Bärker's Journey: Nostalgia Meets Innovation

Ever dreamt of having a superpower? Join us as Eric Baker, aka Bärker, shares his whimsical wish for intangibility and the heartfelt advice he'd give to his teenage self about chasing dreams. This episode takes us through Eric's musical evolution, from his punk rock roots to his eclectic influences like The Beatles, Bob Dylan, and the pioneering sounds introduced by his Uncle Larry. Eric's story is a delightful mix of nostalgia and discovery, from the golden days of MTV to the tactile pleasure of record stores, all while exploring the shifting sands of music consumption.

Enter the innovative realm of a musician whose creative process transforms vintage public service announcements and advertisements into unique electronic compositions. With a tapestry of personal poetry and stories woven into their music, this artist shares their cautious dance with AI technology and its burgeoning role in music creation. We ponder AI's impact on the industry, with thought-provoking examples like the revival of John Lennon's voice, discussing how this tech frontier both challenges and benefits indie artists today.

As we explore the marriage of technology and artistic expression, discover the power of collaboration with indie artists like Feminoise and Tracy from Subtlety. Our journey doesn't stop there; we highlight the importance of platforms like Bandcamp in nourishing the artist-fan relationship beyond the superficial numbers game of social media. Get inspired by strategies for promoting independent music, from engaging newsletters to online radio submissions, and tune into the stories behind innovative projects like "Live from the Basement, Kent, Ohio 24." With exciting collaborations on the horizon, this episode celebrates artistic innovation and the genuine connections that define the indie music landscape.

Transcript

Journey Through Music

Speaker 1 0:00

Hi and welcome to the R2RB Indie Artist Podcast. And today I have with me Eric Barker, not Barker, Eric Baker aka Barker. Hi, Eric, thank you for joining me. How are you?

Speaker 2 0:14

I'm very well. Thank you so much for inviting me to be here. I have such great respect for what you do for your radio station. That's one of the best ones I've listened to.

Speaker 1 0:23

Well, thank you so much.

Speaker 2 0:24

It's an honor.

Speaker 1 0:25

Thank you so much. I am so happy to have you here. All right, so, as you know, I like to ask two questions to get us warmed up, and the first one is if you could have one superhero power, which one would it be, and why?

Speaker 2 0:39

Wow, I'm going to go with. How about intangibility, where you can just go through walls and ceilings and roofs and whatever? I hate walking, you know. Get that all out of the way. I have to walk upstairs, just poof right through the ceiling. That'd be great.

Speaker 1 0:56

There you go. You wouldn't have to worry about your 10,000 steps a day.

Speaker 2 0:59

Exactly.

Speaker 1 1:02

Okay, I like it All right, and so what piece of advice would you give to your 16 year old self?

Speaker 2 1:08

my 16 year old self. Well, I would tell him to get the heck out of dodge. Join a circus, you know, if you have to save yourself, um, you're better than what you were made to believe. And, uh, find something you love and dedicate yourself to it. I like that. I think that would have saved me a lot of hassles if I would have known that All right, all right, good, all right.

Speaker 1 1:31

So I've been wanting to ask this question Barker, with the two dots on the A and the upside down E, where does the name come from and why did you choose that name?

Speaker 2 1:42

It's part of my punk non-deplom, which was like your pen name. I was known as Earache Barker for a long time when I was a punk rocker and I took Barker the phonetic spelling. If you look into the dictionary that's exactly how it's spelled, with the two dots, the umlauts and the upside down E, and I figured it would be really a pain in the butt for myself to type myself in and for anybody else. So you know you have to be dedicated. If you want to listen to Barker, type it in. You know everybody's like. Why do you do this? You know I don't know.

Speaker 1 2:15

I like that and and you're right, you are. If you're going to listen to Barker, you're going to be dedicated absolutely, absolutely absolutely oh my gosh, I like that All right. So how did music become part of who you are today?

Speaker 2 2:31

Well, I was conceived during the weekend of the Manson Tate murders. I was brought home four days after the Kent State shootings so I had a big soundscape of hippie music like in my childhood. Like I can't, I can't remember not having music being played the Beatles and the Monkees, and Bob Dylan was a big one. Yeah, so I. I was just because of my parents, because my dad basically wow okay, all right.

Speaker 1 3:01

So were your parents? They listened to the music? Were they musicians themselves?

Speaker 2 3:06

No, not. Well, I guess my dad played the guitar, you know, and maybe thought himself one. But, yeah, I my mother, and they bother separated very early so but I know that she liked the monkeys.

Speaker 1 3:22

And I think most of us at that stage or that age, we all did like the monkeys. I know I did.

Speaker 2 3:28

How could you not? You know really.

Speaker 1 3:31

It was good. I like that. Who was your biggest influencer in the music that got you motivated to go that path?

Speaker 2 3:38

I would have to say my uncle Larry. He was supremely influential to me. He once played me a residence album while taking me to an arcade to play Dig Dug, I think it was, and it was so bizarre, so different than anything I had been listening to with the Beatles and John Lennon, and I started crying. It was so powerfully strange to me. It was so powerfully strange to me but it stuck there, you know, and he would keep influencing me with talking heads and you know the Husker Du was another really big one. So he, as far as musically, was probably my biggest influence.

Speaker 1 4:17

And then, at what age do you find yourself then getting into music yourself?

Speaker 2 4:23

I would say about 10,. 11 is when I really started. Mtv when it first started was a big deal to kids, my generation. We would just listen to this, watch that stuff all day and you would latch onto your favorites and the Clash, you know, rock, the Casbah, you know that's where it really really started. And then you'd save up money and buy a record every once in a while and you didn't know anything and you would just go buy the cover what looked cool. Right, I got some really bad stuff that way, but really good stuff too.

Speaker 1 4:58

There was nothing like going into that record store, you know, flipping through the albums, looking at the cover art. Um, you, maybe you knew who who it was, maybe you didn't, but some like you you know you bought the album because you liked the cover perfect exactly that's exactly how I did it.

Speaker 2 5:15

There was. I didn't have many people, you know, for a long time influencing me as far as that stuff goes, so a lot of that stuff I learned on my own and it was basically just picking shoes, you know. Whatever I can find, that was cool.

Speaker 1 5:26

Right, yeah, I mean my gosh, I mean not to give my age away, but you know it was first the eight tracks and then it was the cassettes and you know, and the albums still along the way and going and coming fast forward, and now we have everything digitized.

Speaker 2 5:42

Yep, yep.

Speaker 1 5:43

And now it's going back to cassettes I had said to my business partner the other day because I had a conversation about with somebody. You know, things are changing and they're thinking about putting out the CD sampler again.

Speaker 2 6:00

Yeah, right, you know I don't even have a CD player anymore. I don't even have a CD player anymore. You know, I don't.

Speaker 1 6:04

Well, I do, and the reason why I do is at my office I had this display for the kids to see that I had vinyl cassettes, an 8-track, a cassette player, and that's why I still have one. I'm not even quite sure if it works, but I have it.

Speaker 2 6:20

It's like crazy.

Speaker 1 6:21

But yeah, you know, it's funny how things evolve when we kind of go back to how it all got started.

Speaker 2 6:26

Yeah, you know what's old is new. Sometimes, you know, nostalgia sells. I would say that, and it's true.

Speaker 1 6:33

Absolutely so. When you were, you know, flipping through albums and getting into the music, you went the punk rock way.

Speaker 2 6:41

Pretty much. Yeah, you know, punk rock was kind of a subversive thing for me when I got into it. I remember as a kid we were driving down Cleveland streets my dad and I and there was an abandoned building, and painted on this building were the words sex pistols. And I didn't know what that was. And I turned to him and I'm like, hey dad, if you get shot by a sex pistol, would I turn into a girl? And he got so mad, he slammed on the brakes and he stopped and he's like the sex pistols are filthy degenerates. Don't you ever, ever talk about them again? And it stuck there, yeah, so when you go through your rebellious stage, you pick out the one thing that is most subversive to your parents.

Speaker 1 7:23

So yes, All right is most subversive to your parents.

Speaker 2 7:30

So, yes, all right, so do that punk era then carry on through pretty much. Pretty much. I mean I I don't really listen to it so much anymore. I've changed as far as things go, but for a long time that's how I identified myself, as you know, more of a punker than anything else cool. I was in bands and I, you know I fronted things and it was more screaming type of music, you know, no crooning involved so you get through that stage and adulthood you're into that.

Speaker 1 7:57

When does it start to change for you, though, from punk into kind of going into where you are now?

Speaker 2 8:03

I would say probably after we started having kids. And we started, I started settling down and got out of a lot of things and I tried to. I had kids and I wanted to teach, tell them that I was kind of cool at one time. So I started this back up again and I just didn't have the heart to scream all the time, you know type of stuff. And so I went into this electronic stuff and they still have no interest in what I do. None, none. My littlest will listen to it and just hold her head and just walk away, you know it's tough being a parent.

Speaker 2 8:39

Oh, it sure is, but it's so rewarding it really is yes, it is Absolutely All right.

Speaker 1 8:44

So we get through that, and then you get into the electronic stuff, and then is that when Barker kind of started to come about.

Speaker 2 8:53

Pretty much. When I first started I was just messing around, you know, with some Ableton Live, which is a program that you can use to start recording stuff, and I was doing that for about a year and I hooked up with a friend of mine and we worked under a project called Linda Sharp Trio and I learned a lot from him and we did a lot of really cool stuff. But collaborations can be very fragile things, so it kind of broke apart and I started this Barker thing earlier this year and that's when I really put all devotion into this. For the most part into now I'm doing everything myself where it used to be. You'd have somebody helping, you know.

Speaker 1 9:32

But All right, so tell us what Barker encompasses. What do you put what? What's your genre, If you want to use that term, because you don't have a genre.

Exploring Unique Music Creation

Speaker 2 9:44

But no, experimental, I like. I consider it experimental drama, you know, because I have a lot of dialogue samples running through it and you know experimental public service announcements. You know I, what I do is so different I don't even know what you'd call it.

Speaker 1 10:03

I don't either, but I just remember, when I came across you on Facebook and I went to listen to your music, I'm like, well, wait a minute, what is that? And so that I was like, oh, and then I had to, like I had to, you know, listen to it again, because the first time I wasn't sure what I was listening to, cause it is very different.

Speaker 2 10:25

Yes, and so when I listened to listen to it again because the first time, I wasn't sure what I was listening to, because it is very different.

Speaker 1 10:26

Yes, and so when I listened to it and then I got to know you, and then I got to read about you, and the more that I put it together it made sense. And yet it is just I wouldn't. Well, that's why you are and do what you do, because I would have never in a million years thought of taking those conversations and put it together like you do.

Speaker 2 10:45

Oh well, thank you yeah.

Speaker 1 10:47

So tell, tell us you know what that is about and what you do do and where you pull it from.

Speaker 2 10:52

Well, for a long time I had a great interest in old public service announcements and advertisements and you know school education films. So I would collect all this stuff and I had no real I didn't know what I was going to do with it until I got into this electronic stuff Before I had been writing lyrics and it got to the point where there was nothing I can say that hasn't been said before in these recordings that I've been doing. You know, coming from some, voice from the 1950s is a little bit different than some 50 year old guy saying hey. Voice from the 1950s is a little bit different than some 50 year old guy saying, hey, eat your vegetables. You know, you know. So I started just cutting this in to leave messages, essentially to whoever's interested in listening to it. Really is how I look at it.

Speaker 1 11:38

Okay, yeah, but it is, it is so interesting, it is different. Some of the recordings are it is so interesting, it is different. Some of the recordings are, you know, definitely a little off and to the left, which I always like because it's always, you know, it is definitely different. Do you do any writing at all? Did you do writing?

Speaker 2 11:57

Yes, I do. Yeah, my father was recovering great American novel writers writing. He would always you know that's what his goal was forever the great American novel writers writing. He would always you know that's what his goal was forever the great American novel. And he never. He never hit it. But I took it up from him and I've been writing poetry and lyrics and short stories and stuff like that for a long time, just for my own enjoyment really.

Speaker 1 12:19

Do you take any of that and put that into your?

Speaker 2 12:21

Yes, yes, I do, I have started to. I came up with something um recently, memories of the mayfly. It was like an ep of like I don't know, six or seven songs, and there is some pretty personal stuff in there. Okay, and the last one is just a straight poet, a poem that I had written a long time ago oh, wow uh, yeah it, it's pretty heady stuff, you know.

Speaker 1 12:45

I've listened to pieces of it. Yeah, absolutely it's pretty disturbing.

Speaker 2 12:49

You know it's very muckraking for myself.

Speaker 1 12:52

And that's okay.

Speaker 2 12:53

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 12:54

All right. So this is what I like, because then I get to talk to the person that's behind all this, what you have put together, to get to understand it even better. So you take it down and bring it to a little bit different depth for people to understand.

Speaker 2 13:14

Because, like I said, when I first started listening, it was like what I think most people do, and most people after that just turn it off.

Speaker 1 13:19

Oh my gosh, Go back to Led Zeppelin, or whatever. Oh, no, yeah, no, no, no, no, no, not at all. Do you use any AI programming?

Speaker 2 13:30

No, I have used an AI art program to do two album covers or to help me with two album covers. But other than that, no, it wasn't really until talking to you Last time, and then a little bit before that, where I learned that people were actually writing songs with AI. Yeah, doing the singing and the playing. Yeah, it blew my mind. It really did. I'm very secluded culturally. Really I am, because I don't really like what's out there too much. I had no idea that was even possible.

Speaker 2 13:59

Really I didn't. I knew that it was used for writing purposes, Right. But, now it's writing music, yeah.

Speaker 1 14:07

I think there's different levels of the AI that indie artists are using, and I've had this. It's now almost a year that I've been having this discussion with different indie artists. Ai has always been around. It just really just hit hard almost a year ago when it hit the scene and everybody at that time said, oh my God, it's going to be a terrible thing, it's all going to be all bad. It's not all bad, and I think the indie artists, who have such a passion for their work and have been at their passion for a long time, if they're using it, it's for, you know, for a particular piece or something that they couldn't get out of something else that they've been using and for me that's fine, and I think the biggest example is the John Lennon song, where they were able to pull his voice out and redo it and put it back into the song and that's wonderful, and that's beautiful so.

Speaker 2 15:02

I have not heard that yet.

Speaker 1 15:03

Yeah, no, yeah, I got to find that I will. Yeah, john Lennon.

Speaker 2 15:08

A Beatles song, right, a Beatles song, yeah, so that was pretty cool.

Speaker 1 15:19

So, yeah, I mean.

Speaker 2 15:19

And then there's, you know, there always no matter what it is.

Navigating Collaborations & Artistic Expression

Speaker 2 15:20

There's always going to be that person that's going to use it for the bad, of course, like anything else. Yeah, really, with AI, you know, in my lifetime sampling was considered very, very bad by musical purists. You were not allowed to sample even dialogue. I don't sample music, but even cutting dialogues was considered something really cheesy. And before that, you might remember when electronic guitars electric guitars was considered really bad, you know, by jazz purists and whatnot. You know what I mean. Yeah, it's what you make of it, it's what you do with it. Like you said, some people just need to have an outlet for their creative expression and if that's what they need to use, just make sure to credit it.

Speaker 1 15:57

Exactly, that's right. Yeah, and you had said about the AI and the art, and I think what AI is able to do with the imagery is absolutely phenomenal.

Speaker 2 16:08

It blows my mind.

Speaker 1 16:09

Mind blowing right.

Speaker 2 16:11

Oh my God. And I know a lot of artists don't like that either. You know the visual artists.

Speaker 1 16:15

Yeah, that's the same on that side as well. So there's always going to be that double sword, double edged sword, with whatever.

Speaker 2 16:22

But you're going to have to live with it because I don't think it's ever going away.

Speaker 1 16:24

No, absolutely. I mean, I use it. I'm not going to say that you know that I don't. I use it for for my writing, if I'm stuck on something or if I can't come up with with a, with whatever. I certainly yeah, I have definitely have turned to it as well I want to talk about. You have collaborated with some really awesome indie artists boy yes, I got very lucky, very lucky.

Speaker 2 16:45

You got like they got lucky oh, 50, 50, maybe all right all right.

Speaker 1 16:50

So how did that come about? And and and. How did that come about? And from you know the type of of the music that you put together. How did you evolve that into collaborating with the other indie artists?

Speaker 2 17:03

well, it started. It started off when Feminoise Mel from Feminoise came up and asked me if I wanted to collaborate with something and it just I think I thought she was talking to somebody behind me or something, because it couldn't have been me, you know, because what I do is very, as we discussed, very different, right, but she appreciates that and she wanted to do something different. We came up with a single this Dystopian Communications, which came up pretty good, and that was kind of along my lines as far as that stuff goes, and it wasn't too different than what I was doing.

Speaker 2 17:35

And then I came up with Tracy from Subtlety asked me I don't know if you're familiar with her work. She's a phenomenal singer songwriter. She is a crooner a piano crooner seriously.

Speaker 2 17:48

And she asked me and I took it as a challenge really, because it's not anything that I would have ever imagined working on really and she presented me with this piece that blew my mind. It was so beautiful what she wrote, right, and I just tried to put my little spin on it as much as I can without touching the piece. It worked out pretty interestingly well. People seemed to like it for some reason.

Speaker 1 18:11

Oh my God, Both of those were phenomenal.

Speaker 2 18:14

Well, thank you very much. I'm very proud of them both. I consider it a validation of producing stuff. You know, I think I can do almost anything. Maybe they gave me that power, which was very nice of them, Very, very cool.

Speaker 1 18:29

Do you have anything else in the works collaborating with somebody else?

Speaker 2 18:33

Yeah, we got in the can with. Uh, do you know who the ghost of Rucker is? Have you heard of him? Oh, I love the ghost of Rucker. Um, we have something that's soon to be released, so that that's very exciting. Yes, and then I'm going to be working with Arar Neb. I had to pronounce that properly. It's a Welsh pronunciation and I think I got it. Arar Neb, oh pretty good. He's pretty cool. Yes, he's really good, so I'm excited to work out with him too.

Speaker 1 18:58

Oh, fantastic, it'll be a nice end of the year. Yeah right, yeah, end of the year. I can't believe we're in the middle of october. It's like how did that happen? Oh my gosh, unbelievable. All right, so that brings us to your newest release which is live from the basement, kent, ohio 24. Yes, ma'am, yes, so I've listened to it. And then I went back and emailed you and said explain this to me.

Speaker 2 19:28

Yes.

Speaker 1 19:29

I was invited.

Speaker 2 19:30

Well, I was invited. There's a like an art collective based out of Kent, ohio, which is Kent University. It's a college town and I was invited to do a live mix set, which is, you know, you're mixing all these sounds and dialogues and it was a sound and discussions event. So in between the setups of the sound artists, they would have somebody sit up there and talk about topics of the day. I got my hand on those topics of the day subjects and I wove them in to this set that I was doing. Some people didn't like that very much. I don't think I'm going to do it again. I'm pretty sure I won't be invited back. Yeah, they didn't like how I. They thought I was just making a joke of it, but I really wasn't. I was just trying to make a point. Them getting angry at my point was that you know you have to. You have to be willing to accept other people's opinions and respect them.

Speaker 2 20:24

You know, you can't just talk into an echo chamber for too long Once you do, what else is there? You know there's nothing. You need some voice. Socrates is gadfly, you know. Just come in and poke people just to make them think a little bit. Now they didn't like what I poked. If you've listened to it, there's a lot of religion was a big subject, feminism was a big subject and I just I cut it up pretty subversively, I would say, but I'm pretty proud of it really.

Speaker 1 20:51

It was hard.

Speaker 2 20:52

It was really hard, it was.

Speaker 1 20:55

I think if I had listened to that for the very first time, without knowing the background of Barker, I probably would have said what? And I may not have, but putting, like I said, there's a story behind all of this. There's a story to you, to Eric, and what you have done with the electronic side of it all and pulling it all together, right, I mean, and they invited you, so I'm not quite sure what they were expecting you to do, because you're an artist.

Speaker 2 21:27

Yeah, exactly. Well, there was many artists along these lines, so at this event. So it's not like I was doing something so alien, right, I think. Just they didn't like that I was using their subject matter as fodder, so they said that's all right. No, no.

Speaker 1 21:46

So you have to people, you have to go listen to this one. So it's live from the basement, kent, ohio, at 24. And then you know, if you're going to start there, then you have to go all the way back to you, know where you started and then come forward with this Because it just really catches you. Like I said, the first time it was like what, and then you know, then, when you listen to it and you've, you've go some, some, some deep places. That that is for sure.

Speaker 2 22:12

I try to yes, I do yeah.

Speaker 1 22:14

Yeah, yeah, and you do, and I think you do it well.

Speaker 2 22:17

I appreciate that compliment. That means a lot. Thank you.

Speaker 1 22:20

You're welcome, Absolutely. Let me ask you this question what advice would you give another indie artist wanting to you know, start out these days?

Speaker 2 22:28

I would suggest trying to limit yourself in social media, for one thing because that opens up so many of the human conditions and self-doubt it pushes that and this fear of rejection, because there's so many people that post to these things and then get crushed because there's not enough likes. You have to be strong and you have to really be know how important your art is to you. You know you have to put blinders on and just go as far as you can, as long as you can. You have to live with those, the human condition of that. You have to be able to master all of those. You know hold the reins. You can't have the rein of your horse getting pulled too far.

Speaker 1 23:08

That's right One way or the other, absolutely you have to keep them going straight.

Speaker 2 23:10

You have to keep them all together. So just try your best, try not to listen to everybody.

Speaker 1 23:16

I like that Absolutely Because nowadays it's you know, it had been the social media for so long the numbers and the algorithms and the likes and everything else. And it's funny because once again, we'll talk about that too. It's like it comes around. The indie artists are being knocked down on Facebook. They're being taken down, they're having their music taken down. You're not allowed to post, you can't, I won't say it is, it really is. I won't stay on my soapbox. It is, it really is.

Speaker 2 23:44

My opinion is that they are trying to get you to verify yourself through Facebook, which is a monthly fee and that gets that little blue checkmark. So now the community was so nice for so long. Now it's swamped by bots and advertisements and, like you said, people are getting kicked off and I think they want you to verify yourself.

Speaker 1 24:07

I agree 100%, because that is what I have said from the beginning, when all this started, is that stay tuned, because it's going to come down to the monetary with Facebook and maybe not so much Instagram, but definitely on Facebook. That's where it on Facebook. That's where it's headed. It's either going to be this subscription I didn't even think about Verify, verify and they'll have different levels of Verify.

Speaker 1 24:27

So you know all this is super Verify and you get to pay $50 a month and bingo, you are hitting it. Yep, absolutely, I totally agree, 100%, because that's the bottom line for Facebook.

Speaker 2 24:40

It's a bottom line for anybody anymore.

Speaker 1 24:42

Really, it seems Just the monetary gain yeah absolutely, and that goes back to what you said about indie artists starting out. Don't start out thinking that Facebook is all there is out there, because run.

Speaker 2 25:00

Yeah, Streaming services as well. I mean, I don't know, I think streaming services are very. They're great If you are the listener right. If you are the artist, I don't think it really does so much really, and people are so involved in that. You know there's so many playlists going on.

Speaker 1 25:18

There's. There's so much more out there. I mean, we all get that tunnel vision and we all have done it, but there are other platforms that the indie artists these days have to look at. I agree. That's a discussion that I want to have, a roundtable discussion with, which will come next year.

Speaker 2 25:36

That would be very interesting. I'd love to listen to that.

Speaker 1 25:39

Absolutely so. You were a guest panelist on Vox and Guest. What was that experience like that I happened to tune in.

Speaker 2 25:47

That was nerve wracking, I gotta tell you it really was, but it was a lot of fun. It was really really cool. I was invited to appear on their show a couple of times but I had to turn them down for various reasons and they put me on a panel with Deidre Patrick and Kurt from Crypt 13. They're both so knowledgeable. And then there's me, who's just sitting there, you know, trying to think of something. Would you just say something that might be relevant? Because, again, I'm very socially and culturally, very much a recluse. I don't know genres and references, so, but I tried to nod my head in the right places.

Speaker 1 26:26

No, they're great. Definitely, christina is great.

Speaker 2 26:29

Yeah, yeah, such a great service for the community, absolutely. It's funny.

Speaker 1 26:36

It's funny Cause I'm you know, and I say this often, that I'm an introvert doing the podcasting and the radio and being a wedding officiant, but at the end of the day and actually I get still get very anxious and we'll have a small panic attack before each one.

Speaker 2 26:50

Well, nobody would ever know and see, that's the, that's the, that's where you got it down, that's right. I'm like usually shaking, like next, you know, trying to put my hands under the table I used.

Speaker 1 27:01

I don't get the sweaty palms like I used to.

Speaker 2 27:04

Oh see, there you go.

Speaker 1 27:11

So I guess I'm getting, I'm getting a little bit better, absolutely so. You reside in. Ohio with your family? Yes, and are you from Ohio or did you migrate?

Speaker 2 27:17

No, I was born in Parma, ohio, which is the capital, I'm telling you musically, of Ohio. There's so many musicians that came out of Parma Ohio, a lot of punk bands, a lot of metal bands, you know. But yeah, we moved around a lot as a kid but I came back and we settled down here and my wife and I we love it, you know, really we love it here.

Speaker 1 27:41

What do you like to do when you're not doing dad stuff and music stuff?

Speaker 2 27:43

Do you have hobbies? No, because I've got so many dad stuff. And you know my daughter, our littlest one, she has horseback riding and volleyball and you know this and that and open gyms and keeps us running. You know, I remember those days.

Speaker 1 27:56

Yeah, so yeah, but I love it, you know I remember those days.

Speaker 2 27:58

Yeah, so yeah, but I love it.

Speaker 1 28:01

Awesome, that is so great. So where can everybody find you?

Speaker 2 28:03

Probably on band camp. Band camp would probably be the best, but good luck typing it in.

Speaker 1 28:15

So I actually I'm going to tell you a secret.

Speaker 2 28:17

I actually had to Google how to get the two dots on the A. Oh, there you go. Yes, it's like a command, something or another.

Speaker 1 28:21

Yep yeah, well, I found one that worked. It was like alt 0228, for those of you who are listening perfect, I just copy and paste myself all over.

Speaker 2 28:30

Don't bark or copy paste, copy paste yeah, but you're right, bandcamp.

Speaker 1 28:36

Bandcamp is a good place, uh, to find you. Is there anything else you'd like to share that I haven't touched on tonight?

Speaker 2 28:44

um, I think you had asked me a very interesting question about the, uh, the state of indie music right now I think that was one of the questions. Um well, it's so talented and so saturated the indie, independent music scene right now. I mean it is so talented and there's just too much. I mean I don't know how people do it. How do you listen to 50 bands that are just so good? They're just amazing. Someone like plains desperate symphony, who I really really like he.

Independent Music Promotion Strategies

Speaker 2 29:15

He came up with a very profound album called a full lucid not long ago and you know it's bumped out of the limelight by another person's gem within days and you don't see it anymore and it's really sad. I don't know how people do it. You know it's and it's far too dependent, as I said, on streaming platforms. I do believe I really, really do. Get yourself on band camp, at least try to sell yourself. Get yourself on Bandcamp, at least try to sell yourself. I find, as a listener, it's much more gratifying to buy your music and put it on my computer and listen to it at my leisure not at Daniel X's leisure, on Spotify or Apple Music's leisure. And I'd like to give you money. I'm happy to throw you five bucks, whatever you want to charge me, you know.

Speaker 1 29:59

And that's a great point, because the other part of Facebook is the follow. Don't you want your people to be a listener? Don't you want that fan to go to band camp where they can listen to you, purchase your album or a single and be a true listener and a true number? If that's what you're looking for, then, versus the follow, for follow on facebook, um, that they don't necessarily even listen to what your music is no, I think most of the time those follow for followers it's just a marketing thing.

Speaker 2 30:40

They just want you to follow them. You know really. You know really, like you said, people don't. I mean, I don't know, maybe band camp is used a lot more than I think. I mean, I use it quite a bit.

Speaker 1 30:52

It makes you more vested invested in being a fan of somebody's music as well as that, absolutely, and there's radio stations that that the new indie artists or any artists that if you're passionate about what you're doing, you know you send it out to the radio stations, the online radio stations um r2rb r2rb broadcasting absolutely, but it's true. You know, that's where this I feel we're also it's evolving to is that you just can't rely on social media anymore.

Speaker 2 31:25

No, no, you can't, if you really are looking to.

Speaker 1 31:28

you know, make a go of your passion and you know your music, then you want just more than, like we just said, a follow for a follow. I want somebody. You know, if I was in that position, I would want a true fan listening to my music and that's what we were back back in the day. We were fans, we were true listeners. We didn't have follow and hearts and everything else, so you know if we loved a certain person, you bought every single album, every. Cd every cassette you had the whole kit and caboodle.

Speaker 2 32:00

Yep, and that's how I try to look at, still do things. You know, I Ghost of Rucker. I bought most of his stuff, feminoids. You just go and buy them just to say, hey, you're great. Here's my way of showing you.

Speaker 1 32:11

Right.

Speaker 2 32:12

Yeah, I don't know, but it is getting a little bit more popular. Band camp there's a lot of Facebook groups that push this, so I'm sure they're going to get shut down any day.

Speaker 1 32:25

Isn't that true? Oh my God, that's usually what ends up happening. Yeah, but I like that one. Thank you. Thank you for bringing that one up.

Speaker 2 32:32

These subjects are very important I really, really do to the independent musician scene. This is stuff that people have got to start getting their heads on. In my humble opinion, just my opinion Fight back from this corporate stuff. You can still do it. You can still make newsletters. You know, get your friends' emails and just email them, your goings on, that's it, and if they really like you, like you said, they will support you.

Speaker 1 32:57

Yeah, and it goes with the, with the radio stations. You take your song, you email it and say whatever you say with your bio um send the mp3 to them because they're not going to come looking for you no, yeah, no I mean, that's how I get a lot of music, because you know they've seen me on facebook, but they'll email me and send me an MP3.

Speaker 1 33:20

They'll send me their bio, you know, and say, by any chance, could you give it airplay? And to do that, that's you know. I'm more than happy if it's you know something that I really, really want to share. Most of the time I share what I get, but You're a great supporter of the scene.

Speaker 2 33:34

I tell you really, no, really, you are A lot of people really really appreciate what you do thank you.

Speaker 1 33:40

I appreciate that because I never really expected to be doing what I'm doing at this stage of the game and I do enjoy it. So thank you for that. But yeah, there are definitely other ways to get out there and to be recognized. And you know not be making the point zero, zero, zero, zero three yeah, right.

Speaker 2 33:59

Yeah, you look at my spotify numbers. They're all under a thousand.

Speaker 1 34:03

You know it's, it's just you look at it, you're just like uh I know, yeah, so, and you can be so discouraged so easily when, when, when it's the numbers game, like that. So yes, yes right.

Speaker 2 34:14

You know I'm old enough not to really I'm not striving for success at all. I'm just striving to make art. But there are people that this is what they really, really want and they get really hurt by these things this numbers game.

Speaker 1 34:27

Yeah, so hopefully time will change that as well. We're hoping, we're hoping.

Speaker 2 34:32

We can just keep trying, that's it.

Speaker 1 34:34

That's it, Eric. This has been great. Thank you so much for being with me tonight. It's been a pleasure getting to know you.

Speaker 2 34:41

I really appreciate this. It was a really great evening. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 34:45

You are so welcome. All right, so once again, they can find you at Barker, that is the A with the two dots on top. They can find you on Facebook, they can find you on Bandcamp and they can reach out to you.

Speaker 2 35:01

I'll say hi anytime.

Speaker 1 35:03

Absolutely, and you have, you have a website. I do, yes, I do.

Speaker 2 35:07

Yeah, it's Barker's Sights and Sounds dot com. You know it's something silly.

Speaker 1 35:13

Yeah, but it's part of you.

Speaker 2 35:15

Yes, yes, ma'am, that's right All right, Eric.

Speaker 1 35:18

thank you so much again.

Speaker 2 35:20

Thank you so.