How Craft Cocktail Culture Can Influence Music Culture

Recently I read most of the infamous Death & Co book, outlining the methods and recipes behind the most influential bar in NYC's cocktail scene (and perhaps the world).

I find D&C's methodology to be refreshing and inspiring. They are pushing the quality and craft of cocktails to new levels never before seen -- yet doing so with a mindset of collaboration and education. It's open source within capitalism, always a cool combination to see.

In music, I feel like we are experiencing something similar to cocktail culture 10-20 years ago. The tools and access to information have never been better. It's easier to create music - great sounding music, professional music, high-fidelity music - than ever before, using a DIY setup or a small community coming together to build a studio.

Yet in music there is a sense that all of this quantity of material comes at some kind of cost - like we're getting less quality, but more quantity.

Organizing The Bar

Death & Co solved some basic logistical problems. They realized that "cheat bottles" were useful - these are bottles where you pre-mix ingredients to save time. If you can't blend three different ingredients together 100 times in a night, maybe you can do it once during prep time and then put that 100x amount into the cheat bottle.

In music we're missing some of those basic shortcuts. It isn't obvious how to set up a studio, get the instruments in tune, write out the songs and convey that information to people... it's usually a logistical nightmare.

At least for me so far, it's been difficult to learn all of the aspects of leading a band. There isn't an obvious strategy or playbook to go by. Everybody has their own ideas, and the ideas are often sloppy or weirdly religious in nature. The "music industry" is defined as some other thing, with all its own sets of principles and ideas, but it's not that different from other businesses.

Rules For Good Music?

There must be some basic principles that a band can stand behind. Here at the QFLUX HQ (our house) we've instituted a strict rule that everybody must always always always be in tune. No excuses. The moment one string of the guitar is even slightly out of tune, the band will wait a minute for the person to tune it.

It's easy to get sloppy and run a few songs with a slight out-of-tune note, but that's like serving a cocktail with a slightly bad flavor.. it's no good.

The tuning example feels so obvious, but I know musicians who don't follow it.

There must be dozens of simple rules that will obviously make things better, yet go overlooked. The Death & Co book inspires me to find more of those rules.