Craig Cardiff came over for a Dutch pancake breakfast after playing 2 very intimate back-to-back shows at the Streaming Cafe. After touring relentlessly for several years, recording a discography of 20 albums, playing well-known venues across North America, having gone through the whole mainstream management thing (Feldman), he now tours alone & manages himself. Hence the name of the company he started, “Agentless“.
We were able to catch a quick little interview with him before he had to catch his flight over to Vancouver for 3 consecutive shows at the Railway Club but the conversation went a lot different than I had expected. I was really interested in hearing his thoughts on the house concert network we're building as part of TribeHouse but it turned out that Mr. Craig Cardiff had a lot more "under the hood" which I was stoked to hear about.
Here’s a guy who works his ass off, has a solid following (6K+ fans on Fbook ain’t shabby), and has dudes like Gordon Lightfoot saying things about him like “(Craig) is a songwriter that needs to be heard”.
I think it would be fair to say he’s one of those “successful” artists.
And, of course, there are hundreds of thousands of other indie, travelling, hard-working musicians who are all wondering what the magic potion is as to how he got to this level. He played the show at the Streaming Cafe with 5 strings because there wasn’t enough time to restring his whole guitar after arriving late on a flight from Ottawa and was quick to admit that there are a slew of guitar players out there that could shred circles around his playing.
So what’s his secret? Here’s what he said...
“Be happy with what you have instead of what could be.”
Love it.
It was a privilege to connect with someone who I would consider a true patron to the world of indie artists. He's got a ton of ideas cooking (sorry, can't spill all the beans because he made me sign an NDA) but one that you should check out is Agentless.ca. Craig Cardiff is someone to follow & watch – some really refreshing views on the music industry & enough innovative ideas to tip a flock of cows.
Craig Cardiff's Website: http://craigcardiff.com
PS: And make sure you check back to http://streamingcafe.net for some clips from his live performance - should be up by the end of the week RIGHT HERE.
