The Life Of A 21st Century Musician: An Interview With Jim Campilongo

Popshifter: I would agree, definitely in the realm of “popular” music.I think there are still things, but maybe you have to dig a little deeper to find them. This brings me to something else I wanted to talk with you about: the difference between being a musician in San Francisco and New York, since you’ve been there seven or eight years now. And also more generally: what is it like making a living as a musician in the 21st Century as opposed to the way things used to be in the music industry even 15 or 20 years ago because so much has changed?

Jim Campilongo: Musicians have to work so hard now. Musicians have to work at promoting themselves, whether it be on Facebook or MySpace, or through self-arranged or partially self-arranged interviews, etc. You have to manage your website, you have to get your photos up, and with all that there’s follow-through, let’s credit the photographers. . .

[Suddenly, our connection is lost, so I call Jim back.]

Jim Campilongo: Hey! Where were we?

Popshifter: We were talking about crediting photographers and there you go, the life of a 21st Century musician: calls get dropped in the middle of an interview. . .

Jim Campilongo: (laughs) I’m surprised that’s only happened once so far! So yeah, I have to make sure I credit the photographers.

If I cover “No Expectations,” I’ve gotta make sure I have the right publishing notes on the CD; I’ve got to go to the Harry Fox website and put in the proper UPC number that I’ve purchased separately into their database for the amount of CDs that I’m going to print; and pay those costs up front, before making an invoice to my distributor; before making 1099s for the musicians whom I’ve paid; before making sure that the contract I have with Fender in regards to the Custom Shop guitar is good; arranging a time with my lawyer; printing out that contract. . . and realizing that my printer is out of ink and I have to run to Staples; but before that I have to go to the post office to send an international package that I know is under four pounds, so I use the green customs form instead of the white one. . .

I could keep going on and on and it might get tedious, and I might even seem whiny, but I want to make a point, because I occasionally hear how fortunate I am to live in a time where I can manage my own career.

Sometimes I have mixed feelings about that, and there’s no way of knowing if I would’ve existed in 1972 when musicians basically just played, or even 1962. But I can pretty much guarantee you, I doubt if Thelonious Monk would be able to survive in the year 2009 as a musician. I mean, even though he’s a genius, I don’t think he had the skill set that would allow him to book gigs and do the things that a musician nowadays does, unless he got a booking agent and a manager and a label who did all that for him.

Popshifter: It’s definitely a lot more than plugging a Tele into a Princeton and that being that.

Jim Campilongo: Yes, and you know, that really bothers me, because a lot of days, I have a lot of trouble making my way to my guitar. That’s really what I want to do: I want to grow as a musician, I wanna learn tunes, I wanna develop, I wanna go through the George Van Eps guitar book and learn some inversions in keys that I’m not completely comfortable with, get more of a 20/20 insight into my instrument.

And a lot of my days, ALL my days, are spent doing exactly what I just described. The fact is, because I’m here in L.A., kinda working my butt off, and not at the office in New York, means that it’s gonna be triple duty when I get back. Stuff is mounting that I just cannot do here. That seems to be the story of my life, especially since I moved to New York.

Like I said, I don’t know if I would’ve survived in the ’80s, or if a major label would’ve allowed my music to surface, or if they would’ve invested in it, so maybe I should just feel fortunate. But sometimes, I worry that artists can’t be as good as they could potentially be because they’re doing so much clerical work. I think I answered your question, I’m not sure, you asked about being in New York and I started going on a rant. . . (laughs)

I would say that all of what I just talked about is accelerated as a result of living in New York. It’s more competitive: the time zone’s different so you still get up early, but you’re still getting east coast calls at 7 p.m., 8 p.m., and then it’s time, if you’re lucky, to go to a gig. . .

Click to read more from Jim Campilongo on. . .

New Record Details and The New York Sound
Making The Songs Work Together
Guitar vs. Singing
Sideman vs. Frontman
The Life Of A 21st Century Musician
Jim Campilongo In 3D?

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