Chalk Sunday, February 8th as one more night the citizens, and more importantly the bands of La Crosse missed the boat. Worse still, this boat ride was free. After I climbed the Warehouse stairs, I expected to see the stage room overflowing with musicians from all walks of sound, here to sponge up music knowledge. Around the stage, where a projector screen disclosed Martin Atkins’ career highlights, every cracked vinyl couch and metal chair in the house circled their wagons. On these seats sprawled a crowd of thirty or so musician-errants, through it was difficult to determine who was here to learn about touring and who was here to see Martin Atkins, bandleader of Pigface, drummer for Public Image Ltd., underground cosmonaut. But regardless of motive, anyone who came to Atkins’ presentation left knowing a new thing or twenty about the music business. Which begs the question: where the fuck were the rest of you?
Ahem.
The posh-suited being with thick framed specs and scattered straw hair that is Martin Atkins didn’t storm the stage, didn’t kick the air or howl Paul Stanley stage banter at his lounging audience. Instead, he snuck into the crowd’s sight, and with a click of a remote Atkins started a collage of video and bombast documenting his long and storied career. Halfway through, he clicked it away.
“I get so tired of looking at myself,” he almost whispered.
This introduction dictated the tone of Tour Smart. For the two hours to follow, Atkins fluttered through his material with the swerves that mark all great professors: mild-mannered yet deadly serious, spacey yet keenly aware, lubricating the information with a generous dose of humor and wit.
“How many rock stars are out there?” he asked the audience, who shifted uncomfortably in their stage fright seats. A click followed, and the screen reflected fast food hipsteria. “Jimmy John’s is hiring rock stars.” Laughter. The crowd began to loosen.
In accord with Atkins’ style, there was a point beneath the joke, and this initial point was that rock stars are as dead as Nietzsche. Downloading has destroyed the old model of the music business, music generating programs like Songsmith shout “Fuck the Band!” and Proctor & Gamble has a record label. Whereas most media creeps conform to the mantra of “Think outside the box,” Atkins asks, “Where’s the fucking box?”
It’s that old compromise between Heraclitus and Parmenides, that the only constant is change. Back in the 80s blank cassette tapes were vilified as the big evil, the artifact to bring down the corporate music scheme. It didn’t exactly happen that way. The conditions of the business as well as the byroads between musician and audience are always in flux; music – more importantly good music – has always been big enough to adapt. It’s the shitty music that is only as strong as its ad campaign which falls under the wheels. Boo hoo.
Atkins’ main strategy in order for a band to avoid the swill heap is simple: “Have a fucking strategy!” This involves being as creatively DIY as possible, learning many marketable skills far beyond the call of day-to-day musicianship in scope, taking responsibility for everything, and planning with the same precision as Chinese tacticians and pro athletes. A band’s attitude must be humble and low-key, taking on small challenges and building these entities into monuments. To illustrate this point, Atkins cited a show from years past involving a band playing to a crowd of 17. The band? U2. Atkins left the show – in his words, “they were crap” – but his point is well made.
Throughout the rest of the presentation Atkins offered many kingmaking ideas, all of which are flexible in the face of the greater god, Momentum.
A band will waste less gas, spend less money, and play more shows on the east side of the United States, which accounts for 85% of major markets. The West Coast, as glamorous as it’s billed to be, has the most expensive gas prices and longer, more dangerous drives. Those would-be stars who slug their way to Hollywood will likely discover – as I can personally attest – that the Whiskey a Go-Go is an overhyped, narcissistic, suck-shit venue. Bands are better off staying closer to home and avoiding jumps into America’s bloated, jaded culture capitals until their names are made.
Part of making these names involves merchandising the brand. Despite the omnipresent sellout catcalls which plague and prejudice bands through their lifespans, Atkins mapped out alternatives to impersonal mass marketing. The idea, especially in light of music’s growing profitlessness, is this: merchandise must go above and beyond the usual to connect with an audience and justify the purchase. Thus, the digitization and depersonalization of music has made the role of art in its commerce more vital than ever in creating collector’s items. Atkins illustrated this point with personal artifacts from his career: album packaging made of Chinese propaganda posters, the embossed metal case for PiL’s Metal Box, cut up stage scenery, and scratch n’ sniff. Even t-shirts can be made personalized on the cheap and easy due to the wonders of bleach and screen printing.
With enough foresight and a commitment to work far beyond the line of reason, bands stand a definite maybe, kind of, possible chance of success. But Martin Atkins makes a stronger, more probable, occasionally Teutonic promise to all who take the sonic road. You are fucked.
If you missed Tour:Smart, one of the best events to hit town in ages, you’re more fucked.
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Following the presentation, I had the opportunity to talk with Atkins about the addition of Public Speaker to his resume. In addition to discussing Tour:Smart, Atkins spoke of the music industry at large and the benefits of randomness.

Second Supper: How did you make the transition from touring musician to touring lecturer?

Martin Atkins: It’s like everything I talk about; it was accidental. It only happened because, when the accident happened, I decided to jump in. We were in the middle of a tour with 80,000 postcards and 20,000 discs. We needed people to help. We were just a few miles south of Columbia College in Chicago; I was going to go there and bring a busload of fucking interns back with me. So I went to the school and did a presentation to the faculty, showing all the stuff we were doing. They said, “Fantastic! When can you start?” I said I could take interns now. They were like, “No, you should teach this stuff.” I was about to say that I’m really busy, but I thought, hold on. Having kids really enables you. I thought, what would I tell my kids? Grasp the opportunity! Be open to new ideas! Give it a fucking try!
So I asked how long the lessons had to be. Seven hours. Fuck! When do they start; five days’ time! Two days time. I just thought, fuck it! If they’re asking me to do this with two days’ notice, how crazy could it be? And that’s when I discovered, there wasn’t a textbook for this. So I wrote a textbook, started coming up with lesson plans, ways to try and teach some of this stuff and keep it interesting and funny, cause it’s no good, whatever information you have, if everyone’s falling asleep.
So one accident led to another, led to an opportunity, led to an opportunity. The presentations that I do were an accident as well. Now, I’ve lectured on the socio-economic backdrop to the punk rock revolution at USC, went to China. I’ll change things around, and I’ll talk to anyone who’s interested.

SS: Did you have any teaching experience before this?

MA: No, which I don’t think is necessarily a bad thing. What I’m trying to teach, through music business and marketing, are lessons from outside the music business, any area that could give some insight. If someone’s paying for an education in music business, they better hope that there are other areas that this stuff can be applied to!

SS: I thought of a book I recently read, that was amazing on its own but went one further and had a hot pink felt cover.

MA: I’m working on some very different books, with all of my different memorabilia from Killing Joke and Public Image, incorporating a scrapbook mentality on a very short run of books, but also a mass produced book. Having things exist on different levels.

SS: People choose their involvement.

MA: Yeah. You watch the baseball game on television, you sit in the skybox with waitress service, or you’re right there, getting sweated on.

SS: Did you study or come into contact with other books on the music industry, such as Donald Passman’s “All You Need to Know about the Music Business”?

MA: One of my old interns started working with Passman, and I said, “Would you give your boss a message? I’m going to fucking punch him in the face!” The Passman book, in the introduction, says, “The most important creative decision your band will ever make is…” and you could come up with 50 things and they wouldn’t be what he says, which is, “choosing your attorney.” What the fuck is he talking about? Is this guy a lawyer, and he’s telling people – are you fucking kidding me? It’s unbelievable!
There are some great books out there: Freakonomics, Buyology, Pirate’s Dilemma. There’s great shit out there, and Passman’s stuff isn’t.

SS: He’s preaching to his own choir.

MA: Right. There’s Thropp, who has done some marketing books, and one of his suggestions is, if you’re going into a foreign market, you must look up the CIA’s Corruption Index, so if you do spend $10,000 in Guatemala you can know if your bribe is going to succeed or not. What the fuck? Why not choose a country where you have a friend that you can stay with? What’s the impact of that? They can tell you if the promoter put the posters up, if the record’s out. They can take you to cheap restaurants, keep you out of trouble, and hook you up with two extra shows with the right band. It could be the whole difference. Another thing is: are there nine people in your band? If there are, you’re totally fucked.

SS: How do Pigface’s massive lineups translate into that?

MA: It doesn’t. We went to Europe in ’95 and we lost a fucking fortune just on the flights. Things that shouldn’t succeed do succeed; look at Slipknot.

SS: Or !!!, or GWAR.

MA: It’s the 25th Anniversary of GWAR.

SS: The costumes alone must kill them.

MA: Right. And you do that stuff and it works. I think that Pigface is this contrary animal that works within the U.S. borders, but it’s too much to travel with. Although I did an album in China that was basically a Pigface album with the same model – me with a bunch of people I’ve never met before in a studio together. It just happened to be Tibetan singers, Chinese DJs.

SS: The same spirit.

MA: And exactly the same result: camaraderie, great exchange of ideas, community.

SS: Are you touring with Pigface in the near future?

MA: If I wasn’t doing this, if I hadn’t been to China, yes. Now, this book just doesn’t want to stop. I know enough to know that I’m not going to stop doing this. I’m going to keep pouring gasoline on the book. And it’s all me; some days I’ll do a presentation, drive an hour, do another, and then DJ. I’m tearing it up. People keep asking me to go places.

SS: How much of your crowd is made up of Pigface fans or PiL fans?

MA: It’s great. It’s nice if there’s a PiL fan or a Killing Joke fan. Most of the time, it’s the book. The book has a lot of fans. Some of the music I’ve made has affected people, and that’s cool. But when that band sent me a thing saying, “That one tip was the difference between eating or not,” it makes me want to cry.

SS: What’s your take on the current state of music, in and of itself and as a corporate construct?

MA: [The construct] is over, but there’s creativity coming out of people’s ears. People are saying that they don’t need a label anymore, but stop saying that and fucking get on with it!
The good thing about the Depression is that it brings artists to the forefront. It disposes of the disposable. It’s the people who are in tune with other people in their communities who have a voice. It’s a time of cleansing, of getting rid of the shit.

SS: Billy Corgan recently stated that albums are dead and The Smashing Pumpkins are only going to release singles from here on in. What’s your take on the current status of the album?

MA: It doesn’t have to be 15 songs, but there’s something to be said for a band – an artist – leading somebody down a path and creating a mood. Maybe it’s five songs, or seven songs, but there are a couple of songs on the side of something in the middle that frame it. I’m mixing and producing for a Chinese band called Snapline, and there’s a mood that I get into when they smash me in the face a few times, the singer pulls me in, and it’s moody, and the lyrics do this thing to me. The effect of the third song in a row is more than if it was random, on shuffle.
But, I think the way to get people to those five songs is to send random stuff out there. That’s how I joined Killing Joke; people sent out mixtapes. I randomly came across it, and it sent me to the home.

SS: Has oversaturation, too much choice, taken away some of that randomness?

MA: There are still some great radio shows, a couple of DJs who will take you on a fucking insane journey, covering 50 years of every genre known to man, and it was delightful. That randomness is possible, but it also feels like I’ll spend an hour trying to watch something on television. It feels like I’m engaged, but I’m not. I think the filter is now becoming very important. There are different versions of the filter. There’s the corporate filter which pushes stuff at you, but bands can bypass that by putting themselves out.

SS: Humanizing themselves.

MA: Yes. You can succeed just through the Web, but it’s such a fleeting, momentary success. There’s a randomness to it, but it doesn’t feel like building a platform. I’ve been able to build and change and grow, and I don’t know if I would have been able to do that on the strength of one song that’s successful one week.

SS: How has that process changed over the course of your career?

MA: Well, I played on Metal Box in ’79, and all of the bands that were around then are still around! There are a bazillion fucking bands. It’s just harder for the listener. Music is tied into so many other things: how you were feeling at the time, what you were doing, who you were dating. That’s all dissipating. There isn’t one unifier. Now with all the software, the real essence of performance and charisma is going to be maybe more seen.

SS: We’ll have better bullshit filters.

MA: Right! Drum machines haven’t killed good drumming; they’ve been around for 30 years. There’s still nothing to match a drummer’s brain – there’s something to match a mediocre drummer’s brain! You get to the point with drum machines now where you have to have your own hard drive, every instrument has 27 different velocities. There’s so much choice that you have to be an amazing drummer to deal with it. It’s bullshit. I don’t see the use of it other than to create another mousetrap.

SS: Like YouTube, where you can watch anything under the sun, but it all looks like shit.

MA: I bought Steve Albini’s 8-track machine when he went to 24-track. That was my studio for a while. Then I went digital and using tape, and then there were five years when I was doing nothing but digital. I went back to get a drum loop off the 8-track tape, and I put the drums on, and I fucking cried. I couldn’t believe that I lost the feeling.

SS: Is there anywhere you would like to see music go?

MA: No. I’m so happy that, when I went to China in 2006, I watched all these fucking bands. Snapline, I just loved. I was really, really jet-lagged – 26 hour flight – I was just delirious. It lowered my preconceptions and barriers, and this music just affected me. Two years later I’m producing and mixing [Snapline’s] second album. That’s been such a blessing to me. Music can do whatever it wants; I’m happy with what it’s done to me.

SS: Accidents.

MA: Yeah.