Be Digestible at 5 Miles an Hour
It’s Monday, and you know what that means—growth strategies with JD!
I realized I’ve chosen 5 mph as my way of growing, kind of telling people about the lane that I’m in the slowest possible way. Slowest way possible? Apparently, it’s a blog. Many benefits. But one is that you really can kind of show your ass properly here.
What I mean by 5 miles an hour is telling people very slowly, reaching out to musical people in my sphere. Take the blog: not necessarily telling folks about the blog—but mainly letting it just work.
Last November I committed to the hunch that I probably had one strong musical thought every day, and I could expand on that. So here we are.
What that gets you is really honing in on your thing. As I sit here today, if somebody asked me, “What is your music like?” I’d say—and someone said this about our Grateful Dead band: digestible.
Now, younger me would’ve punched someone in the face if they called my band digestible. But we are the dad-ish dead band. It works because we’re digestible Grateful Dead.
We’re the band for people who want to like the Grateful Dead, if that makes any sense. We don’t go deep, we don’t go on crazy tangents, we play acoustic numbers. If you’re a fan of American Beauty, then you like the band.
For me, this really speaks to my music as digestible techno—techno for the techno-curious. People who kinda like it, like to put it on in the background, think it’s cool. That’s where I sit.
And when I say (almost) everyone has at least some interest or is curious, it’s true. During SXSW, I went on after a grunge band and then a punk band. The grunge singer came up to me like, “This thing is what I’ve been telling people about.”
So yes, I had some preparation about going on after those bands, but I also went inside and committed to my shit—and it worked.
The organizer later told me I low-key won SXSW. The (small) reaction was amazing.
One thing that’s not elegant is pressing your friends about your music. So this weekend, I posted about a sound gig—a picture of the mixer, pretty nonchalant—but I included one of my songs in the background on Instagram. Slowly.
Instagram is kind of my medium. It gets the message out. People know I’m out doing stuff. When I see them, they ask about it. And every once in a while, somebody notices the song.
My oldest son told me they listen to this techno stuff in the kitchen at work. That’s an amazing win.
People are very slowly finding it. The speed establishes a deeper connection. I truly believe the faster and more “spray and pray” you go, unless it randomly connects, the weaker it is. The slower you go, the more it connects.
A vendor in Round Top reached out the other day and said, “Wait, you actually play music?” They had found it through my DJ thing, maybe looking at dates. These are the connections that stick.
I feel like I have nothing but time. And if I run out of time, so what. There’s no reason to rush any of this. Take it as slow as possible. Reach 1–3 people at a time.
It’s really rewarding.
I don’t know if it’s harder or easier work, but it’s certainly way more digestible from myself side as well.