, record, play, play, play)? Or do I need to go feign desperation on The X Factor or film myself doing my best "Someone Like You"? We know where the lives of a rock band, rapper, singer-songwriter and country darling begin; where does the life of an obviously would-be pop star begin?

Thank you,
Nick

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