Come Together...Right Now...For One Weekend Only

For a number of years now the mainstream live music scene has been trending towards festivals. These summer showcases bring in hundreds and thousands of fans paying eighty dollars or so to see a number of their favorite bands in the same place. This evolution has proved necessary as for some reason, it has become increasingly difficult to convince these fans fork over twenty dollars to see any one these bands in a club. But these expensive hybrids of concerts and a vegan pig roasts (whatever those would be like) are not only a good opportunity for fans, but a great opportunity for up and coming bands. There is simply no other way to get a fresh audience like this. It’d be hard enough to get a gig opening for any of the headliners, let alone all of them. Not to mention the networking potential in being able to mingle with the member of some of your favorite bands as well. But you probably know all of this.

If you’re band has been added to a festival bill or two this summer first of all, congratulations. Second, condolences for the headaches you’re sure to experience if you handle the occasion properly. There are a number of things you need to stay aware of if you want to be invited next summer. Things like punctuality, gratitude and courtesy can go a long way towards earning more invitations, and since you’re not likely to get paid even as much as you would if you has spent the afternoon at your day job, you need to bank all the brownie points you can. For a detailed list of dos and don’ts, click the link below:

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What to Do With the Brick Once Your Get it Out of "The Wall"

The traditional image of a rock star includes a number of clichés, which would not be flattering in any other context. Some of the crowd favorites are substance abuse, intense sexual appetite, property destruction and other self-sabotaging behavior that only a celebrity of a certain breed can get away with come out even more popular than before. One of the relatively minor aspects of the rock star’s image is “the drop out”. This implies everything from dropping out of family, the workforce, mainstream society but first and foremost, school. Now this could either be a symptom of the frustrated and creative mind or simply inspiration drawn from what is frankly/probably the most overrated song Pink Floyd ever wrote.

There’s no doubt that some of you have followed this path. But others of you were responsible teenagers who love your parents enough to go to college, but not enough to study anything they’d consider useful. Now, if you fall into this category and studied music in college, many of probably had roughly the same experience. You definitely learned something, but not that much, you had a lot of fun and came out if it a better musician, though you can’t quite tell how. However there are things that they definitely do not teach you in music school that absolutely vital to achieving your dream carrying out all the other clichés. Some of these elusive lessons are how to get along with other bands, how to handle frustration, and how to carry a large bass amp around without shattering every bone in your foot. For a comprehensive list of the lessons that weren’t included in your tuition, click the link below:   

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Fans Still Listen Through ‘The Grapevine’, Even In A Drought

Some of you may have heard about Twitter’s new specialized platform for bands, #Music. If you’ve been keeping an eye on it since its launch, you may not know quite what to think. The correct thing to think is that it sucks. Since it’s entirely automated, its functionality is very limited. Because its functionality is very limited, all it really seems to do is give a megaphone to those who are already yelling in the Grand Canyon. If there were people working behind the scene to make sure it offers something unique to selected emerging artists and aspiring emerging artists, but all it really does is scan for what’s popular, tell you what’s popular and thus giving more exposure to bands who don’t need it.

With that being said, it doesn’t negate the importance of Twitter as part of your marketing platform. In case you’ve come down with amnesia caused by severe disappointment (with #Music), let me remind you that you can still use to Twitter to link yourself to similar artists. You can still use Twitter to follow trends in your genre. Keep track of what else your existing fans are into so you can reel them in even closer to your life raft. It allows you to quickly and effectively share news and media about your band in a way no that no other social media is capable of. To learn more about what Twitter can still do for you, click the link below:  

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When You're a 'Band on the Run' (From Collection Agencies)

As prestigious as the title of “touring band” might seem, those who have already been there can tell you that it isn’t high end liquor and anonymous sex marathon it’s made out to be in legends. The truth is that many many many bands tour regularly make it by on at most, a modest stipend. More commonly, band members have to survive on their last paycheck from the part time job that they may or may not have walked out on just before they starting packing up the van. Of course it takes an individual of enormous discipline and stomach the size of acorn to make a couple hundreds packs last for several. The only way to survive with any degree of comfort is to supplement by way of merchandise sales. So how can you make the most of this one and only way to live like a normal human being on the road? Click the link below to find out:

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Remember That When You’re ‘Burning Down the House’, You Only Really One Form of Accelerant

Between the conglomeration of venues in every city, the takeover of ticket sales by just a few corporations (Ticketmaster, LiveNation, etc.) and overall decline in concert attendance, it would seem that live music scenes across the country are ready to die on the operating table. But for those in the know, there is another scene on the rise. If you’re one of the many whose awareness concerts is limited to Google searches and Facebook notifications, you probably don’t know there could be something thriving as near as the basement next door. If that hasn’t tipped you off already, I am talking about the rise of house-shows. But before you give your own home an ironic/off-beat name and open your doors to every local gutter punk, hipster and college students with who knows how to find an address, there are some serious risks to consider.

If your residential venue becomes too popular, you could invite organizations like the ASCAP or BMI to collect licensing fees. Not to mention the risk of drawing attention from the police department, fire marshal, and zoning officials who are not nearly as hip as you are.

The good news is that there are a few ways to protect your self from these possible consequences. One is to make sure the attendance list is invite only. Of course people you don’t know will find out one way or another, but you can minimize the threat by keeping the address off the Internet and asking the bands not to publish it on their website. Do not put up flyers and as safe a place as college radio might seem…it isn’t. Also, don’t call the price of admission a cover charge or ticket price, call it a donation. You may lose control over the projected ‘revenue’, but it’s a lot less damaging from a legal perspective. Besides, you may rake in more by guilt tripping people than you would playing business-man (or woman). To become even better prepared to make your own personal (if miniscule) dent is Ticketmaster’s profits, click the link below:

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Get Off of YOUR Cloud and Into the Boardroom

Although there are many aspects to the music business that are unique, there are some marketing strategies that apply universally. One of these is called a SWOT analysis. This stands for Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats. When a representative from a record label or management company is considering taking you on they will run this analysis on your band, so it makes sense to get ahead of the game and do it yourself. Your strengths could be things like a large email list, many Facebook followers, a high YouTube count. Your weaknesses might be a lack of new merchandise or lack of touring experience. Possible opportunities might be nearby universities who often book local bands or upcoming festivals that would be a good fit for you. Threats can be external or internal. Maybe your band has residency but the venue is shutting down or maybe your bass player thinks he’s Sid Vicious. It is important to think about these things so that you can fix them and make your band more enticing. The best way to protect your band from fatally wounding criticism is to fix the problems before any important knows they exist. Like when you had a party at your house and had to replace the table after someone put a guitar through, just in time for your parents to get home. But brace yourself because this process may be more like replacing a whole antique living room set just a table from Wal-Mart. For detailed instruction on how to go about this, click the link below:

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