Me with director Tony Susi at the first screening of The Trunk, one of the three films I got to score that’s playing at the NEPA Film Festival in a couple weeks.
Three years ago I started attending film festivals in my region. Not only was I looking for something to watch that wasn’t another superhero spinoff, I also wanted to start doing more film scoring work and thought that networking with local filmmakers would give me that opportunity. It sure did.
My local festival – NEPA Film Festival – is taking place in just a couple weeks – April 4-6 – and I have THREE films showing that I got to score! More than that, I’ll have a featured place at the opening night gala where I and a new cellist I’m working with will be performing my original music, including the theme from one of the films I scored, The Trunk:
If you’re local, come on out! Here’s the website with more information and links for tickets: https://nepafilmfestival.com/
I have always loved film, but getting to be a part of creating films has given me a whole new love for it. There’s perhaps no other art form that involves as many people and disciplines as film (possibly musical theater), and as such, the making of any film, big or small, requires an egoless cooperation that naturally creates a kind of community around itself. So this year’s festival is a marker not only of work I’ve done over the last three years but of friends I’ve made and (hopefully lifelong) partnerships I’ve created. I can’t wait!
I got my new Moog Matriarch out of the house last week! Typically, it’s the Minimoog or maybe the Sub 37 models that you’d see at a gig. The Matriarch being semi-modular is more designed for the studio. But Jesse Mower, frontman of the funk band Greenfield III (who opened my album release show last fall), doesn’t give a shit about convention! He insisted I bring it to a gig and figure it out “on the job.” And when last week’s invite coincided with his birthday, I couldn’t say no.
I have to say, the Matriarch’s use in a live setting is probably the industry’s best kept secret. This thing kicks ass live! It took me no time at all to find sounds in the moment, all of them awesome, and to get wacky when I wanted to. The gain staging in this thing is so flawless that, in some ways, it was even easier to use in a live setting than my Prophet or my Crumar Mojo.
We got the whole thing on video. Here’s one of the (9 minute!) songs we played:
It’s no secret that the way streaming is set up is fundamentally flawed. It robs artists to pay shareholders (i.e. legacy labels), it incentivizes the production of crap, and it creates a shallow and deeply unsatisfying listening experience for users. When you add in how easy it is to fraud the system, how devastatingly rampant such fraud is, and how legitimate artists are getting swept up in the dragnet with no recourse (my time is coming), the picture is very bleak.
And what’s worse than all of this (and not reported in this video), is that Spotify itself is engaging in this same fraudulent activity, only it’s not fraud because it’s their platform. But real artists are still paying the price.
A book-reading Substack I follow recently asked what we’ve been reading this first quarter of the year. I was kind of blown away at how many I’ve read so far. A few duds, but a lot of really good ones too. Here are the top 9 of the year so far (in no particular order):
Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon – art, business
Beartown Trilogy by Fredrik Backman (partial re-read) – literary fiction
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron (re-read) – art, philosophy
Mindful Eating by Jan Chozen Bays – Buddhism
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote – true fiction
The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris – philosophy/religion
Jazz by Toni Morrison – literary fiction
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley – scifi, dystopian
The Way of Zen by Alan Watts – Buddhism
Let me know in the comments what you’ve read so far this year. And if you have any recommendations for what I read next.
If we musicians aren’t releasing new music every 2-4 weeks, creating multiple alt versions and posting them on YouTube every few days, chopping those horizontal videos up into thrice-daily vertical reels and shorts, and following the latest trends on TikTok with 10 daily posts in our own “brand” of manufactured authenticity, then is there even any reason to try?
Not according to music marketing gurus today. This is literally the only advice you’re gonna get from them1. Apparently it’s the only way for a musician to succeed.
But I’ve tried to play this game for years and it doesn’t work – for me or anyone I know. It’s unsustainable for the artist and incompatible with good art. And, honestly, for me, I’d rather just not have a music career at all than to keep playing this soul-killing game any longer.
That’s where I’m at: figure out a different way or give up.
And I’m not ready to give up. So even if it means a bit of trailblazing and more error than trial, I’m gonna figure this out.
Screenshot from a performance video I shot this week. I wanted to show off the new 3-tier keyboard rack I got this week 🙂
One thing I do know – my square one – is that I need a safe and inspiring place to publish what I make, that doesn’t gatekeep me from my audience or feel like a slavedriver, a place where my sweat builds my equity not someone else’s. It needs to be something that I own and can shape into whatever is best for my work, an HQ for all things Zach Sprowls.
For me, this is a website, and not a one-size-fits-all website either. I need it to be a portfolio, a blog, an online store, an EPK, a calendar, and a means of communication. If it’s gonna be sustainable for me and not bog me down, it needs to be flexible and versatile without being ugly and fully featured without being clunky.
As anyone who has built a website knows, this is no small undertaking. I’m not a programmer or designer, but I’ve been down this road enough times to know how I want to proceed. As much as I hate working with WordPress, there really isn’t another platform that can effectively do everything I want this site to do. By integrating with Shopify for the ecommerce portion, I think I can save myself a lot of unnecessary headaches. And by keeping things simple on the backend, I can make it sustainable for myself. I’ve been really impressed with Kit, so I think I’m going to use that for my communication and outreach.
It will probably take me all year to get it where I want it, but I’m actively working on it, devoting a few hours several times a week to it, and it should only be a couple weeks more before I at least have some bare bones to go public with.
Credit where credit’s due: the idea of a website HQ is not original to me. I got it from Seth Werkheiser over at SOCIAL MEDIA ESCAPE CLUB. His ideas, encouragement, and the community he’s building over there have been invaluable. Thank you, Seth!
I know you’re wondering – how am I gonna get people to my website? Well, that’s a post for another day. I’ve had some significant success in one of my side projects over the last few months and that’s given me the confidence to try these strategies out on this project. I’ll keep you in the loop as things progress and fail/succeed.
