If you want to be successful, surround yourself with promising and already successful people.

When I sold vacuumes door-to-door (swear to God it's true) I learned a lot. There are a few statements and sayings that have forever stuck with me. To quote a few, practice doesn't make perfect, "Practice makes improvement". Some people may not like this half empty approach, but I think it has a realizm that is important in certain situations. "The fear of loss is greater than the hope of gain." This quote is particularly interesteing to me because if you think about it and open your eyes, you can see that mostly that's true. People are more afraid to lose something they feel is important than almost anything else. "Dream Big. It's free." Nuff said right? And finally, "If you want to be successful, surround yourself with promising and already successful people." This one is invaluable.
Long ago, we realized that you can have 1,000,000 acquaintences, but if only 2 of them know YOU, you may as well have 2 acquaintences. BUT. If you have 3 real friends, you have 3 real friends. Ty and I have made it super important in our quest for the life of music to surround ourselves with people we truly enjoy, like, and have a respect for with only one ulterior motive. To really truly be friends with those people. This brings me to my next quote. I heard it on the radio one day. "Be nice to people on your way up because you'll need them on your way back down." -Winston Churchill. We have decided to base our careers on this quote.
We have been so privelaged to be associated with some of the greatest fans, musicians, and venues probably known to man that it's easy to live this way. Sometimes new friends come along and that is just fine. Sometimes we get an email from a 'Fran' (I just came up with that because our fans are our friends. I dub thee, Fran) telling us how much they love our music, or thanking us for free tickets to shows. These emails are beautiful. Never stop! It means so much to us to have people like what we love to do. I think a lot of people don't understand artistic endeavors. We work with some supportive people, but I think a lot of them think its rediculous. We get asked silly questions a lot in jest toward us.We hear this more than we hear "I love your music". I remember as a kid getting teased for singing. Even some family (not immediate) telling me I couldn't do it... Well... Guess what. We're doing it! lol Now some of those people have since found me on facebook and tell me they enjoy our music. And the ones I REALLY love are the people I was once friends with who WERE supportive of me finding us on facebook and online and saying they still love us :D *warm and fuzzy*. Then, we come play a show and we play a new song that we're not sure about, and you love it, or we are just really feeling it and it feels GREAT. And then a Fran (lol I'm a genius), new or old tells us they love it. All of a sudden all is right with the world.
As we get more involved with the community, new people turn up everyday and its really exciting to meet them. We think of most of you as famous in our eyes because we get to do some bad ass things! :D
A good example of this is The Utah Musicians Breakfast Club which was started after Eric Openshaw suggested a monthly meting with musicians at breakfast. GENIUS! Eric, Us, Taryn, and Candice started building a community of musicians on Facebook that brought us together at places we all choose. We meet once a month and talk about music, our plans, shows coming up, what we've been working on, and share ideas and sometimes join in on the events. This is exciting because we are all facebook friends but sometimes you miss those opportunities or you can hear more details in person. Some great shows and collaborations have come from these things.
It's exciting to be accepted in this group of truly great people, Kole, John, MIke, Taryn, Rick, The Local Landing guys, Eric, I can't even name them all,(sorry) and get to hear their ideas, the things they feel deeply for and get the chance to join in on these endeavors and help them get it out to all our friends to help build it. This community of music is something surreal. No idea is a bad idea. No one is turned away (unless you're someone ex-boyfriend stalking them or something like that. Then you have to leave. lol) Everyone is trying to be a part of a movement that I know deep down will be remembered even if only by us. We truly believe that the people we are meeting every day are so amazingly talented and smart that many of them are going to find a way to do what they love. To even just watch that is so cool :)
We just are excited to see where our lives go, what we accomplish and what we have to give up on, and whats more, the people we are still truly dear friends with 20 years from now. We love you all in a totally non perverted or innappropriate way. (except maybe Kole. Its totally innappropriate and perverted lol jk)

I'm a festival? No YOUR a festival!

So what exactly does it take to try and host a music festival? Is it a venue, some artists, and some promotion? Sure, but it's also a commitment to spending a lot of damn time in front of a computer doing everything from listening to the artists that have submitted material, to designing logos & fliers. Here's a little insight into the Acoustic All-Stars from our eyes . . .

First off let's give you a little background about how the Acoustic All-Stars came to be. In 2008 Melody and I had just started getting really serious about performing out as often as possible, so we were very busy playing show after show. We were sitting in Liquid Joes on a local music Wednesday night just after playing our set, and we were listening to one of the acts that was performing after us. Melody leans over to me and says "there needs to be a venue or event that helps showcase all the great acoustic talent here in Utah". And thus, the seed was planted.
We spent the next month or so brainstorming different ideas on how we could get involved in such an event. Finally Melody comes up to me one night and says "what if we do a festival type show that promotes artists coming together, sharing fans, and building a stronger all around music scene?" Brilliant! Oh, and let me just stop here and say that when it comes to amazing ideas, Mel is FULL of them!
So we had the idea, now it was time to find the venue. We already knew that we wanted to have more than one show that stretched over more than one day. We were looking for a place that would allow us to book out a weekend, and on top of that, a place that would allow us to book a weekend of JUST acoustic music. With that in mind, we started out search. We contacted a few different places, but nothing was panning out quite as we had hoped. We were talking to owners, manager, friends, basically anyone we knew that might be able to help us out. Finally our answer came one night in Park City just after we had played a show at a new venue. We talked to the manager/booking agent and he really like the idea, so we were off and running!
One of the hardest parts about booking a "festival" type show, is finding all of the musicians to play, and trying to coordinate them. We started spreading the word that we were doing a 3 night show and we needed musicians. Still being fairly new to the SLC music scene, it was a bit difficult finding the acts. We were asking everyone we knew, from long time friends, to newly found musicians we had met just a few weeks back. Everything was panning out beautifully, until . . .
We got an email that read something like this, "we are sorry to have to do this, but we have to cancel your acoustic shows due to a change in ownership. they are changing owners and they want us to cancel all of our upcoming shows." We had been planning this for about a month so far, and with just about 2 months to go, we had no venue. Back to the drawing board.
Now I'm a believer that all things happen for a reason, and there was most certainly a reason for this, but we just didn't know it yet. During all of this planning and having the venue cancel on us, we were still playing shows and working on our own music. Alas, here steps in The Star Bar!
We were playing a show in Park City at The Star Bar and as we're sitting there, we started talking about the possibility of hosting it there. We played our set, and it was a bit of a slower night so we took the opportunity to sit down and talk with Danny, the manager. We explained to him the idea we had for the show and almost instantly he said "we'd love to be involved!".
We were back in business!
So to save some time we'll just skim over the weeks leading up to the 1st official Acoustic All-Stars Festival. We found all of our musicians, some by asking, and some that found out about the show and asked us if they could be a part of it. The show was a success, the first night was amazing, we had numerous friends come hang out and support the show, and all of the music was spectacular. This was exactly what we had envisioned!
Year 2 was more organized seeing as you get better the more you do something, and you learn from your rookie mistakes. We had musicians applying that we had never heard of (which is awesome because it means that the festival was spreading), we understood marketing a little better, and we felt more confident about ourselves as "event organizers". By way of a couple well timed emails & phone calls, we had landed a spot as the cover story on one of slc's weekly magazine IN.
Now it's the 3rd year of the show and this is what we've learned so far. #1 - there's always going to be at least 1 artist that is "a bit difficult". #2 - There's always going to be some sort of snag that will make us think that nothing will work out, but eventually it becomes not nearly as bad as it originally seemed. #3 - Coordinating musicians, the venue, sponsors, tv spots, marketing, advertising, and promoting . . . can be a BITCH! And last but not least #4 - Meeting all of these talented musicians has been worth it's weight in gold!
One of the main challenges for us has been advertising. In the first 2 years Mel and I came out of pocket on everything we did for the shows, but at this point it has grown enough that we can no longer do that, forcing us to seek sponsorships. Asking people for money is one of the hardest things to do, now I know that they guy that stands on the corner just off of the freeway ramp just had to find a marker, some cardboard, and stand there. But this is a little different.
We've had to search out companies that have vested interest in our festival, companies that want to invest in what we're doing, and companies that want to be involved. It's tough, but we've got some fantastic people on board so far... Park City TV has been with us from year 1, they allow us to promote by having artists on their Mountain Views Show and inviting us on for Acoustic All-Stars week at their station... The Local Landing just came on board and they are ALL ABOUT promoting local events and spreading the word to all of their followers... Park City Lodging has given us an amazing offer on hotel rooms. Stay 2 nights and your 2nd night is HALF OFF, stay 3 nights and the 3rd night is FREE! Now that's what I call awesome... and of course The Star Bar. This whole thing would have been possible without Danny giving us the chance to prove ourselves as promoters and music lovers. From the very first they have allowed us to basically do what we want in booking the shows. They provide us with an amazing venue that is complete with a killer atmosphere. Amazing sound system, sound engineer provided, extra friendly staff, and great great drink specials! Oh, and for those of you who don't know much about The Star Bar and it's history. The Star Bar hosted the ASCAP Music Cafe during Sundance each year from 1999-2008 and here is a small list of just some of the people who have performed on this stage (we'd list them all but there are FAR too many to list), deep breath and here we go . . . .

Silversun Pickups
Neil Young
Graham Nash
Ingrid Michaelson
Pat Monahan of Train
Brett Dennon
Emserson Hart
Martin Sexton
Glan Hansard and Marketa Irglova
Jonatha Brooke
Tim Easton
Jonny Lang
Damien Rice
Emmylou Harris
Jason Mraz
Josh Ritter
Kings of Leon
Joseph Arthur w/ Ben Harper
Joseph Arthur w/ Peter Gabriel
The Dresden Dolls
Imogen Heap
Joe Purdy
Bruce Hornsby
Shawn Colvin
Ben Kweller
The All-American Rejects
Michael McDonald
Linda Perry
Deana Carter
Guy Clark
Jon Mclaughlin


and that's just the start of it. So you can see why we LOVE The Star Bar and having our event at this wonder venue. The musical history of the place alone is worth bragging about.

The Acoustic All-Stars is our heart, our soul, and our passion of trying to bring attention to some of the many talented musicians that Utah has to offer, we hope you enjoy what we're doing!