What You Can Learn From Tony Hawk

To all the Musicians out there… if you guys want to know how to engage your fans and not be too ego-centric go follow @tonyhawk on Twitter for 2 weeks. Hell.. I’d settle for 1 week. In the arena of skating, there is not a more recognizable name out there… even non-skaters know who he is. 95% of the musicians in this scene are nowhere near as famous as he is, but they are twice as big if you were to look at how they act.

This isn’t a “come sign our stuff” post, as that is ongoing over at the Rita Ballou blog. What this is about is giving back to the fans that drove those miles to come see you when no one else would. About giving hope to some kid that is just starting out playing that needs encouragement. It’s about reminding everyone how much you love what you do. Tony Hawk dropped by a local skate park unannounced today on a completely separate tour he’s doing over in Europe. And he’s done it many many times here in the US. there is a video out on the net of these kids completely blown away that he would stop and skate with them.

Last week he left one of his own personal skateboards in some bushes, sent a message out on twitter and a kid found it! Again… not the first time he’s done that. He once left a skateboard that he rode on as a kid.. probably worth thousands of dollars.

What would it look like if some of these guys took the time to stop in and sing a song with some no-name. To leave a guitar at a bar somewhere for someone to have? To leave a handwritten set of lyrics behind for someone to find?

I know these guys aren’t as rich as Tony Hawk and can’t afford to give away guitars every week. And I know there are guys out there that are doing stuff like this. Here in this genre of music we are supposed to be different from that mainstream, big-name, crap on the radio.

go follow @tonyhawk for just a week or two. You’ll be amazed at how generous he is. And you might even learn that Twitter is not a fucking short newsletter used for marketing or telling me that you’re playing a show 14 hours away from where I live tonight.