The tax man cometh

Big fun for The Staylyns this week. (Not really. That was sarcasm. You can tell because I put a period at the end of that sentence instead of an exclamation point.) It's tax time. And you thought it was all just music and good times!

Yes, even musicians have to pay taxes. Many musicians may knot know they have to pay taxes, but they do. Ask Willie Nelson.

We've spent this last week plugging all the numbers into our tax software, shaking our fists at the sky, cursing the government, getting really depressed and asking why we bother to work so hard, then visiting a CPA, getting some great advice, redoing some numbers, and then cursing the government again but without the shaking fists.

You are correct, sir.

We're now at the resolved stage, where we accept our fate and decide that we beat the system by not letting it beat us. We create our own victory.

Now, we just have to wait until April 15. Yes, we've calculated our taxes now, but like all good Americans, we'll wait until the last minute to actually pay. We will pay everything we owe (we swear!!), but we like for our money to stay ours for as long as possible. We're pretty sure we'll do a better job with it than the government will.

How 'bout you? Have you done your taxes yet? Was it super fun? Do you like to curse?

So...art is personal?

We had an interesting experience this past week. Someone we know who has a studio remixed one of our songs.

For Johnny, this wasn't a new experience. When he was 19, he was in a band named The Arrleys that had a record deal in Nashville, and they recorded several of their songs with a producer there.

Yup - that's for real, y'all.
Who likes that 90s hair and the matching outfits??

Johnny's entire experience in Nashville was a defining one, because he learned how the big-music machine works, and one of the things he walked away with was the realization that he didn't like the loss of control that comes with signing the various contracts involved: management, development, recording, etc.

Yes, with the right scenario, you can become Keith Urban. But in the wrong scenario - say you're 19 and don't really know what you're signing - you can end up with a very dissatisfying situation.

Scenes from an e-bike tour

It's been a fantastic weekend for The Staylyns! We had a truly great show at Junior's on Friday night, and Saturday, we did a live music tour for Rocket Electrics during a postcard-perfect, sunny February afternoon. Today, we'll put down the guitars and turn our attention to snacking, commercials and football for the Harbaugh Bowl. Johnny grew up a 49ers fan, so he's pretty psyched about this year's Super Bowl!

Note: This is not Johnny. This is Sourdough Sam.
That's a real mascot name.

We've gotten a lot of questions about our music tours from friends and family, so I thought I'd do a blog post about it to explain what we do. So, if you've been wondering what that "tour thing" is that we're always talking about, read on!