Andrew Dubber     

My second day in Hamilton was spent doing a full-day consultancy at the home of singer/songwriter Jacob Moon, whose rooftop version of Subdivisions by Rush has earned him a fair bit of attention – including some positive feedback from the band itself.

I arrived at Jacob’s place on the Saturday evening. He and his wife Allison had headed south of the border to attend a concert and so I had the place to myself. Lovely place with a separate building out the back for a home studio and office space.

The note on the kitchen counter said ‘help yourself to anything’, but I pretty much headed straight to bed as I’d been on the go for a week, with plenty of late nights out. I was pleased with a comfortable place to crash and a seriously good night’s sleep.

In the morning, I met Jacob and we headed out for breakfast at a local cafe. It was the full deal with bacon, 3 poached eggs(!), pancakes and maple syrup. It came with a bottomless cup of coffee, and it gave us time to sit and chat so I could get to know him a little bit, find out more about what he was about and what he was trying to achieve with his music.

Back at Jacob’s home studio, we went through a range of different things – from Jacob’s live schedule to his online activities, his releases to his physical mail-outs. He has, quite rightly, a fairly substantial following that you could measure in the thousands – if not the tens of thousands – but it’s a weird place to be as an artist.

You know if that many people like what you do, then surely there are other people you haven’t reached yet that would also like what you do – and it’s just a matter of connecting with them and letting them hear what you do. But it takes all the time you have to just maintain what you’ve got – and when you’re on your 7th or 8th commercial release, it can feel like a case of diminishing returns, even though each record is better than the one before it.

So we talked through the day, over lunch and long into the afternoon about a range of activities that would make more money for less work (‘while you sleep’ is winning the game, as far as I’m concerned), and about different products and online communication approaches that would help spread the message and develop income streams.

One of the things we tried out was the idea of creating what I call ‘vernacular videos’ – short, conversational, ‘non-produced’ videos that create great content with very little time and effort, but which could build over time into a really useful or interesting resource.

At the moment, he has some very slick and post-produced videos up on his website. They’re great, but they could come across as a little rehearsed and inauthentic – but he’s a natural in front of the camera, so I thought it would be a great idea to make the most of that fact.

Jacob’s such a killer guitarist, and I’m convinced that many of his fans will be other guitarists – particularly beginners – so I suggested he make some quick, rough and ready videos showing how to play his songs. I set up my digital camera on a stool, hit record and we did the above ‘test’ video. I think it works – though next time, he’ll have to take his hat off so his face isn’t in permanent shade…

I love doing full day, single artist consultancies. You get far more indepth and long-term strategic than you can when you’re just doing troubleshooting, problem solving and advice sessions in short doses or in groups. You get to know the musician far better – what’s important to them and where they’re at.

And sometimes, there’s icecream too.