Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Butt heads with the artist bio
Can we get something besides a resume from musicians?
www.jasonsavagephotography.com
Video:
John Williams, Itzhak Perlman - Schindler's List
Itzhak Perlman shares something beyond his bio.
I’ve mentioned the asinine quality of the artist bio a few times in the past but it’s time to take this thing on like bighorn sheep butting heads during the spring rut. That is to say — head on.
Here are bios of five public figures in vastly different fields. Yet they have one thing in common — their bios are almost identical.
Violinist Itzhak Perlman. CEO Jack Welch. Actress/Female Actor Sandra Bullock. California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom. Wildlife photographer Jason Savage.
Of these bios, the most revealing is that of Gavin Newsom, the politician, because his policies tell us something about his convictions. The rest of them are nothing more than gussied-up resumes.
Take a look at Tom Waits’s website. There is no bio or “about me” section. There is a “Wit and Wisdom” section. The very first line reads, “I didn’t just marry a beautiful woman, I married a record collection.”
That one line tells tells us more about Tom Waits than all the “artist” bios we see at classical music concerts.
Hey musicians, it’s time to stop giving us your resume and start giving us your bio. Either that or give us nothing at all. It’s insulting. Imagine speaking to someone and all they talked about was where they had worked and how strangers thought that they were great.
“Hey there, musician. What’s new? How are you doing?”
“I played Rachmaninoff’s second in Sarasota.”
“Really? How was Sarasota? I’ve never been there.”
“I went to Juilliard.”
“Cool. New York is incredible but I’ve heard living there makes you want to scratch your face off.”
“According to critics, I triumphed in Moscow, Idaho.”
“I thought the Roman Senate was the only body able to grant a triumph.”
“I made my European debut with the Bratislava Philharmonic.”
“Remember the ‘Two wild and crazy guys’ from Saturday Night Live back in the day? Weren’t those guys from Bratislava?”
“I made a recording for Koch International.”
“I hate the Koch brothers. F those guys.”
It makes no sense. Stop sticking to the facts and get dirty with some convictions.
Is this is a job interview and we’re weighing your work experience and education against that of other applicants? Maybe we should require musicians to include references.
Get as far away from the traditional bio as you can. Start creating culture with the way you communicate who you are at every opportunity. The traditional bio is the skeleton of decaying 20th century conventions and it stinks.
Stop being "professional" and start expressing the fire, the conviction, the emotion that makes you the artist that you are, even in something as basic as your program bio.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Butt heads with the artist bio
Can we get something besides a resume from musicians?
Butt heads with the artist bio
Can we get something besides a resume from musicians?
www.jasonsavagephotography.com
Video:
John Williams, Itzhak Perlman - Schindler's List
Itzhak Perlman shares something beyond his bio.
I’ve mentioned the asinine quality of the artist bio a few times in the past but it’s time to take this thing on like bighorn sheep butting heads during the spring rut. That is to say — head on.
Here are bios of five public figures in vastly different fields. Yet they have one thing in common — their bios are almost identical.
Violinist Itzhak Perlman. CEO Jack Welch. Actress/Female Actor Sandra Bullock. California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom. Wildlife photographer Jason Savage.
Of these bios, the most revealing is that of Gavin Newsom, the politician, because his policies tell us something about his convictions. The rest of them are nothing more than gussied-up resumes.
Take a look at Tom Waits’s website. There is no bio or “about me” section. There is a “Wit and Wisdom” section. The very first line reads, “I didn’t just marry a beautiful woman, I married a record collection.”
That one line tells tells us more about Tom Waits than all the “artist” bios we see at classical music concerts.
Hey musicians, it’s time to stop giving us your resume and start giving us your bio. Either that or give us nothing at all. It’s insulting. Imagine speaking to someone and all they talked about was where they had worked and how strangers thought that they were great.
“Hey there, musician. What’s new? How are you doing?”
“I played Rachmaninoff’s second in Sarasota.”
“Really? How was Sarasota? I’ve never been there.”
“I went to Juilliard.”
“Cool. New York is incredible but I’ve heard living there makes you want to scratch your face off.”
“According to critics, I triumphed in Moscow, Idaho.”
“I thought the Roman Senate was the only body able to grant a triumph.”
“I made my European debut with the Bratislava Philharmonic.”
“Remember the ‘Two wild and crazy guys’ from Saturday Night Live back in the day? Weren’t those guys from Bratislava?”
“I made a recording for Koch International.”
“I hate the Koch brothers. F those guys.”
It makes no sense. Stop sticking to the facts and get dirty with some convictions.
Is this is a job interview and we’re weighing your work experience and education against that of other applicants? Maybe we should require musicians to include references.
Get as far away from the traditional bio as you can. Start creating culture with the way you communicate who you are at every opportunity. The traditional bio is the skeleton of decaying 20th century conventions and it stinks.
Stop being "professional" and start expressing the fire, the conviction, the emotion that makes you the artist that you are, even in something as basic as your program bio.
Comments