Photograph by Jason Hackett
Charlie Cerpa
Musician Charlie Cerpa has a website. It’s relatively new. And very easy to find, over at: charliecerpa.com.
This wouldn’t necessarily seem to be the best hook for a story about a guy who does a little bit of everything in local music circles. (And we’ll talk about all that good stuff; it’s coming right up, actually.) But the reason that it’s notable is that there are many, many, many musicians who have the online presence of a digital dust bunny. Which is to say: scant, hard to track, only there when you’re not looking for it.
Charlie Cerpa, aged 28, has already made music his life, and he wants to keep that situation rolling. Thus, the website. Even in an age of artists replacing persona websites by having a presence on all the social media platforms available, he double-backed and doubled-down on making sure his work is there.
“A lot of artists, I feel are barely keeping up their social media in a serious way,” he believes. “It’s interesting, because I thought that with social media, a website wouldn’t be as helpful these days. I’ve seen the opposite reaction, having this website for a short time now.”
Checking off the first box—determining that his name was available as a URL—he set off to work.
“I think a lot of artists aren’t even thinking of owning their own names as a domain,” he says. “I bought the domain and starting building it on Squarespace. It took me two months to be totally happy with what I was building. These websites all have templates that are easy to use. I think Squarespace sites have built-in aesthetics that I haven’t seen anywhere else. I’m not a web designer, and they seem to have very professional aesthetic. The hardest part was setting some tables, which needed some information. And writing the bio; you don’t wanna seem cocky, but you want to write about yourself and not sound like a jerk.
“I did find it a challenge,” he says. “It was fun to play with all that stuff. I found it extremely rewarding to get out of the editor and to see it online, you know? I did have some help from Audrey Simes. She’s an amazing local artist and she helped me with assembling my images and photoshopping, showing me some overall layout tricks that you can do.”
Two months from inception, the site was live. And it featured all that stuff in which Cerpa’s involved.
There’s a big mix of music projects in which he plays sax, some of them original (Blank Generation) some of them are straight-up cover/tribute acts (Street Fighting Band), some of them do that but as hybrids (The People’s Key, which jazzes-out pop/rock covers). He backs up musicians like Richie Kihlken and Big Mike Aguirre. When an event like the Big Muddy Blues Festival rolls around, he’ll be an in-demand player, whether playing solo or as part of a horn section; frequently, he and trumpeter-to-many Adam Hucke provide a two-man section. He’s recorded and produced acts and has curated truly remarkable concert lineups. Cerpa, the amiable sort, finds joy in all the variety.
“Absolutely,” he says, when asked about his mix of projects. “I enjoy Blank Generation. There, I have all the control, I put together all the nuts and bolts. A cover band might ask you to play a Stevie Wonder horn line and play it just right. And that feels really good, too. If I ever get tired of playing Stevie Wonder horn lines, I’ll just hang it up.”
(A sidenote about the covers vs. originals conversations, via Cerpa:
“How do you get the reach as an original artist? That’s a big challenge here in this city. There is an actual fanbase for original content. But can you get them interested? Going back to the tribute thing, people like something that’s familiar. Original bands need that culture, an actual crowd that comes out on a regular basis. Aaron Kamm and the One Drops can turn out 300 people anytime and anywhere, and that’s amazing. But St. Louis can be challenging in that way, when you put yourself out there, originally.
“The great thing about the cover stuff is that the crowds are bigger and, for me, personally, I play better in a bigger crowd; I can feel the energy more. Looking out and seeing a sea of people makes me more excited than scared. Then you play original music to an audience of 10 people and they’re not digging it? It’s a lot harder. I like having the control, but it’s harder to do. You put yourself out there and no one’s feeling it, you know? The big benefit is that you’re doing your own thing. And even if five people are there and just one knows the words (whether they’re my friend, or not), that they took the time to time listen makes it worthwhile. It’s just so much easier to make someone dance to the Rolling Stones.”)
One last thing about his work in the local music scene: not just geared to performance or recording, Cerpa’s been day-jobbing at South County’s Nottlemann Music, where he serves a variety of roles. He books the business’ active music instruction program. He repairs woodwinds as a technician. And he works the sales floor, so that “when your fourth-grader comes in to buy an instrument, you’ll see me and we’ll get you set up.”
If we’re to bookend this piece—tying in all that shabazz about this website into a coherent ending—it could happen like this: in wanting to make music his living for today and tomorrow, Cerpa’s canny enough to see that he needs to work all angles. Though he’s worked with him in only very minor contexts, he looks to someone like Michael Silverman, who works through Clayton Studios as a catalyst, of sorts, a musician/composer who not only promotes his own work, but constantly promotes the idea other people promoting their own work.
“I’m born and raised here,” he says. “I’m here for the long haul. Even if I got a gig, or taken out on tour, I’d come back. I’ve been around for 28 years and in the past five years, I’ve seen a serious, cultural renaissance here, especially in South City. I’ve seen a lot of locally-owned restaurants helping that; for example, the place we’re in right now, [Sump]. And I wanna be here when the music scene really drops. I really do think people will find out how cool it is and when they find out, the original music scene is going to regain more attention. I love it here, the opportunity to work, to really be an artist.”
You can find out more online, as Charlie Cerpa has a website.
