Altin Jimbiz

Update your calendar! Our show with Hilary Scott and The New County Line and Darren Smith has been shifted to Nov 5th

Sep 23

Posted by will in Shows and Events, The Band | No Comments

We’ve inked the evening with The Mix in Georgetown! We’ll now be playing Seattle on Saturday, November 5th at the Mix in Georgetown. I recently spent an evening at the Mix, drinking beer and talking shop with sound engineer Jeff. He gave us a small tour of the place–including a backroom with a full recording studio set up. The Mix has an open mike on weds nights, so we may head over and do a small pre-show rehearsal to get a sense of the room.

We’re excited, and looking forward to playing with Hilary Scott again, as well as Darren Smith. Darren’s got some great tracks on Myspace, as well as some video from recent shows on his website.

Update to Nov 4th show with Hilary Scott and The New County Line

Sep 13

Posted by will in Shows and Events | No Comments

Well, a bit of excitement today: on one hand, I got to chat a bit with Leb, a band mate of Darren Smith, our headliner. I’m excited to play with Leb, Darren, and company, as well as Hilary and her new project, The New County Line. This is going to be a great show, though we may not have Alina on stage with us as she’ll have a one month old. Totally understandable.

On the other hand, we noticed today that we’re no longer playing at Studio Seven. After a quick call with owner Tracy, we zeroed in that an email must have gotten junked in my work email last month, and we had no idea that he had a contract he had to keep prior to putting us on the schedule. “I got stuck between a rock and a hard place there, Will, and I am truly sorry about that. I’m not sure what happened to the email, and I apologize I didn’t call you to check up. I’ll be happy to make some calls to other venues to help you find a new venue for the show.” We may just take him up on that—it’s always easier to book when there’s a personal connection!

So, I see it as an opportunity to create some new relationships at other venues in town, and exercise a muscle called ‘booking.’ I’ve already had the pleasure to speak with a booking agent of Georgetown’s Mix Lounge, which would be a great spot for this show. I’d love to get a chance to play at Nectar again (my other band, Stay Tuned, played there a few years back, and it was a great experience), or Sunset Tavern (we headlined Geek Girl Con earlier this year there), or Chop Suey (both Altin Jimbiz and Stay Tuned have played Chop Suey. It’s a Seattle staple!).

Whatever the case, enter “TBA” in the location field of your calendar for Nov 4th, and we’ll let you know what’s up soon!

Advanced Ticket Discount for Aug 28 Show!

Aug 1

Posted by will in Shows and Events, The Band | No Comments

We heard back from our booking agent today, Afton, and they’ve decided to extend a new discount on advanced tickets for our August 28th show. Enter ALTIN757 when you purchase tickets at our Afton Tickets webpage.

This brought up some discussion about advanced ticketing, and supporting bands. We’ve heard back from fans who are concerned that they’re harming the band by paying less for discounted tickets. The concern was that we would make less money.

First off, let me say THANK YOU for worrying about that!! How cool is that?! We’ve got the greatest fans in the world!

However, there is no harm done at all. Though the business side of music isn’t anything anyone usually wants to think about—it definitely isn’t glamorous—the truth is that most bands are struggling to operate as a business where the band members are making a living by creating and performing their own music. That is, rather than having to work a full time job, and making music on the side as a hobby. Imagine earning an income by doing something you love. That’s the dream, right? If you have a passion for science, law, business, design, engineering, cooking, or whatever it is you have a passion for, you study it, you start a career in it, and you live a happy, fulfilled life, because you love what you do, you work in a field you love, and you get paid and make a living. It’s no different for artists and musicians. (Consequently, accusing a band for ‘selling out’ because they’re making a living off of their music is ridiculous.)

Generally, a band gets a fixed amount of income per ticket sold. The venue or the booking agent or show producer is charging whatever amount they decide to charge, based on a variety of variables like size of the venue, staffing, electricity, profit margin, etc. If a particularly well-known or popular band is headlining, they’re probably able to demand a fixed “guarantee,” and the show’s producers must cover that as well. (And in some cases, the opening acts are promised a fixed price).

For smaller shows, usually the bands are paid on a per-ticket sold basis, and rarely are they getting a percentage of the ticket price. Usually it’s a fixed price, regardless of the cost of the ticket. This gives the promoters the ability to offer discounts or do different things to encourage sales of tickets without affecting the bands’ take.

This, at least, is the case for us in our upcoming show with Afton. They have a really awesome online ticketing system, where each band has their own channel to sell, and thus each band can track exactly how many tickets they’ve sold to their own fans, and get reimbursed accordingly! Afton also provides fans the opportunity to “tip” the band, and 100% of those funds are given directly to the band. The band is promised a fixed amount on a sliding scale. So if we sell up to 20 tickets, we get $1 per ticket sold. Over 20 tickets, and we get $2 back. Over 30 tickets we get an extra amount, and so on and so forth.

We also get to pick a timeslot, and we can even ask for extra time in our set, all depending on the amount of advanced tickets sold. This is because the venue and the promoter/booker KNOWS that we are guaranteeing an audience. We WILL have people there to see us, because we’ve sold tickets in advance. This gives us a lot more muscle in dealing with venues and promoters, as well as reputation as a “bookable” band, as we will draw audience.

So, please take advantage of advanced ticketing! And especially when a band offers a discount! We wouldn’t offer it if it weren’t a good thing for everyone involved!

Tags: Advanced Tickets, Afton, altin jimbiz, Live, music, Seattle

Hilary Scott and The New County Line will be in Seattle in November!

Jul 26

Posted by will in Shows and Events, The Band | No Comments

We’re pleased as punch to announce we’ll be playing with Hilary Scott and The New County Line in November!

(How exactly is it that punch demonstrates being pleased? You tell us!)

Hilary got in touch with me a week or so ago to let me know that her new band, The New County Line, will be touring in November, and they want to get started out here in Seattle. Hilary is a native of the Northwest, and she’s told me before that she’d love to have more opportunity to play for her “home town”. She’s been out in Missouri for years now, establishing the Hilary Scott Band, and recording and performing numerous solo albums. playing and recording with her husband, drummer A.J. Gennaro. We’re excited to hear new tracks from Hilary Scott and The New County Line — we’ll be getting some previews in the next couple weeks.

The show will be at Studio Seven, who, once again, comes through as one of the easiest-to-work-with venues in Seattle. We have a long, strong relationship with Studio Seven — my other project, Stay Tuned, was one of the first bands to practice there after they opened, and Altin Jimbiz’s first show was on their stage. With the bar upstairs, and the all-ages friendly food and beverage counter downstairs, I’ve come to love their stage, their sound, and the venue in general. Not to mention it’s always a pleasure to work with Tracy and Nicole, the owners/operators.

Next up is to find another band to play with here in Seattle. There are lots and lots of great fits, we’re really lucky to have the music scene we’ve got up here. I’ve got a couple on my mind that I’d love to play with at some point, I’m not going to jinx it by listing them off here just yet.

We’ve also got the additional challenge of potentially finding a replacement singer for Alina. She’s due to have her baby in late September. We’re assuming she won’t be quite ready to come back to the stage by this show, but we’re hopeful! So, our search for a replacement singer begins. I’ve got a few candidates in mind there, as well.

We’re playing the upcoming Yelp Elite Event!

Jul 23

Posted by will in Shows and Events, The Band | No Comments

I’ve been a “Yelper” for almost 5 years now. My younger brother turned me onto it back in ’07, when my other band, Stay Tuned, was planning a tour through California. “Will, set up your events on Yelp. People will show up.” I did, and he was right. We got several random folks at both our SF and LA shows.

Months later, I was staying with my brother in San Francisco, helping him recover from a motorcycle accident. He was on pretty heavy medications, and was planning on sleeping through the first couple nights after his surgery. So he put me in touch with the local Yelp Elite crew, who happened to be throwing an “Elite Event”. They had a look at my activity, made me an “Elite”, and my first party was at a Bollywood themed place in the Mission district. What a blast!

Fast forward 4 years, and I’ve got over 450 reviews, 35 fans, and 25 events created. Our local Seattle Yelp team set up an event to showcase Seattle Yelper “talent”, and lo and behold I wind up with a set of paintings to be displayed, as well as Altin Jimbiz headlining the event! This is a huge honor for us—the Elite Events generally host over 60-100 people, all energized, outgoing, and active locals. What better venue for a band looking to increase its local following, or promote upcoming shows?

We’ve been practicing hard for our August show at Studio Seven (do you have tickets yet?) What a perfect spot to get in front of people and play them our stuff!

Altin Jimbiz At Studio Seven on 08/28/11

Jul 11

Posted by will in Shows and Events | No Comments

Hello everyone!

We’re proud to be working with Afton Shows! We’re playing Studio Seven on August 28, 2011. It’s a Sunday, so we’ll be starting earlier so you can all get up and get to work in the morning.

Please support us by buying your tickets in advance online. In fact, to help promote this, we’re lowering ticket costs until July 30th!

DISCOUNT AMOUNT: $3.00 OFF
*(for EVERY Online Ticket purchased before Jul 30th)

PROMO CODE: ALTIN295

Purchase tickets for August 28th

Altin Jimbiz to Play Chop Suey with Maskott, March 12!

Feb 17

Posted by will in Shows and Events | No Comments

We’re proud to announce we will be playing a show with Maskott on March 12th at Chop Suey. See the notes below for information on purchasing tickets online.

This is particularly exciting to us. Maskott members Koray Candemir and Serkan Celikoz are not only close friends of ours, but are the very gentlemen who bestowed the name “Altin Jimbiz” upon us originally.

This will also be our first live performance with our new drummer Kevin Cook, and will feature songs we have never performed before.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Show at the Sunset Tavern in Ballard on the 12th of Jan 2011

Jan 5

Posted by elvis in Shows and Events | No Comments

Hello everyone, Altin Jimbiz is playing a charity event organized by Geek Girl Con at the Sunset Tavern in Ballard, on the 12th of Jan 2011. We would love to see all your smiling( or not smiling ) faces, so swing on by.

“Please Don’t Say”: a new song emerges out of heated conversation

Oct 7

Posted by will in The Band | 1 Comment

So last night was an interesting night of practice.

First off, everyone but Alina was totally late. Sorry Alina, that sucks, and I’m promising not to leave you out standing out there like that again. Gotta get you some keys to the studio.

Second, we totally missed Trace. Not sure if he made it in early, then took off when no one else showed up. If that’s the case, Trace, again my apologies.

Alina and I took some time to put the studio back together post-show. We talked about how to organize the band as a legal entity–I have high hopes for this band, and my gut feeling is to do it right from the start. However, there are some concerns over involving the government in our business, so I think for now we’re going to draft a band agreement, and go from there. We also pulled out her book o’lyrics and started discussing working on a new song.

Elvis made it in, and we continued the conversation about what we’re doing, and how we should do it. Recording, song development process, etc. Things got a big heated between us; a bit of miscommunication that got resolved, but not before Elvis got a bit aggravated with me. All I can say is thank god for transformation, the ability to discern what happened and what we make it mean, and our commitment to each other’s happiness, growth and development. And, throughout, Elvis had a cigarette out that he had been planning on smoking. So I can say that we were also contributing to the health of his lungs by aggravating him with conversation.

However, while we were in the midst of said conversation, I was noodling on the guitar (which aggravated Elvis further, I’m sure–I saw him give my fingers and the guitar an evil look a few times). I started noticing that what I was noodling was pretty cool (maybe that’s what Elvis was eyeing?)

Anyway, once we were done with our conversation, Elvis headed out to smoke, and I called Alina’s attention to what my fingers were doing. She popped open her book, and started humming along with me out of one of the pieces she wrote.

Within minutes we had a fantastic melody. Elvis walked in, quickly picked up a guitar, and started working with us. He had us rework a bridge we were working on, and the three of us continued collaborating.

Hours passed like minutes, with this beautiful melody and song emerging. Two verses and a bridge, a really cool guitar verse as an intro. But a chorus was still missing. Alina had lyrics, but we were getting exhausted listening to the same chord changes.

Alina said she thought there should be a dramatic change. Elvis concurred. I sat staring at the neck of the guitar. I was finishing the verses we had just written with an odd major seven chord–it worked, well!, but was definitely a step out of the scale we were working in. I started fumbling trying to figure out something that would work. Alina was humming, Elvis was trying to stop me as I hit notes that registered with him. This wasn’t working. A song should flow, and generally whatever sounds natural is what should be written. (As long as it isn’t just another repetition of the same old stuff).

We paused and talked for a bit. Did Alina have something pre-written for this chorus?

“No, actually, these lyrics were supposed to be used with another band, and there was a melody written for it. I don’t even want to hum it for you, as that music belonged to that band.”

Hmm. OK, back to the drawing board. Or sound board, in this case. I started working through a couple ideas that I had had while we were in the midst of our conversation that so far hadn’t worked with the rest of the song. Lo and behold, transposing a few chord changes up a couple steps did the trick.

“Will… that’s awesome!” Elvis shouts. To Alina: “Where does he come up with these chords?!” Elvis had me fine tune my timing and a the progression of the changes. What emerged gave me goose bumps. Not quite lyric friendly yet, but I had confidence we were on the right track.

With another half hour of work, Alina had a melody that worked over an alteration of the timing of the chord changes. I had the original timing of the changes that Elvis had composed down to use as an instrumental break. We played through the entire song. Giddy, I pulled out my iPhone and we took a rough recording of it in the voice memo.

Wow. It’s called “Please Don’t Say.” Once again I am stunned. Where does this stuff come from? Every time we create a new song I am struck by the wonder of the creation. I get concerned that this is it, this is the last of them. How could we ever create anything that will top that? And then BAM here’s another!

I have that rough copy of Please Don’t Say from the iPhone. Interested in hearing it? Comment here and let us know!