The Music Biz

Gigging - The Book Available now!

2011-11-04T15:00:00.001-07:00

Gigging - Everything you need to know about Playing Gigs, from Booking to getting Paid (except how to play your axe)

An essential guide for beginner musicians, those who are new to playing out, and seasoned pros who keep having problems. The book covers topics such as how to get along with the sound guy, what to do if you think you're being ripped off by a venue, and what you should wear on stage. There are also many True Gig Stories that describe what happened to bands that did things wrong. Learn from the mistakes of others and be one step ahead of the rest of the bands in your region.
Buy the book here: www.GiggingBook.com

Set Lists: What to Play

2011-11-04T14:55:00.000-07:00

Obviously, we can’t tell you exactly which songs to play or in what order, because this article is intended for any band of any genre. It all depends, of course, on what kind of band you are. Tribute bands know exactly what songs to play. Cover bands have to decide what genre or era of music to play, and may want to tailor that to specific venues or audiences. But what about bands playing original music? Here again it depends on the genre. Does your original music have a heavy dance groove, like 1970s disco? Or is it more contemplative fare that encourages an audience to sit there and listen, like The Fray.
Are you playing only originals, or do you want to incorporate a few selected covers.
Are you playing in a biker bar? or a coffee shop? or a theater?
Does your music cross genres?
Do your fans already know your music or are you a relatively new band still trying to win people over?
There are obviously a lot of variables, so we will try to guide you through them so you can put together a killer set list.

If you are playing in a biker bar or a neighborhood pub, you will probably go over best if you play music people are familiar with. This is also true for weddings, corporate gigs and many street fairs and festivals. That means covers, and the more danceable they are, the more the crowd will like you. In this case, you should play 50-100% covers, with originals sandwiched between compatible cover songs. If you play all covers, like a typical blues/rock cover band might, you’ll probably be a big hit.

If you are playing in a coffee shop, you will want to play mostly acoustic, so as not to overwhelm the audience. Hopefully, you aren’t a punk or metal band.

There are different theories on the best kind of set and it will, of course, depend on the audience and genre. In many cases you will want to play an attention grabber, one of your best tunes, right off the bat. If you are playing first or right after a band that wasn’t so great, it’s important to get the attention of the crowd as soon as possible.

In all cases, you will want to heed the old show-biz saying: Always leave them wanting more. Save your very best number for the end of the set. This one should be so great that all your fans scream for an encore. Hopefully, you have at least one song that people just love every time you play it. You need one to end your set with. Make sure you’ve saved a couple more good ones for that encore.

If your repertoire is reasonably diverse, you should be able to grab them and get them dancing right away, or during the first few tunes, then slow it down a little, speed it up, slow it down and then hit them really hard at the end. Hopefully, your fans will leave feeling like they had an experience, not just a few beers.

You want to avoid playing all your best stuff right off the bat and then end with a blah. People may remember they liked you at first, but then they will forget the rest of your set and walk away with a disappointing impression of your band. They’re gonna remember the way they felt at the end of your set.

If your music is such that all the songs have the same or similar tempo/time signature, and some genres are like that, your best bet is to grab them and hold on tight as long as you can make it last. If you want to take your show up to another level consider including songs that have different tempos. Most people appreciate a little calming down after a few fast songs. Or a little pepping up after a few slower numbers. Try experimenting with your originals by simply speeding them up or slowing them down 10-20 bpm (beats per minute), to see what difference it can make. Do it live and then ask your fans what they thought after the show. Sometimes things that may seem stupid in rehearsal have unexpectedly good/bad results when tried on stage.

Timing:
Make sure you know how long it will take you to play your set, including the encore and between song banter. Make sure you know how long they are giving you to play your set. If you are playing in a situation where there are bands playing after you and/or there are other time constraints, include your encore into your set time planning. It’s great to leave them begging for more, but, if you don’t have time for that encore, then your set was too long.

If you need/want to introduce each song beforehand, you will need time for that. If your guitar player must tune-up/swap out guitars between each number, plan for that. One rule of thumb is to plan for your set to end a few minutes early. Then, if people want that encore, you have time for it. Or if things get delayed a few minutes, you will still be in good shape.

Do not plan on playing a 30 minute encore at every gig. If the sound guy says you have time for one more, he means one more of about the same length as the other songs you’ve been playing. If your tunes are all about 5 min, but you insist on doing a 20 minute jam when you only have 5 min. left in your set, you will risk pissing off the sound guy (always a bad idea), the club manager, the staff, and any bands that have to play after you.

Should you play covers or not?
Every original band struggles with this question. Our answer in most cases is: Yes. You should do at least a few covers, especially if you are a new band. Once people have become familiar with your original music, you may be able to drop the covers from your set. Pay attention to the big successful national touring acts. Most of them do play select covers. Many have released entire albums of covers. That said, we have also heard bands who’s original music is so good that they didn’t need to play covers, and other bands who’s original music sounded so much like it could have been covers that they didn’t need to play true covers. (but they did anyway)

One observation that we have made is that people don’t dance to music they are not familiar with. If people start dancing right away when you play your originals, you may not need covers. Most bands, though, need to play something that people have heard before, many times, in order to get their attention and bring them out onto the dance floor. Of course, if yours is not the kind of music anyone will dance to, this point should be ignored. You may become highly successful, if your fans yawn all the way to iTunes and buy all your music.

When selecting covers, choose music popular in your genre that is complimentary to or at least compatible with your originals. Start with the bands who have influenced you and then move into music that you love. Chances are, these songs will work. However, don’t be afraid to cover stuff completely out of your genre. We know a popular alt-country band that covers Neil Diamond and Ozzy Osbourne. They just play them in country style. Just be careful, it’s easier to ruin a popular song than it is to make it your own.

One sure fire way to grab a crowd’s attention is to play a tune that has a very different tempo. Bands that play songs all in the same time signature, no matter the genre, commonly get tiring after 20-30 minutes. You need to incorporate some diversity into your sets.

Tailor your set to the crowd.

Is the crowd mostly over 40? Play some oldies. If they are mostly under 25 play something new. If they are bikers, play “Born to Be Wild” If they are soccer moms play sappy love songs.
Bottom Line: play what they want to hear. If you don’t know what they want to hear, just ask them. Every crowd has someone who will shout out some requests. If you don’t know that song, play whatever you have that’s as close to that as you can. If you’re playing all originals, go ahead and tease them by asking what they want to hear anyway. If it gets them involved in the show that’s a good sign. Hopefully, they won’t just get pissed off at you because you don’t know any of their requests.

First, you need to know what kind of material you have. It doesn’t matter if they are covers or originals or a mixture of both. If everything is all the same tempo, it may not matter what order you play it in. Most bands... Most successful bands, that is, have material that is fast and slow or relatively so, depending on the genre.

Second, guess what the crowd will be like. It may be obvious from the venue, but it also may not be. Be prepared to change things up midway through the show, if needed.

Next, set the pace:
You may wish to start out slow and then gradually speed things up over the course of a set or you may want to start out strong and then slow things down and build them back up at the end of the set.

Play your heart out.

Finally, take note of the audience reaction. If they love you, great! You’ve got a good set, if they start out loving you, but then they all leave during one particular song, you know you goofed up. It can take a lot of gigs to get it right. So don’t get discouraged. Keep at it until you get it figured out.

Social Networking for Bands

2010-10-13T01:27:00.001-07:00

If you’re in a band, you already know how important it is to promote your act. You need to get your fans to your shows, win over new fans, and sell your music and other merchandise. Traditional methods still work fine and should not be ignored. Postering, flyering, and publicity are tried and true ways to get the job done, but new technology provides new tools. You don’t need to be a techie or computer wizard to use these tools. Even a music geek can do it. All it takes is time and effort. Like everything else about the music business, it’s not rocket science, it‘s just hard work. Oh, and who you know is still more important than what you sound like. The difference is that, now, there are more “tastemakers” who can be impressed and pass along how great your band is to even more people who follow them.

Tastemakers have always been around, the new part is that they are no longer only in the news media and at record labels. Now anyone with a blog can be a tastemaker. If a bunch of people read their blog, their tweets, their facebook postings, or whatever, they have influence. When one of these people says “Hey, check out Neddy & the Losers. They’re the best band I ever heard!” People do what they say. This means that by using social media your band can now become a big successful hit without ever being mentioned in the newspapers, magazines or even getting a song played on the radio. Of course, the traditional media and labels are also watching the social media now, so if you become that successful, they will approach you and help you become that much bigger.

So, how do you make this happen?

First, you make sure your band is pretty darn good. If your band sucks, no amount of promotion or social networking can overcome it. In most major markets there are literally hundreds, if not thousands of bands. All of them are constantly clamoring for attention. If most of them are better than yours, it’s gonna be hard to stand out from the pack. The better your act is, musically and otherwise, the easier everything will be.

By Social Networking we mean the obvious sites out there that everyone is talking about. At the time of this writing Facebook is the biggest one and Twitter also important. By the time you read this, all that could be different. In ten years we expect something else to come along and replace social networking completely. Who knows what that will be like, but chances are, the principles will be the same, no matter what site(s) you’re using. On the most basic level, you want to use Social Networking in much the same way you do face to face networking.

As a band, each fan you gain is important. Those fans will hopefully tell their friends how cool your band is and how much they love your music. Each one of them is also a potential buyer for your music. Yes. We know. You’re not a sellout. You’re not in this for the money. It’s all about the music. But wouldn’t it be nice to make a living from playing your music instead of flipping burgers? Of course it would! (Note: If you’d rather not make any money, you can still achieve a certain level of notoriety/fame and earn almost nothing. The music industry is very flexible like that. In either case, these tips can still help you.)

So, here’s a few steps to get you started and keep you rolling. First you want to make accounts/profiles for your band everywhere.

(Note to bands that will probably break up in a couple months: If you band has a clear leader he/she should keep track of all the passwords, preferably written down and easily accessible. He/she will need them when the other band members get fired. If your band has no clear leader and decisions are made by voting or consensus, then, Good luck! You’re all gonna be screwed when the band falls apart. The best way to handle this is for each member to have all the passwords or they can be kept someplace where everyone can get to them. This, of course, is dangerously stupid. At some point, probably when your crackhead drummer gets fired out of the band, she/he will hijack all the social networking profiles and tell all your fans that he fired the rest of you. When you fire the bass player’s girlfriend from being the band manager she will pour out every detail of every embarrassing thing you ever did onto your public profiles. So the point here is to carefully control who has access to your profiles because it’s a pain in the ass to build new ones and almost impossible to undo damage to reputations that have been thoroughly trashed online.)

Make profiles on all the big social networks you have heard of and any others that maybe aren’t so big, but people seem to be talking about them anyway. Make these Band Profiles, not personal ones. It can be a pain in the ass to change a personal one into a band one, and it’s also nice to have your own separate profile for your real friends/family/solo projects.
On Facebook, make it a “Page” that people can “Like.” On Twitter, just make a new profile. All you need is a different email address. Myspace is really only good as an electronic promo kit (EPK) anymore, since real adult people seem to avoid it like the plague, but make sure you build a band profile there anyway. Band profiles on Myspace allow for music that can be played online and videos as well, personal profiles aren’t as easy to use like that. Reverbnation is also a great place to have your band. They have very nice tools for emailing your fans and widgets that can make your social networking much easier.

Which sites should you use? All of them! The easier you make it for people to find you online, the better. You could probably spend thousands of hours putting your band out there all over the Internet, but since you’ll also need a little time for playing music, practice and writing new songs, we recommend that you assign one or more band members to spend at least one hour each week on social networking. If nobody in the band can be bothered with this task, then recruit a family member or fan to do it for you (and change the password as soon as they flake on you). If you’ve got money, it’s really easy to hire people to do this for you.

Here’s a list of the currently most important Social Networking sites for bands: Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, LastFM, SoundCloud, Purevolume, iLike, ReverbNation, Vimeo, Jamlegend, Ourstage, and Wikipedia. Recently, companies have popped up that track your plays, fans, views and comments across all these sites (and probably new ones that will be added on a regular basis). They make those numbers available, by subscription, to recording label A&R people, radio Program Directors, band managers and anyone else who wants it. It might help your band to sign up for this information, too, so you know what they are reporting and to make sure you aren’t missing out on some important social platform. One such company is Next Big Sound.

What will you need for your profiles? You will need, at minimum, a photo or logo of your act, 3-5 songs in MP3 format, a band biography, individual bios of each band member, and contact info. for whoever does the booking for your band as well as someone who will answer questions, etc. from fans. Additionally, you will need to know what genre(s) your music fits into [Read: Know Your Genre]. You will need photos of your merchandise, if you hope to sell it online. Of course that also means you will need a band bank account and a band paypal account or something similar to accept credit card payments online. You will also need to be able to adjust the size of your photos/digital images, because each site has different requirements.

You don’t need to spend a ton of time/money making each of these profiles look super cool. Just use the default look or add a simple background image so things look nice. Save that time/money for your real website. Yes. You should have one of those, too.

If you have videos, start a Youtube channel and post your videos there whenever you have new ones to share. One of the great things about Youtube is the easy way you can post that same video on your website, your other social networking sites and even include a link in your mass emailings.

All these sites are pretty easy to use, but sometimes there’s a few tricky parts. If you run into trouble or can’t figure out how to make or use your profile in some way, just go to google and type in your question. It’s unlikely that you are the first one to have this problem and there is likely a step by step guide for anything you will ever want to do online.

Once you have profiles built on as many sites as you can, you need to make friends/fans/followers. Start with your email list. All your friends, family and co-workers. Invite everyone and don’t get upset if some people aren’t interested. Some people just aren’t gonna cooperate and you should not hold that against them. Go through your phone and the phones of your bandmates and invite everyone you and they know. You should always try to get more people on this list at your gigs by putting out an email list signup sheet.

If anyone in the band complains about all the hard work this will be, remind them that in the 1990s (and before) bands had to collect snail mail addresses and then print out and mail postcards and other promo packs to their fans, the venues, and the news media. Compared to that, social networking is easy and cheap.

Now it’s time to post things on your wall so your friends/fans/followers have something to read. First and foremost you need to post your gigs. On Facebook, you want to make these as events. On other sites it will probably just be a post of some sort. Post each gig a few weeks out and send reminders a week out, a few days out, the day before and the day of the gig. Try so sound positive and excited. It’s just like stage presence. If you are excited, people will pick up on that and get excited as well. A good practice is to post a thank you to all your fans that came out to your gig, the next day. This gives them an opportunity to post things about how great your show was, hopefully encouraging their friends to check your band out, too. It is vital your social networking success to respond to each and every wall post, email, and message. Hopefully you’ve got someone in the band who loves to chat with people. If not, find a friend, relative or fan who can do this for you. Just like in real life, networking requires interaction. It has to be a two way street with the band, or it’s rep. responding and having real conversations with people. Post anything remotely newsworthy that the band does or gets involved in. For example: “We just wrote a really cool song in rehearsal tonight! Can’t wait to share it with everyone at our next gig!” or “Check out the new songs we just uploaded to our profile today. We just finished editing the tracks last night and they sound great!”

As the fan base grows, there will probably be a few stalkers/weirdos/creeps who want attention from the band. Just draw a line at some point and if they cross it, unfriend/block them. But try not to do that. You need every fan you can get. Be very careful not to post negative things about venues, other bands or obnoxious fans. If you feel you must do that, then post those things on your personal profile, so it doesn’t taint the reputation of the entire band.

Make life easier. If you use a tool like Tweetdeck, you can post to Facebook, Twitter and Myspace all at once. Tweetdeck will even allow you to time your post for a later date. There are many other tools of the same sort, just do a quick search and see what’s available. ReverbNation has handy dandy widgets so that when you post your gigs on ReverbNation, they will automatically show up on your website and possibly also on other sites that can accept the widget or use an RSS feed. Facebook will let you hook up an RSS feed, so things will automatically post to your wall when they’ve been posted somewhere else. Tools like these are a great way to save you time and effort while still being on top of all your social profiles.

Just use the info we’ve outlined above and you will have yourself a big fat Social Network in no time at all. With some effort this will boost your other efforts and help you bring big crowds to your shows who buy up all your merch and make you a successful band.

Wrapping Cables

2010-08-23T19:25:00.001-07:00

The way cables, microphone cords and other electrical wires are wrapped can have a huge impact on how long they last as well as how easily they will unwrap or straighten out. Every professional musician will at some time or other have a bad experience with a cable going bad. The microphone will cut out or a crackling popping sound will erupt in the middle of a song. The sound guy, if you’re lucky enough to have one, will rush over, change the cable out and fix the problem.

In order to avoid this problem, you want to take good care of your cables.
Wrapping them properly between uses is the best way to keep them in good shape.

There are many different methods for wrapping cables, but they are all variations on one basic theme. First, you loop the cable once in the direction it naturally wants to go. Next you wrap a loop with a half twist in the cable. Then you go back to a normal loop and then follow with the half twist and keep this variation going until you have the cable all wrapped up.
You can tell a properly wrapped cable when it comes time to unwrap it because it will straighten out with no knots or kinks. This is key, because those knots and kinks can be real cable killers.

We’ve posted links below to various instructional videos to show you how to do it. practice a few times and you will get it down pat.

Techniques are known as Over-under, Figure 8 and other names. Don’t worry about what it’s called, as long as it’s done right, it doesn’t matter what you call it.

Here’s a pretty good video:

Here’s one that’s got a different wrapping technique but with the same result:

On this one the volume is really low, but you can see what’s going on:

Signs Your Band is Failing

2010-08-21T14:12:00.000-07:00

A band is like a team. You may win some awesome gigs or lose some valuable gear. But many bands continue gigging way past the time when they ought to have packed it up and quit. Some of the best bands become more like a family than a team of players. Others may live together and share everything but become as dysfunctional as a soap opera family. Sometimes that makes from great music, but just like a lot of families, sometimes it makes for a nightmare. Based on our observations, there are a few telltale signs that the band isn’t doing well.

Now just because your band falls into one or more of these categories, doesn’t mean you should up and quit right away. It may be that only one band member needs to be replaced, or that everyone needs a break from each other for a few months, or maybe you just all need to sit down and write some new music that really gets everyone excited again. If your band can get through the tough times and continue on improving and making great music, you may come out of it better, tighter and more like a family than a team.

Here are the signs, we will discus each one in detail below:

Attendance at your gigs is falling
Booking gigs is getting harder and harder
Disagreements within the band are becoming more common and bigger
There’s not much new music coming out of your band
One or more band members shows an increasing lack of commitment to the band

Attendance at your gigs is falling:

As a band improves the attendance should grow, so if fewer and fewer people are coming your shows, it’s a sure sign that something is wrong. Now don’t take it as a trend after a couple of bad gigs. Take into account things like weather, holidays, and competing events. Sometimes bad gigs come in clusters and you just have to slog through them until the better gigs come along.
Now, that said, if your band really does suck, then it will be harder and harder to bring out a good crowd. We’ve seen it in real life where a brand new band brings 200 or more people to their first ever gig, but they weren’t a very good band, so the next gig was 100 or so and the one after that was 50 and the next one ended up being the last one they played at their favorite venue.

What can you do about it?
If you’re seeing that kind of a trend, you know there’s something wrong. People came to see your band once or twice and then stopped coming. It could be as simple as you’re over-playing the market. Who can really come see your band every weekend? You will need to play less often in that market, maybe spend some time in neighboring towns/markets. Or maybe the music isn’t very good and you need to go back to the woodshed and practice the songs more as a band. If it’s jut one member of the band, then the others will likely be aware and should sit that guy down and let him know that he’s holding the band back. He will either need to improve, maybe take some lessons, or it might be appropriate to simply replace him. If, as we’ve seen many time, this is the guy who put the band together in the first place or the guy who does all the booking and promotion work, then maybe everyone should quit the band and let him try again with another crew or try to “promote” him up to the Manager position where he will do the most good for the band.

Booking gigs is harder:

If gigs were easy to come by when your band started out, but now those same venues don’t want to hire your act anymore, it may be because of the same reasons we just discussed above. People aren’t coming to your shows anymore. The only other reason venues might have to not book you would be professionalism. If your band routinely pisses off the wait staff, the bartenders or security guys, the booking person will listen to them and unless you are bringing in huge crowds he/she won’t want to bother with you.

You will know that venues don’t want to book you anymore when they stop returning your phone calls, emails, etc. It’s much easier for them to say nothing than to call you up and tell you that your band sucks.

Remember, booking people know each other and talk to one another. If you’ve been a no show, no call band a couple times, word will get around and it may be harder to get those gigs.

What can you do about it?
Play another market. For some reason many bands have a hard time in their own market, but are quite successful on the road. Maybe your genre of band will do better in the next city over. Those booking folks are less likely to know the ones in your home town and there’s a certain cachet about touring acts. There’s more expected from them and so your signature squeal might be seen a cool new creative twist instead of an annoying song killing nuisance the way it might come across at home.

And also pay attention to the stuff we said in the above section on attendance.

Disagreements within the band:

Does your band spend more time arguing than practicing? Does one guy want to write only rock-a-billy songs while the others want to write punk? Did your drummer sleep with the bass player’s girl? Did your lead guitar player sleep with the drummer? Have there been fist-fights on stage? If any one or all of these things or similar are happening, you’ve got a problem and it’s likely affecting the performance or soon will.

We’ve seen bands that spend three weeks on the road and then break up as soon as they get back to town. Touring is the quickest way to break up a band or bond them together forever. Unfortunately, the only way to figure out which way things will go is to tour. Some guys realize they just can’t stand to be away from home for more than a couple days and will resign from the band. Others just can’t handle the stress of not knowing if the next gig will pay enough to buy gas for the van or not. Some guys love sleeping on the floors of random girls who take pity on the touring band and some don’t mind not showering for days on end. Mix them all together in a van and problems are likely to arise.

What can you do about it?
A band is like a family. You may hate each other one day and love each other the next. It’s best if you can find a way to work through your problems before they become out of control. The non-involved members of the band should sit the others down and make them talk it out. Maybe a team building exercise would help. Maybe you should just fire that drummer before he boinks your girl, too.

Lack of new material:

If the band has not written any new songs for a year or more, serious consideration should be given to breaking up. If you’re a cover band, then the question should be: Have you learned any new songs lately? Lack of new material to play means the band has gotten used to playing the same old stuff over and over an has become complacent. Hopefully, this happens when you are in a very successful period. Gigs are coming easily and the venues are always packed. With no new material, you’ve got no new CDs (or whatever) to sell, and probably not much new in the merch area either. Sales may be going through the roof, but if you’re not preparing something new for the future, eventually the gravy train is going to come to an end.
We’ve seen this most commonly in bands that have peaked out. They are so busy playing gigs and making money that they don’t even bother rehearsing anymore. Then some new band comes along and next thing you know, you’re bumped down to an opening slot at a venue you’ve headlined for years. If the ride lasts long enough, your fans may simply get older and start settling down, getting serious jobs and having babies. That’s when they stop going out as often and don’t want to party all night, the way they used to.

What can you do about it?
Break up and start an exciting new band with mostly the same guys and a whole lot of new material. For cover bands, it’s easier: Just learn some new songs. Original bands will have to get together and hammer out some new stuff. Hopefully, someone in the band has been writing material all along and is now ready to show it off. Otherwise, schedule some time off from gigging and get busy!

Lack of commitment from band members:

You will recognize this when guys stop showing up for rehearsal or, worse, gigs. You may also notice that one or more band members has started up a side project. If that project becomes more successful than the band you’re in now, guess who’s gonna quit or at least be unavailable for gigs?

What can you do about it?
Fire that lazy bastard! Or better, yet, sit him/her down and discuss priorities. If they are just too busy with the day job or wife and kids, then maybe it’s time to look for another person to play that instrument. If it’s a side project, at least get a clear indication as to which project is going to take precedence and work around him/her. We’ve seen well established bands that hit their peak and then as things slide down, every one of the members steps out into other projects. The original band becomes a side project that only plays when the money is too good to pass up or when they can squeeze in a gig between all the side projects.

Sometimes it may be appropriate to send the band on hiatus for a while. After six months or a year, a reunion gig might be worthwhile and the band could rediscover the magic that brought them together in the first place.

Rehearsal Spaces

2010-07-15T20:21:00.000-07:00

Where are you going to practice? Every band needs a place to rehearse. It's got to be big enough to accommodate everyone in the band and their instruments. It's got to be located where everyone can get there and available at whatever time of day the band needs it. It's got to be the kind of place where you can play at full volume without bothering the neighbors. And it's got to be affordable.

Most bands start out in one band member's basement or garage. There's nothing wrong with that, and if it works, you might as well keep using it as long as you can. Indeed, these days it's not uncommon for a band member to have an entire recording studio set up at his/her house. This keeps costs down and usually works out pretty good. We know a band that lives in Warehouse. Not only can they rehearse and record there, they have plenty of space to throw awesome jam parties.

Unfortunately, not every band can pull that off. If it's not the parents complaining about the music, it's the neighbors complaining about all the pot smoke billowing out of the windows, or the degenerate low-lifes (i.e. musicians) frequenting their cul-de-sac.

When it's time to go out and rent rehearsal space, how do you decide on a good spot?

There are two basic kinds of rehearsal spaces: Those you rent by the month, and those you rent by the hour. In both categories there are nice ones and crappy ones.

The spaces you can rent by the hour are usually nicer and come with gear already there, so all you need to bring is your axe. That's cool, because you don't have to lug your amps and drum kits. But, on the down-side. You won't be practicing with your own amps and if your drummer requires more than the standard 5 piece kit, he will have to bring that in and set it up each time. Furthermore, if you want to just kick back, drink a few beers, etc. and write some songs, there's always that clock ticking in the back of your head. Many of them have a set period during which they are open and closed. So, you may not be able to use the place into the wee hours of the night. These places are not exactly conducive to a relaxed creative process. However, if you already know the songs and just need to run through things together as a band, these places can work out great. You also can come out spending a lot less than if you rent the place by the month, since you only pay for the space while you're there using it.

Monthly rental spaces can be harder to come by. Most are tucked away into old warehouses, defunct factories and places like that. They can be in dicey neighborhoods with alley-only access. Some have been trashed out by previous bands, rat infested, smelly and downright dangerous. Some places have little or no security and others have walls so thin that it's almost impossible to practice when the death metal band next door is doing their thing. When you find a good space, it will have parking, security doors, sound insulation and a reasonable price. In many cases, you can share these spaces with another band or two, thereby cutting the cost down to half or a third. Be careful, though, the more people who have acess, the higher the likelihood that one of them will be a crack head who will eventually steal everyone's gear. Being able to leave your gear in the space, all set up and ready to go can be a great advantage, and if you aren't sharing the space, you can use it at your leisure, coming and going at all hours of the day.

If you go with the monthly space, make sure they have great security and also make sure that you don't have any homeless/couch surfing band members who might end up living there.
Also, be really careful to pay the rent on time every month. If you don't the landlord may have every right to lock you out, and keep your instruments until you pay him off. If you don't pay even then, he may be be justified in selling your gear off to pay your bills. Getting locked out unexpectedly can be a real problem when you show up to load your gear out to take it to a show and discover that your gear is locked up and you can't get to it. You don't want to have to cancel a gig over an unpaid bill. If one band member is assigned to take care of paying the rent, make damn sure that guy, or gal, will follow through and be dependable. Make sure it's someone with a good day job or otherwise has no financial problems.

Here's a real life story:

A local band was renting a space by the month, and they had been happy there for several years. They shared the space with one other band. One day they showed up and the space was empty. All their gear was gone! After a little detective work, over the course of several months (the cops weren't much help), they finally figured out that the thief was a drug addicted associate of the other band. He just happened to know there was a painted over window that he could break in, wriggle through to get in and then unlock the door from the inside. They actually managed to get the guy arrested and convicted. However, they never recovered the majority of their gear. Some of it turned up at a pawn shop, but the rest was long gone. The criminal, after serving a short stint in jail, was required to pay back the band for all the gear that wasn't recovered. However, he's broke and chronically unemployable, so the band members each make do with a few bucks a month from a victims compensation fund. At those rates, it'll take 10-12 years to pay for all that gear. The worst of it, though, was that the band lost their master recordings. They had been working for a couple years on a new CD and had the bulk of it recorded, mixed down and ready to go. Needless to say, that took the wind out of their sails and they lost a couple band members setting them even farther back. That album was never finished.

Green Room Etiquette

2010-07-01T22:02:00.000-07:00

Many new band members are excited to finally get to play in a venue with a green room.
Unfortunately, their bad behavior commonly leads to misunderstandings, abuse of property and worse: Inappropriate use of the green room can leave a bad impression with venue owners, booking agents, other bands, managers and employees.
While specific green room policies vary with the venue there are some simple rules that you should follow that will keep these important relationships in good standing, no matter where you play.

What the green room is for: The green room is simply a place away from the hubub of the main room where you can change your clothes in privacy, tune your guitars without interruption and prepare to perform with your bandmates. It's usually a safe place to leave your purse or other valuables that you don't want to take on stage.

What the Green room is NOT for: It's not a place to hang out after the show for smoking pot, snorting coke or anything else illegal. It's not for sex. It's not for parties. It's not for drug deals and it's not OK to trash the place because you're big rock stars now.

Who can come in? While it's usually Ok, to bring in your spouse or significant other, it's never cool to invite all their friends or the 6 hot girls you just met at the bar. The more people in the green room, the less privacy and security there is. Bringing in people you don't know well, like a buddy's pal from out of town, just increases the likelihood that something valuable will go missing. If your bandmates, or members of another band need some privacy to go over the set list or work out the kinks in a new song, your drunken girlfriend is not gonna be much help.
When to use it: Before your set. 30-60 minutes before is plenty of time, you don;t need to be there 3 hours before you go on getting drunk or high or whatever. So that stuff some place other than the venue where you are about to perform. After your set, you may go back to the green room, catch your breath, collect your belongings, throw away your trash and leave. Do not expect to hang out with your buddies in the green room for the rest of the night.
Courtesy to the venue: If you bring it in, please bring it back out or at least throw it away. The venue's staff hates cleaning the green room, because there's always tons of trash, from broken guitar strings to empty beer bottles to unused flyers, cigarette butts and various unmentionables. If you made the mess, please clean it up. If you bring glasses into the green room from the bar, please bring them back to the bar. Nobody's gonna wash them in the green room. If you are in the headlining band please be aware that certain venue staff members don't get to go home until you are gone, so they can clean up after you and lock the place up for the night. Trust me, they've been there since well before you arrived, they worked a full shift and they would like to go home... Now.
Courtesy to the other bands: Many green rooms are shared. If you are an opening act and you've taken up the whole room with your entourage to the point that the headliner has no place to relax and prepare, you are being rude to them and they will remember that next time they need an opening act. If you are an opener get out of there as quick as possible after your set.
Follow the rules: Ask them if it's Ok to brings guests in, bring your own liquor in, or bring your under age nephew in. Especially while on the road, you may not know the local laws or rules of the venue. Ask first. If you accidentally break one, apologize and stop doing whatever it was. Chances are, if you are polite and respectful, they (security guys/managers/cops) will gladly let it go and forget all about it by your next gig.

Can't repeat this enough: The green room is not your personal lounge or party room! The party is supposed to be in the main room of the venue while you are on stage. Your fans can wait there for you or they can go home. If you must have a party after your show, please arrange to have it some place else. The Green Room is not Las Vegas, what happens there is remembered by the venue, even if you are too drunk to remember anything.

Here's a few real life examples of bad things that this author has observed working in a mid-sized venue:

The reggae band that gave out tickets to their friends that would get them in the door for free and into the private party in the green room without even bothering to tell anyone who worked at the venue. We made these people pay to get in and banned them from the green room.
The rock band that brought a marijuana vaporizer into the green room. Too bad they didn't make as much effort to bring their fans in for the show.
The national "Idol" act that allowed 40 or so "friends" and relatives" into the green room. There was no privacy whatsoever and it was difficult for the performers to even get in and out of the place.
The band we nicknamed "Powdered Courage" after we caught them snorting coke in the green room, politely gave them 5 minutes to get rid of it and get out of there, and then had to go back 10 minutes later to throw them out. They were never invited back.
The band that thought it was a good idea to write their name on the lampshade in the green room.
The bands that hid their pipes, stash, trash and broken cymbals above the ceiling tiles in the green room. Guess who found all that stuff when cleaning up after a water pipe burst and some of those tiles had to be replaced?

Microphone Technique

2010-06-15T19:59:00.000-07:00

Microphone technique: How do you hold a microphone properly while singing into it? That is the question we will answer here. In short, you grip the mic by the handle and then place the bulbous end right up close to your mouth, even touching it with your lips. Keep it that close at all times, unless you desire a volume lowering effect, which you can create by moving it away from your mouth. If you are using a mic stand, place your mouth up close to the mic and keep it there.

Here's some things you should NOT do with a microphone:

Don't cup the mic: We've all seen this done, usually by hip hop artists on MTV. This can cause feedback problems for the sound engineer and marks you as a total amateur. The truth behind why you see this being done by huge artists on TV so often is because they are trying to hide the fact that they are actually lip syncing. This is done by artists of all genres on TV because they can use a pre-recorded track, with perfect sound, and lip sync along concentrating on their dancing or theatrics. Also, since their mics are not on, they don't have to worry about feedback.

Watch where you move the mic: Don't squat down in front of a monitor with a mic in your hand. That's asking for feedback. Similarly, never place the mic directly in front of a speaker cabinet or amplifier. Again, that's just asking for feedback and can cause headaches for the sound guy. It's Ok to dance or strut around the stage with the mic, but watch the other instruments and mic cords. You don't want to trip and fall, or tangle up the cords and accidentally unplug something or knock something over. Oh, if we had a dollar for every time we watched a mic cord knock over a beer! We've seen drinks knocked over directly onto pedals, amps and pretty much very thing else on the stage. If you are one of those artists who loves to roam all over the stage, it might be worth investing in a wireless microphone system.

Don't swing the mic around by the cord: Yes, it's cool when Roger Daltrey, of The Who, does this, but he can afford new mics. We've seen a variety of perfectly good microphones smashed to bits by over-enthusiastic vocalists trying to be cool. If you really think this kind of stunt will help your show, buy your own SM-58 (or better) mic and bring it to use at the show. If you do ruin a microphone, be prepared to pay for a new one.

Don't swing the mic stand around: Yeah, it's cool to watch Mick Jagger, of the Rolling Stones, swing his mic stand all over the place, but he can afford to buy new stands all day long. If we had a dollar for every mic stand we've seen destroyed on stage... we wouldn't have to write books like this one. If you bust it, you will probably have to pay to replace it. It will likely come out of your pay at the end of the night, too. If you want to play around with the mic stands, bring your own. We've seen local bands bring it custom mic stands so sturdy they had steps built into them. The singer could climb up on the stand for... whatever reason. But it's his own stand, so he can do whatever he wants with it. Don't try that kind of stuff with the house gear.

If you don't want to be in the spotlight, get off the stage

2010-06-01T19:20:00.000-07:00

"If you don't want to be in the spotlight, get off the stage." This quote comes from my friend Skinny who runs a lights, staging and sound company (www.sssproductions.net). As a stage lighting professional he is sick of musicians asking him to turn the lights down or not point them at the band members. There's a reason you're on a stage. You could be playing behind a curtain or just having a recording of your band playing over the PA system. People want to see you and watch you play your instrument. They want to make a personal connection with you and they do that by making eye contact. If they can't see you, it'll be that much harder for you to connect with the audience and build up some excitement during your show. This also goes for wearing sunglasses and hats on stage. Don't do it. The stage, and the lights shining on it, aren't meant to be super comfortable for you, they're meant to make you look good. If you subvert that by asking for dimmer lights or wearing dark glasses, nobody will be able to make eye contact with you.

Here's the best hint we can give you: Don't look directly into the lights. Look down where the crowd should be. You may not be able to see them, and they may not be there, but get used to it.

Stage lights have traditionally been hot and bright and in your face, and that's likely to continue, although, with the increasing use of LED stage lights the heat has been dramatically reduced. If you're hot and sweaty under LEDs, it's your own heat. Don't blame the lights.

In some situations there may not be any lights on you at all. This will happen most often in small dive bars or restaurants that only have music on the weekends. If that's the case, you might want to bring your own lights. Whenever possible, use professional stage lights. Do NOT bring in shop lights, utility lights or any other light you can buy in a hardware store. The reasons for this are simple: Safety and Looks. You don't want to be the band that used the wrong kind of lights or overloaded a circuit causing a fire that burned the venue down. Most Full service music stores will have at least a small selection of stage lighting, and the internet is full of places to buy gear. You don't need to spend a fortune buying a massive lighting rig. Renting is always an option, as well. However, a professional lighting tech will almost always make you look better. For the smaller gigs, one rack of three or four spotlights on a tall stand will do the job. Furthermore, running a pile of orange or yellow extension cables across the stage to each of your shop lights just looks bad. It makes you look like an amateur, because, well... if you're doing that, you are.

One of our many pet peeves is being in the audience at a show and having to turn my head away from looking at the band, or taking pictures of them, because the lights are shining in my face, instead of on the band. If you have any control over the lights, please make sure they are pointed at the band, not the audience. Sure it's cool in a stadium when they shine the lights out on the crowd for a bit, but in a club, it's realy easy to over do it. Additionally, bartenders get really cranky when they can't see to mix drinks or count thier tips because someone shined a spotlight in their face.

Another pet peeve is fog / smoke machines. It has always been our opinion that any local band requiring a smoke machine is hiding something. Now, that said, we realize that you can make things look really cool with a little bit of fog and some cool lights, but when you're playing a neighborhood pub, leave that stuff at home. A theater sized venue or bigger can handle the smoke and will probably already have some cool lights, or will be open to working with the ones you bring. But please, go easy on the fog. Some people with asthma freak out as the mere sight of fog and once again, you don't want to make life any harder than it already is for the waitstaff, bar staff or security. Keep the fog on the stage, where it belongs, and you should be fine.

Hey, Photographer, Get Off the Stage!

2010-05-16T19:38:00.000-07:00

This one is aimed more at Photographers and Videographers than musicians, but since musicians commonly invite these guys/gals to shoot, I'm including it here.

Time and time again we see these wannabe big-shot photographers and video guys jump up on the stage while the band is playing and start shooting. They all get really annoyed when we ask them to get off the stage, as if we're disrupting their constitutional right to get a certain shot (commonly of the drummer). We calmly explain to them that the people in the audience have not paid to watch a photographer's butt, they paid to watch the band. As a representative of the venue, we are more concerned with the show happening on stage right now than how cool the video will look on youtube later on, or how likely the photographer is to get the shot in some crappy online magazine.

If they argue, we go on to explain to them then that we have taken ten of thousands on photos in the very same venue and never once had to get on the stage, much less kneel down in front of the lead singer. Additionally, we explain, how many actual professional photographers we know, who actually do get their shots published in the Rolling Stone, or wherever, and not one of them ever had to jump up on the stage.

These pros rarely venture into the clubs, as they are far too busy shooting national acts at Red Rocks or other amphitheaters/arenas/festivals. They also are acutely aware that they would likely be blacklisted from the arena, if they ever dared to venture out on to the stage.

The fact that you, photographer, think you need to get on stage to get that shot only proves that you are not a very good photographer.

Also, don't ask us to turn the stage lights up, so you can get a better shot. If you need that kind of light for your photo or video, then shoot it at a time when there's not a show happening.
We also routinely have to get photographers down from having climbed up on barstools, tables, bars, etc. because they feel they need to get up higher to get a good shot. We have actually yanked these guys off of chairs after they ignored polite requests. The point here: Do what the venue personnel tell you to do. The band does not own, operate or control the venue. They don't pay the extra insurance costs associated with drunk people falling off things and they don't have to answer to the lawyers after a customer has tripped over your extension cord and hurt himself.

Teams of video guys are even worse, there are commonly a half dozen of them and they run all over the place including all over the stage trying to shoot stuff.

To the bands/musicians: If you need a video shoot, schedule it for some time when the club is closed, then we don't care about the show and you can have the video guys bring in truckloads of gear and lights, etc. and have them run all over the stage or wherever. In fact, this is how the professional video guys do it. They bring a huge boom and all kinds of gear and the end result is a MTV quality music video. You aren't gonna get that with a pack of morons carrying handheld video cameras.

At the very least, please ask the venue manager first before unleashing an onslaught of photogs and video geeks to capture your performance. We are happy to accommodate your photography/video needs as long as it doesn't distract from the performance, impose on our customers or cause a safety hazard.

Dress For The Stage

2010-05-01T13:47:00.000-07:00

Dress For The Stage

This is all very subjective and up for debate, but here are our opinions on what you should wear on stage.

It is our opinion that one should dress for the stage. That means nothing more than wearing something different than what you'd wear otherwise. Don't just wear whatever you've been wearing all day. That may be fine for practice and rehearsal, but it leaves much to be desired on the stage.
Yes. we know it is more important what you play and how well you play it than what you wear. We agree. However, once you've mastered your playing, you should put some thought into your stage presence. That's commonly more about attitude than clothing, but it can help you to become a rock star if you're dressed like one. Yes, we know some rock stars dress in sloppy torn up clothes. Sometimes, even the same dirty rags they've been wearing all day, but not very many of them, and those that can get away with it, have tremendously good music and/or a powerful stage presence. If you haven't been blessed with those (and we hope that you have) or even if you have, why not give the people in the audience something to look at? You don't have to wear expensive clothes or be on the cutting edge of fashion, just dress for the stage.
A good rule of thumb is: If you wouldn't be caught dead wearing it on the street, then it's perfectly suited for the stage.
Sequins and rhinestones and fabulously flashy or glittery things look great on stage.
To save money, you can shop at the thrift store.
If nobody in the band has any fashion sense, recruit a girlfriend, sister, or female fan to dress you,
If you do wear a costume or fancy outfit, don't wear it during load in. It'll get hot, dirty, sweaty and uncomfortable that much faster. Wear your comfy jeans and t-shirt for load-in and sound check, then run to the green room, restroom or your van to change. Make it big a deal when you hit the stage.

Every genre is different and what you wear will likely depend on that, but don't just wear whatever you saw your heroes wearing on MTV. That will just make you look like a wannabe. Take some similar style elements and make it your own. Don't just wear the exact same clothes you saw on TV, but take something similar and add your own style to it.
Bottom line: wear something on stage that you wouldn't wear anywhere else.
With some luck, kids all over the nation will be following your lead in fashion one day.

Oh, yeah. In 5-10 years you will probably laugh at yourself for wearing that on stage but don't let it slow you down. That will happen no matter what you wear.

More on the Music Biz at RockOnColorado.com

Introduction to Booking

2010-04-16T17:30:00.000-07:00

Booking is an annoying and thankless task best left to professionals. However, since this article is for bands that probably can't get a pro booking agent to return their calls, you'll probably have to do it yourself.

Here's how booking works: You contact the venue, tell them about your band and beg for a gig. If they like what you're doing, or figure you're worth taking a shot on, they'll book you. Sounds pretty simple, but sometimes it's not. If you're a new band, or new to the area (meaning you haven't played a bunch of gigs in that town before) you need find the venues that have an audition night. It could be an open stage, or some kind of gloriously named showcase and it will probably be on an off night (Sun. - Weds. at most places) We know, your band is really hot and you deserve a headlining spot on a Friday or Saturday night. But the booking person you're dealing with has never heard of you before and needs to be convinced that you're for real. These people get contacted every day by new bands that think they are the hottest band ever. Very few live up their own hype. This is why venue booking people are notoriously difficult to get a hold of, or deal with, once you do. They deal constantly with people who, perhpas like you, don't know the first thing about booking. (So it's a good thing you are reading this.) They also deal with seasoned pros who know exactly what's going on. Their job is tedious and annoying, so the less trouble you cause and the fewer stupid questions you ask, the better.

First, make sure your band is appropriate for the venue. If it's jazz club, don't try to book your metal band there and vice versa (at the same time be aware that clubs commonly experiment with different kinds of acts on different nights, hoping to find something that will bring in a crowd, so if you hear that a jazz club is now booking metal, it's worth checking out.) Read our related article Know Your Genre. Next, check out their website. Most venues will have a way for new acts to get their info to the booking guy online. It may be a very elaborate form you have to fill out, or it may simply be an email address. Either way, pay careful attention to what they are asking for and provide that information. You will need to get them, at minimum, a bio, your genre and a sample of our music. A Myspace profile works well for this, but it's not your only option. A professionally built website with the same info., or a Facebook profile with some tunes or video will work. Currently, Reverbnation.com and Sonicbids are also fairly popular. The point is that you need to provide the booking person with as much info. as needed to decide if they want to book you.

In the past, bands had to produce promo packs, which commonly included a one page bio., a CD (or cassette tape in the pre-CD era) a photo and some info like where your band has been playing in the past and what bigger bands you may have opened for. Additionally, reviews of your shows, music were commonly included. All the same stuff should be in your Myspace profile (or whatever you're using). Be thankful you don't have to print up all this stuff and mail it to a long list of venues.

Once you have submitted your material to the booking person, be patient. They might get back to you quickly, or it might take them weeks. It's Ok to politely inquire a week later to make sure they got your stuff and have your contact information, and in case there are questions. But don't be a pest! These are very busy people who are under a lot of pressure to book good bands that will fill the room. If they tell you that your act isn't a good fit for their room, thank them for their time and move on to the next venue. If you piss off that booking person by calling them every day and insisting that your band is better than the hundreds of other bands in town, they might decide to screw you over and not book you at all. On the other hand, they do like to see new bands who are serious about playing and promoting themselves. It's a fine line between being persistent and being a pest. Make sure they know how big your email list is (assuming it's huge) and your relative popularity on the web. Most booking people have heard all kinds of crazy claims and they aren't likely to believe any of it until you prove yourself.

Note: having 20,000 myspace friends is not going to impress any booking person. Having 200,000 plays of your song that's on Myspace (or wherever) might impress them. However, if those listeners are 12 year olds living in another state, it's not going to help you bring a crowd to any 21+ club, no matter where it is.

Once the booking person has decided to book your act, he will ask you if you're available on certain dates. It's a good idea to have some dates pre-cleared, meaning everyone in your band will definitely be available to play on those dates. Don't assume anything. Once he has given you a date tell him you will have to confirm with the entire band just to be sure. Always check with everyone in the band about every date. You never know when someone will have some other unforseen commitment. Then, contact the booking person back and tell him you can do it for sure. You will also want to discuss payment and things like what time you go on and how long of set you will get, if there's a sound check, etc. It's best to understand all these things right off the bat so there is no confusion. If he sends you an email with the details forward that to all the other band members. Everyone will need to know these details, not just you. Most venues will follow up with you in the weeks before the show. This is to make sure you're still there and the band hasn't broken up or booked some other gig on the same night. Some venues will also want to you to come down and pick up promotional materials such as posters or tickets. Whatever it is they want you to do. Do it. It will count against you for future bookings if you don't.

It's good business, in this business, anyway, to turn down gigs that are offered to you for dates that you already have booked. Unless you're being offered an opening slot for the Rolling Stones, you risk pissing off the booking guy at your local bread and butter venue by canceling a gig there to play another competing venue, even if it's for more money. When it's a once in a lifetime opportunity, ok, go for it, but if it's anything short of that, don't. The time to play venues against each other is at the initial booking of the show, where you can possibly say something like: "The place down the street pays us twice that much, if you can't match it, I'll go play down there." Just make sure you really have that other offer down the street, because if it's bullshit, the booking person will probably know and call your bluff.

If you need to cancel for any reason, please let the booking person know as soon as possible, so he can fill the slot with another act. One sure fire way to make sure your band never plays that venue again is to pull a no show, no call. Everyone has emergeniecs or other unexpected stuff happen. If you can't make the gig and have a legitimate reason for it, let them know. Some will be forgiving and try to re-book you for another date. If your reason for canceling is lame or not believable, they will smell it a mile off and probably treat you like shit. Expect it. If you make their life difficult by canceling at the last minute, they aren't going to appreciate it and they might not want to deal you ever again.

I advise new bands to play a wide variety of venues, as many as you can find in your market and then go back to those where things worked out well. It's not unusual for one band to do well in some venues and not as well in others. Don't let a bad gig get you down. Just try some other venues and keep trying to improve your act and promotional activities until you find the right place(s) for your band. This may be especially important for bands that cross genres. Maybe you're kind of jazzy and funky. You might not do well in a serious jazz venue, but you might do great in a venue where people like to dance to funky rhythms. Or maybe for your act it will work the other way around.

DON'T lie to the booking agent. Don't promise him your band can bring 200 people to the club, just because you have 200 facebook friends. The best thing a new band can do is promise to work all your friends and family and whoever else you can, to come to the show. Then do it. If your music is good and there's a decent turnout, you'll be considered for another booking. If nobody shows, after your grandiose claims and extensive bragging about how great your act is, you'll be breanded as a liar and they aren't going to want to deal with you again. Even a couple years later when you really do have a good following, that same booking guy will remember how you screwed him over last time, and he's not as likely give you another shot. It's much better to be honest and give it a good try. If he can see that you worked it really hard, but had a poor turnout, he's more likely to give you another shot down the road.

What is the booking agent looking for? Unfortunately, it's not always about the music. Commonly it's about selling beer. Please read our article It's About Selling Beer and the related articles: Battles of the Bands and Showcases

Know Your Genre

2010-04-02T18:14:00.000-07:00

"What kind of music do you play?"

If you haven't heard this question yet, you soon will. There's no right answer to the question, but there is a wrong answer: "Our music is so diverse/original that it can't be pigeon-holed." Or "We don't want to limit our creativity by putting ourselves in a category." There's a million ways to put it, but the bottom line will come across to music industry pros as "We don't know what to call our music." or worse "We're so weird nobody's come up with an appropriate description, yet and you can be sure that when they do, most people will be turned off by it."

Why is this so important? Because on many levels, a variety of people you will work with in the industry need to know quickly whether or not you are worth their time. Booking agents don't want to put you in a metal club, if you're a jazz band. An Indie 'Zine editor might want to focus on alt-country, and will want to hear your stuff if that's what you play, but also doesn't want to waste his time if that's not your style. By not telling him what kind of music you play, you are likely wasting his time and so he will pass over your act in favor of an act that does know how to describe their sound. In the record store they need to know what genre to file your CDs under. If you don't tell them, they will probably banish you to the "Other" or "Miscellaneous" bin where your CDs will sit unsold until the store decides it needs that space for something else. Radio programming managers need to know if your song will fit their format. If you can't describe to them what you sound like, they are that much more likely to decide you don't fit. Record label executives want to know if you are going to fit in with the other artists they have signed. Commonly they are looking for a fairly specific sound that they think the public will like, if that's you, they might just listen to your CD. If they can't tell from your cover letter and/or bio, then your CD might go straight into the circular file. The public also likes to know what they're likely to hear if they come across your act. On MySpace.com, if you say "We play death metal" right up front, then fans of that genre will find you and listen. If you say "We can't be labeled..." Well, who is searching for that? Nobody.

What to call your music can be as simple as Rock or as complicated as Acoustic Death Metal with Light Jazz Influences. Don't be afraid to call it pop if that's what it is. It may not be the coolest genre, but it sells the most records. Remember "Pop" is short for popular.

Don't be afraid to make something up. If your act is truly blending hip hop with bluegrass, calling it "grasshop" (and always including a description of what that means) can work fine. We once worked with a band that called itself "Hip-core" a fusion of hip hop and hard-core rock. When crafting such a title, avoid over-abused words like "progressive" and "alternative" because to industry pros they basically mean nothing. The word Indie has become just as meaningless today as Alternative became in the 1990s.

If you're struggling to determine what kind of music you play, look to your influences. What genres do they fall into? If it was, for example, Bob Marley and Metallica, then you might want to use the words reggae and metal. Sometimes it helps to get an outside opinion or two. And don't forget that the genres used by the public and in reviews is usually different than those used in the record stores and radio genres are whole different beast. It may take some research to determine if you fit better into AAA or CHR, but by figuring it out before you submit your CD, you'll have better luck.

Entertainment or Expression

2010-03-16T18:11:00.000-07:00

Recently, we've seen a few bands who seem to have gone out of their way to hire musicians who seem so serious about their art that they can't even be bothered to smile while performing live. We know there's a market for serious-emo or whatever you want to call it, but it brings up the question of whether the band is playing for pleasure (theirs or the audiences) or for the expression of an idea or concept so serious that it cannot or should not be delivered with a smile.

Our opinion is that most people listen to music for entertainment reasons. Not educational reasons or because they want to learn something or be preached at. Even church-gospel has entertainment value and can be quite fun to perform as well as listen to. The same must be said for in-your-face rebellious punk, which should be delivered with an angry snarl. But for most genres it just makes no sense. A smart entertainer can slip in a serious message while entertaining (Bono or The Beatles, for example). So why then would any band perform an entire set only cracking smile when they are chatting with each other between songs? (Hey! Let us in on the joke, please!)

It's clear from decades of observation that when a band enjoys performing, the audience will pick up on that and derive more pleasure from listening. A performer who also connects with the audience, speaking to them, telling them what the songs are about and engaging them in the performance can transform an audience into a huge mob of humanity completely focused on the performance. You can see this when audiences sing along and jump up and down when the lead vocalist does. By contrast, bands that don't appear to enjoy their playing, seldom, if ever even acknowledge that there is an audience. It's like they are performing in spite of their own fans.

Musicians will answer my assertions with the argument that they are artists and it's about the music, not how they look or act while on stage. If that's the case, then why should these people ever perform live? If it's just about the music, then let's just all stay home and play the CD. Going out to a club for a live music show or concert is an event. Audiences want to be entertained. There is a distinctly visual aspect to performing on stage. People want to see something more interesting than the cover of the CD. That's why bands are not expected to perform live behind a curtain.

We're not suggesting that all bands should wear fancy costumes and use carefully choreographed dance moves. We are suggesting, though, that they should at least pretend to enjoy the performance of their music. Every market has acts that play constantly, have a huge following and never seem to have a bad show. Well, even those guys get sick or have a bad night. The key is to learn to behave as if this were the greatest show ever. The road-weary artists who have any level of success know how to fake it. And, of course we have to mention the bands who aren't very good on an artistic level or who simply aren't such great musicians, but always have a blast while on stage. These are the bands that suck, but end up with a big following. Why? Because people have fun at the shows.

Ok, sure. Faking it is not true to the artistic integrity of the music. If that's the case, and you aren't willing sacrifice your integrity, then, all you have to do is choose to remain a starving artist. Cancel those gigs you are not feeling good about. It'll be tougher to get gigs, but you'll remain a true artist. Don't let the audience know that you really do enjoy performing. They won't come back to your next show with a bunch of friends, but you'll still be an artist. Why would they tell their buddies how great you are if they didn't have a good time? Even self-loathing, depressed, Goth kids want to enjoy themselves. Why not help them out?

There is a middle ground where you can be true to the artistry of the music and still be entertaining. It's not always easy to find, but it's there. Keep looking.

Everybody wants to enjoy your music, why not start with letting them know you do?

Commitment

2010-03-02T19:08:00.000-07:00

Hip hop acts are not as committed to their art as the average rock band.
How can we say that? How can we know anyone's level of commitment to their art?
OK, it's an over-generalization, but please read on. We will explain.

We've spent countless hours hanging out and/or working in local live music venues and made a few observations.

The average rock band has a drummer, a guitar player a bass player and a vocalist. Sure, commonly there are more guitars and/or other instruments, but we're generalizing here. Let's consider the guitar player. He owns a guitar and an amp and has spent considerable time learning how to play his instrument. The same can be said for the bass player. The drummer has piles of gear and has probably spent untold hours wood shedding, learning the rudiments. He wears out sticks and drum heads regularly. The guitarist must replace strings and know how to tune his instrument. The vocalist has less gear, unless he is also a guitar or bass player, but many successful vocalists do have their own microphone and some even have custom built mic stands. Together they have spent many hours (hopefully) practicing songs and commonly writing new ones. Individually and collectively the average band has a fairly high level of commitment. They have each spent at least several hundred bucks on equipment, but more commonly they've spent thousands of dollars on gear and they have spent many long hours learning how to play.

Now, let's compare that to an average hip hop act. The hip hop act consists of 1 to 6 rappers. They commonly dress all fly, which ain't cheap. They bring their beats on a CD, or if they are lucky they might have a live DJ spinning some beats for them. In comparison to the rock band, that's not a very high level of commitment. Now the DJ has to own turntables, records and related gear. He has to spend considerable time listening to records and practicing his turntable moves. The best hip hop acts (in our humble opinion) have entire bands backing up one or two rappers. Suddenly, the level of commitment goes way up. The average rapper has spent some time with his beats and practiced his raps, but when he gets on stage with the other 3-5 guys it hardly ever sounds like they have practiced together much. and you can rest assured that most of them don't know what a SM-58 is, much less own one of their own. (It's a microphone.) The level of commitment from an average Hip hop artist seems low.

We are determining an artists level of commitment based on the amount of gear the act brings in the door. Sure, that ends up being a judgment about their level of financial commitment, which isn't entirely fair. We've also seen some absolutely horrible rock bands with super-expensive gear. They haven't spent the time (made the commitment) to learn how to play well. Having a rapper buy his own microphone isn't gonna make that guy a better rapper, but it's sure to make him think harder about badly he really wants to be a rapper.

The best artists are usually the most committed. They spend many many hours on their own perfecting their chops. We know guitarists who sleep with their axe. Every waking and sleeping minute is devoted to playing. We don't care what you do, if you're committed to it on a high enough level you're gonna get better and better.

What is your level of commitment to your art?

Selling Downloads

2010-02-16T19:03:00.000-07:00

Since the selling of CDs has decreased a great deal in recent years we feel it's important to discuss selling your music online as downloads rather than as CDs. Because one avoids the often costly expenses of manufacturing and shipping your CDs, this can be a lucrative source of income for a popular act. On the downside, you need to sell a lot of downloads to make a significant amount of money. You'll probably be selling the songs in MP3 format so there is no way to know what the customer might do with your music after it's sold. Most people don't want to buy music in other formats (except the popular iTunes format) and digital rights management hasn't caught on yet, so there's no real way to control that MP3 file after you sell it. However, in reality, this is not much different than what happens after you sell a CD. Copies can be made and distributed without your permission. Hopefully, this will only make those people want to see your live show that much more.

In our experience (a decade in the online music biz) we've never seen or talked to anyone who said their music was stolen and resold as someone else's. However, we have seen CDs ripped to MP3s and then distributed for free on file sharing sites. Since you can't control everything out there on the internet, it's a better approach to embrace this phenomena. Give away a track or two here and there (maybe live tracks or studio tracks that didn't make it onto the CD - stuff you're not trying to sell anyway.) and hope it gets spread around and wins over some new fans who will be willing to pay to see your live show or buy some merch.

For the sake of brevity we will assume you already know how to convert your music to MP3 format.

There are three approaches you can take to selling downloads:

1. Build or buy an online shopping cart system of your own and sell your downloads directly to the public. This can be quite expensive to set up, but will reap the highest percentage of the sales dollar. Once the system is set up and running (we're assuming you've already shelled out a lot of money to get to this point), you set the price of your downloads, and apart form the cost of processing the credit card transactions and any other related banking fees, you keep everything the customer pays for the download. Additionally, you will also have everything in place to sell other merchandise, such as t-shirts, hats, CDs, etc. The shopping cart is usually a very complicated piece of programming because it will require a database to keep track of who bought what song and have they downloaded it yet or not, etc. You will also have the flexibility to set your own prices and offer your own discounts and come up with your own promotions. This approach will not get your songs on to any other music download sites, like iTunes.

2. Go through an online distributor. If you can get a good distributor to sell your CDs in stores, then they will probably also have online connections and can get your music onto iTunes and many other music download sites. If you don't have a distributor or a label, then try CDBaby.com. They can also get your music onto iTunes. iTunes does not allow independent artists to sell their music directly, preferring to work with labels and distributors. You will not get paid much per download. iTunes sell songs for $0.99 and you can't change that. iTunes takes a cut of that, then so does the distributor. You'll be lucky to get ten cents of that ninety nine. If you don't sell thousands of downloads, you're not going to make much money.

3. Sell directly from your website/myspace account using a third party application or widget. Myspace has their Snocap Application which helps you sell downloads on Myspace.com and there are similar apps that will work almost exactly the same way, but on your real website instead. A couple of these are: PayPlay (payplay.fm) and Nimbit (nimbit.com) These services do take a cut, but they also do all the hard work of processing the credit cards and keeping track of who bought what. Some of them offer extra services, too, like selling CDs and other merch for you, too and submission to iTunes, Rhapsody, eMusic.com, Napster, AmazonMP3.com, etc. While these kind of services (and there are a lot of them out there) are usually free or cheap to install and easy to set up, you never know how long they are going to be around. Since you have to trust them to keep track of your sales and send you a check, if they go out of business, you aren't going to get paid anything. Generally, the more often they send out checks and the lower the threshold is before they will pay you, the more likely you are to get your cut. Also, make sure you understand the fee structure before you sign up, if they are too high or your sales are too low, it might be a money losing venture for you.

Hint: You can increase your online sales by recording and selling downloads of popular cover tunes. You will have to pay the mechanical licensing fees (You pay them to the Harry Fox Agency). Many people will search for their favorite song on iTunes and other places and if you have a particularly good or creative version of that song, it can attract new listeners who will, hopefully, listen to some of your original stuff, too.

Music Showcases

2010-02-02T18:58:00.000-07:00

The word "Showcase" can be used in a lot of different ways in the music business. There are label showcases and various other sorts of shows where bands are "showcased" for any number of reasons, but the kind we want to discuss here are the competitive showcases. Most big cities have at least one Arts & Entertainment weekly publication. Many are modeled after the Village Voice in New York City, and some are even owned by the same parent company. Many of these publications put on an annual "Music Showcase." Many daily newspapers and radio stations have similar events and sometimes you'll even catch TV stations trying to clone American Idol or whatever seems popular at the time. Over the years, we've witnessed many of these showcases and even been invited to judge or nominate acts for them. We've also been asked by many many bands how they can get nominated or have a chance at winning them. Rather than repeat ourselves endlessly, here are our opinions and some guidance with respect to Music Showcases.

On the surface these appear to be thinly veiled Battles of the Bands, but without much of a prize if you win. Instead of a cash prize or valuable gear, the prize for showcases is usually a trophy (or plaque) and bragging rights. Ok, sure there's usually a decent amount of publicity that goes along with the showcase and that can be worth a considerable amount. Where the showcase differs from the Battle, though, is usually how the winner(s) get selected. Most of these rely on the public to determine the winner. This is where it becomes important to look at the true motivation behind the company sponsoring the showcase. The answer is always Money. For a newspaper or magazine the goal is to boost circulation - dozens of bands competing to get their fans to pick up the publication and fill out the ballot. When circulation goes up, so do advertising rates. It's similar for the radio stations - dozens (or even hundreds) of bands competing to get their fans to listen to to the station (or visit the website or call in). When more people listen, they can charge more for advertising. Frequently, they ensnare sponsors to buy extra advertising just to cover the expenses of putting on the showcase and buying the trophies.

Fortunately, for the winning bands and even the nominated bands, there is the added bonus of being able to put this award into the band bio. This can help with building an act's reputation and even helps some lucky bands get signed. Even though it's all about profit for the magazine, some of these awards can become considered quite prestigious and can draw extra attention to the winning bands. It's the same basic principle that the Grammy awards and the Oscars are based upon. In those cases, members of the club (The Recording Academy) nominate deserving efforts in a variety of categories and those are narrowed down a few finalists and then the entire membership of the club votes for their favorites. The only difference being that the A&E weekly's club consists of everyone who can read.

We are frequently asked how bands can become nominated for some of these showcases. It varies, of course, but usually the questions come in about showcases with a specific possibly "elite" nominating committee. The key is find out who is on that committee and then make sure your band performs in front of as many of them as possible. Hopefully, this will help. Usually, it's pointless, as the committee is made up of the cronies of the Music Editor or some other small circle of people who don't care for your genre of music and they already made up their minds to vote for their favorite bands, anyway. (We're only half joking there.) The other extreme would be some of the online battles, commonly sponsored by radio stations, where any band with an MP3 file can enter, and then it's just a matter of getting the vote out.

The best of the showcases are the ones where the results of nominating and voting are published, so that everyone can see just how unpopular their band really is.

In the end, it's always best to remember that competitive music showcases are just advertising gimmicks designed to get you to sell out your fans for someone else's profit. Unless you win, in which case it's a tremendous honor that will change your entire musical career, sending you down a golden path to fame and fortune.

So don't get so upset about it!

Here's a couple real-life stories:

A cajun-blues band that wasn't nominated for the annual music showcase decided to take a shot a being a write-in candidate. At every gig for a month they passed out photo-copies of the ballot with their band already written in for the blues category and asked everybody to sign one. The last day of voting they arrived at the publication's HQ and dropped off a stack of several thousand ballots. The Music Editor took a cursory look and decided to call it ballot stuffing and threw them all in the trash. Despite efforts at keeping the voting secret, a friend of the band somehow coaxed the publisher of the weekly to divulge the results of the voting. The shit hit the fan when it became clear that those write-in ballots had not been counted and if they had, the band in question would have won by a huge margin. Turns out, photo-copies with the write in candidate already listed were against the un-written rules. Fortunately, the same band was nominated in several subsequent years and even went on to win the award.

Another earlier year of the same showcase, a band that was clearly disliked by the vast majority of the nominating committee was nominated because the Music Editor at the time just happened to be one of the few people on the planet that thought the band was good and gushed about them regularly. They managed to keep the votes of the nominating committee secret that year, but it was really obvious when the act performed during the showcase and was largely ridiculed by most of those in attendance. Thankfully, those sorts of stunts don't seem to happen any more with this particular showcase, but since they don't publish the voting results, it's hard to be sure.

Please check out our related article on Battles of the Bands.

Battles of the Bands

2010-01-20T18:56:00.000-07:00

Sooner or later every band will be invited to enter a Battle of the Bands. Each band struggles with the decision of whether or not they should enter.

We have been there and done that as everything from a spectator rooting for our favorites to being a judge and deciding who the winner will be. So we're going to lay it all out there so you can make the best possible decision.

First off, our opinion, based on real life observations, is that there is usually only one band that walks away from any battle happy. That's the winner. All the other bands walk away pissed off, angry and/or certain that the whole thing was unfair or even fixed. The only one who always comes out ahead is the venue and/or promoter who put the whole thing together. It doesn't matter if it's a local best blues band in the city battle or if it's a National or even International competition, the people who put it together or sell beer to the fans are the only ones likely to make significant money. Sometmes even the winner walks away disappointed. The venue makes money because the bands are always encouraged to bring in as many people as possible to the event and the promoter makes money off the entrance fees or ticket sales.

Here are the things that any band should seriously consider before deciding to enter a Battle of the Bands.

How will the winner be judged?

This should be the first question any band asks before making a decision. Will you be judged on the quality of the music? Stage Presence? Crowd Response? Tickets sold? Originality? Skill? Songwriting? Performance? And don't forget to follow up with "Who will be the judge(s)?" If the promoter can't tell you exactly how the band will be judged at the time they book you, that's a Big Red Flag that means you should probably sit this one out unless you can talk to some other bands that did the same battle last year and can tell you how it went.

Almost every battle uses some formula that is based on how many people you bring in. Crowd Response is the same as Number of Tickets Sold. The more people you bring the better the response. This is usually one of the most important criteria. Many battles even require the band to sell tickets ahead of time to play and the some of them then give the band that sold the most tickets the best slot, or their choice of slots. As far as the venue is concerned, bringing people in the door is more important than how good the bands sound. A more "legitimate" battle will have more objective criteria and be able to provide a list of the judges ahead of time. At the very least, a top-notch battle should provide the names of the judges and results of the voting after the fact. This may the kind you watch the first time around and then jump into next year.

Be aware that even if they can provide specific criteria as to what each band will be judged on, if the judges vary from show to show (many battles are dragged over a period of weeks and months) so will the results. The more judges there are and the more they are removed from the immediate scene, the more honest they will likely be. However, if the judges are biased, like they are all blues afficianados and you are in a punk band, your chances are slim. If the judges vary from week to week, so will the consistency of the results and you just better hope that you get a panel that's into your stlye of music.

Also, read all the promo material you can get. If it's a battle of the rock bands, there's not much point in entering your jazz act.

What will the winner get?

Prizes are the main thing. Will you get cash at the end of the night, if you win (or even a consolation prize if you come in 2nd or 3rd)? Or is it gonna be a Bazillion dollars worth of "cash and prizes!" Sometimes that means $100 cash and a million bucks worth of coupons for 50% off the retail price of mic stands at Guitar Center (where you could probably negotiate 50% off any day of the week, anyway). Sometimes the prizes are vague, sometimes they aren't. Be wary of the vague ones. If the prize is studio recording time (a common prize for local battles) ask around and find out what you could really expect to get done in 4 hours (or whatever) at a professional recording studio. Usually, those prizes are sucker bets. They give enough time for free to get set up and sound checked, maybe even lay down a drum track or two, but what happens when you want to redo the vocals or mix the tracks down? Sometimes it's a great deal if you were gonna record at that studio anyway, but other times you are better off recording in your own basement. Commonly, tens of hours if not days and days of studio time are required to record and mix down a full CD. Some of the bigger contests advertise a recording contract or expensive gear. Make sure you read all the fine print. The bigger the Battle, the smaller your chances are. Think about American Idol: They make every contestant sign the the recording contract before they even sing a note and you better believe that contract is not heavily in favor of the artist. However, in that case they are putting you on TV and making you famous before you even get the deal, so in many cases it's totally worth it.

Do the Math. If a BOTB is promising a million bucks to the winner, figure out how many bands will have to pay the entry fee in order for them to bring in 1 million dollars to pay out. Don't forget to add in costs for production, advertising and a hefty margin for profit. Very few of these big battles are run by non-profit organizations. If the math doesn't add up, it's another Big Red Flag and you can bet the winner isn't gonna get what they were promised.

If it's one of those big international contests you might want to check to see how many semi-finals, regional finals, etc. you'll have to win before you actually make it to the finals. If the semi-finals are in Sweden will they fly you there (with your gear) to compete? Or is that on your dime?

Even if the prize is just a well paying gig or a big bar tab, any time you win or even make it to the finals, you've got something that you can put into the Band bio. Something to brag about. "Nominated for a Grammy" sounds great! But when you look into how easily one can be nominated (not being a finalist) it's not quite so impressive.

What do you have to lose?

If you are a brand new band hungry for exposure and eager to see how your material and chops hold up against other bands, you probaby have little or nothing to lose from entering a battle (unless there's a sizable entrance fee - Big Red Flag!!) Indeed, just making it into the finals of a well publicized BOTB can bring your new act a lot of recognition and even gigs. However, if your band is already established and well respected in your region and you lose in the first round, that could be embarassing, not to mention, you will likely have played a gig for no pay, which can be a complete waste of time.

What we're trying to tell you is that in some cases a BOTB is a good idea and in many cases it's a terrible waste. If you look into it really closely and decide that the potential payoff is worth the potential risk, then go for it and good luck, but don't enter all of them and always keep an eye out for the pay to play scams.

Here's a couple real life stories (the names have been left out to protect the guilty):

A battle was staged at a small downstairs venue with the winner getting a 1 year sponsorship from a big beer company. Four rounds of competition with four bands each night and those winners played in a big throwdown for the grand prize. At the finals there were two obvious front runners: A wildly popular alt-country band and a wildly popular "urban groove" band. Both bands were really good, and both brought really big crowds to the small venue. It was sold out and wall to wall packed. As a judge it was hard to decide because they were both really good, but entirely different genres. We finally buckled down and wrote down our scores and headed back to the office to find the event organizer/venue booking agent to turn in our results. What we saw still haunts us to this day. The booking agent was literally yelling at the beer sponsor telling him which band would be better recieved by the people who drink that beer (no matter that perhaps the beer company had sponsored the event in the hopes of winning over new drinkers from a different demographic). We hadn't even turned in our hard thought numbers and the organizer had already picked the winner. Needless to say, this soured our taste for battles and caused problems within the band that came in 2nd (they had band members who cut short vacations to fly back to town for this BOTB finals. When they said they might not be able to play the finals, the organizer had even gone so far as to imply to them that they needed to be there because they were likely to win).

A local band competed in the regional finals for a BOTB where the finals were at a well known resort in Mexico owned by a big time rock star. They won the regionals and flew off to Mexico for the finals. They had a good time even though they didn't win. But the bad part happened when they tried to come home,. Their drummer was a Mexican citizen who had over-stayed his visa and was not allowed to return to the U.S. The rest of the band came back and even though they replaced the drummer, they lost momentum and never achieved the same level of success as they had previously enjoyed even in their home town.

We will present another article on showcases in the near future, so check back soon for that one.

The Myth of the Built-In Crowd

2010-01-06T18:53:00.000-07:00

Working at a mid-sized venue (500 capacity) we are commonly confronted with the question: "So, how many people usually show up here?" This is most commonly asked by a member of a new band that has never played the venue before. We answer along the lines of "That depends on how many people are coming to see your band." In truth, our venue, like many others has little or no built-in crowd. People mostly come to our venue to see bands they already know and like. This is similar to many other venues that offer nothing else but live music. Theaters, amphitheaters and arenas all have this is common. Even a lot of small 100 person venues live with this reality. Bands get all excited to play our venue because it's so big and has been around for so long, they think it's a huge opportunity to win over new fans and it can be, if the fans coming to see the other acts like yours as well, but you can't just expect a lot of people to come, just because it's a big room.

The venues that have built-in crowds are those with pool tables, pinball machines, cheap drinks or other attractions that bring people in regularly. Many of these neighborhood pubs would have a good crowd even without the music and the the band is just an added attraction to keep people around longer or provide a certain kind of atmosphere.

Think about the arena. Nobody goes to the nearest arena every night just to hang out. The tickets are expensive and so is the beer. If the band can't sell the tickets the show will probably not get booked in the first place or will get canceled before it ever happens.

The lesson is that it's always on the band to bring in a crowd. You might be able to rely on the venue or promoter to provide some advertising, but if you don't have a following, nobody's gonna show up to see you. Even if you are given the plum opening slot for a big national act, the venue is still hoping your act will bring in a some people to start drinking early before the headliner goes on and the bulk of the crowd shows up.

Never Release Your New Album in December

2009-12-16T18:50:00.000-07:00

What is the best time of year to release your album?

Darn good question. Our answer is aimed at local and unsigned acts. Once you've hit the big time, a whole slew of different factors will come into play and certainly the major labels have experts in marketing to advise them. For the rest of the world, i.e., the vast majority of you out there, here's some advice based on real life observations and experiences.

Most bands want to release their new album immediately after they get done with the lengthy and oftentimes painful process of recording, mixing, mastering and production. At that point they are so sick of working on it, that they tend to rush the release part. Don't do it.

Do not schedule your album release party/show/event while you're still recording. Things can and commonly do pop up to cause unexpected delays and if you feel like you have to get product out by a certain date, you'll rush the remaining process and that can be bad for the finished product. Delays in mixing mastering and getting the artwork finished have delayed many many releases. So wait until you get your CDs (or whatever) back from the manufacturer before setting the official release date. You can book gigs, in the hopes that they might be release shows, but if that doesn't happen, just use them to hype your upcoming release. Don't book the official date until you have the product in your hands and have checked it for any problems (we've seen CDs arrive with the insert panels out of sequence and once they even had someone else's music recorded on the discs!). Give yourself at minimum three weeks to get the CDs out to local newspapers and magazines in time for them to write a review before or around the same time as the official release date. You can even sell limited signed editions as pre-release copies before the official release. This can help considerably with bringing in a little cash flow to offset all the money you just spent on the recording and production process.

Now consider the time of year (maybe this should happen before duplication/production even happens). You want to release your album when you can get the biggest crowds and therefore create the biggest buzz. In our local market the busiest times of the year for the clubs are in the Fall and Spring, while it's cold enough out that outdoor events and festivals aren't happening very much, but not conflicting with the holidays. Your market may be different, but it's not rocket science to figure it out. Ask your favorite venue booking person when their busiest season is.

The summer months are packed with festivals, which can be quite lucrative for touring/performing and for selling new merch, like your CDs. If you have a big festival gig booked, that might be an excellent album release show. But if you will be having the release at a club or bar, don't do it in August, when crowds thin out the most part at the smaller indoor venues because everyone is heading to the festivals and stadiums for the big shows. In December, or more accurately, the time between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve, people, including those in the entertainment and reporting industries want to spend time with their families, so they take time off, making it even harder to get reviewed or noticed. Additionally, in December thru early January many companies throw their annual holiday parties. These can be great gigs to play at, but it would be inappropriate to release your album at one. The other problem is that it's harder to draw a big crowd in December because everyone is partied out, broke from buying presents or traveling to be with family. The closer to Christmas, the worse the turnout is likely to be. New Year's Eve is another big party night where good paying gigs are plentiful, but not a good time to release your Album, especially if it's a private party/gig. Likewise, the first couple weeks of January tend to be slow due to bill paying, getting caught up from the holidays at work and the still fresh memory of that New Year's Day hangover.

If you want your album to be available for Christmas shoppers, make sure it's done in October or earlier. Releasing a Christmas album on Dec 14 doesn't give you much time to sell it. On December 26 the market will be gone until next year.

Other Holidays to avoid: The Fourth of July - Who wants to be stuck indoors when there's fireworks everywhere? St. Patrick's Day (unless you are an Irish or Celtic act), All the Monday Holidays (Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day weekend) because people travel, BBQ and throw their own parties. Avoid Halloween and Valentine's Day, unless your act or release naturally fits into those themes. The Super bowl and other big sports events, like the Summer Olympics should also be given a wide berth.

One more thing to consider is the date you will print on your artwork if you release in December and and the copyright dates are all this year then, in January, your album will look like it's last year's news. Releasing earlier in the year can give your new product months and months of fresh shelf life. Releasing in the Spring or late Winter can insure your product is available for the Summer Festivals (that you should already be booking).

A little thought and research can help you avoid some common album release mistakes and get you the most bang for your buck.

Good luck with your release.

Never Risk Your whole business on one show

2009-12-02T18:46:00.000-07:00

This one is more for promoters/venues/ booking people than musicians, but sometimes a band will want to put on their own show or a musician might want to venture into the world of concert promoters, so read it anyway.

We've seen this happen too many times. A new, inexperienced or stupid person puts on a huge show, looses their shirt and ends up bankrupt, out of business and generally worse off than they were beforehand. The music business can be very risky. A snow storm (or hurricane or other weather event) can ruin your show. Bands can get stuck in another state (geographically...) or get sick and cancel at the last minute. The cops or fire department can shut you down without warning. All sorts of unexpected things can and do happen in this business. You need to be prepared for the worst and make sure that whatever show/event you're planning isn't gonna ruin you personally, bankrupt your business or land you in court, jail or worse.

If you've come up with a clever way to exploit an apparent loophole in the liquor laws that would allow you to serve beer after hours, your should probably check out your idea with the authorities beforehand (an anonymous phone call from a pay phone asking about the laws in general can do the trick without giving them enough info to track you down) Most city and state governments want new businesses to succeed (and pay taxes) so if there's a way to do it legally, they might even help you get the right permits, etc. Or, of there's a law/ordinance you weren't aware of, they'll tell you right up front, before you waste a lot of time and money or worse, before you get arrested.

A well planned event/concert should be profitable or close to it before you even open the doors the night of the show. Advance ticket sales, sponsorships, booth rentals, etc. should add up to cover your expenses and if they don't, if they aren't even close, or if it snows two feet the day of the show, just cancel it. Many debts will not have to be paid if the show does not go on (some will - like the deposit you made on that huge national act) but anything you can cancel far enough in advance to prevent the vendor/band from showing up, will not need to be paid. If the beer vendor doesn't sell any beer, you probably owe him nothing.

If you have no experience with putting together a multi-day, multi-stage festival, don't do it. Start small. Book some shows into local venues with local acts first. Get your feet wet and learn from experience. Put on a one-day festival with one stage and make a profit before you expand to three days and six stages. It just makes sense.

Here are some true stories of people who bet it all on one show and blew it, big time.

There was a monthly music magazine called Riff. It was doing well and turning a small profit. To celebrate their anniversary of two or three years they decided to throw a huge Halloween event. They rounded up a bunch of volunteers, secured a venue and booked a bunch of bands. The venue was one of those huge entertainment complexes with a video game arcade, bowling and tons of other stuff. They set up several stages and scheduled local bands to play all evening and into the night. We watched this all happening and noted that not one of the people involved had ever even helped out with an event of this magnitude before. When we heard that they'd booked a big national act (a big hair band from the 80's) it looked to us like a recipe for disaster. We were right. Stories started filtering out the next morning. There had been a guest list of hundreds of people (all the bands and volunteers were allowed to put people on the list) hardly anyone who attended had paid. Certainly not enough tickets were sold to offset the costs of the event. There was a story about a brand new, big, flat screen TV being damaged by one of the punk bands in the green room and a variety of people who had been in there were taken to the police dept. to make statements. The venue wanted $1500 to pay for the damage. But worst was yet to come: The woman who was in charge of the event and who had booked the national act went on record stating that the band had asked for cocaine and she supplied it, as if that was a standard professional thing to do. Needless to say, she had been arrested at the event and had serious legal problems to deal with. With all this bad press and unwanted expenses the magazine went under, never to publish again.

This story goes back to late 1980s. A hotshot young promoter arrived in Denver with the goal of establishing a concert promotions business. He claimed to have been working for a big concert promotions company based in New York. Anyway, he set up a concert here. The headliner was not a big name that everyone would recognize, instead it was the lead guitar player for a big name band. The show was to be an all day outdoor event. After the first choice venues became unavailable (or simply turned the guy down, realizing the show would flop), the show was scheduled for the soccer fields at Auraria Campus. A nice location, but one where alcohol was prohibited. Then, he booked his opening acts. He unwisely consulted with a local booking company, who promptly got him to book a load of local acts with the promise that each one would bring in 500 people. This raised a huge red flag in our minds. We were familiar with these local acts and knew that they commonly played shows with two or three of them on the same bill in rooms that could hold 250-300 people. Those shows generally had cover charges around $5. This big concert had a $15 ticket price. We ran into this would-be promoter the night before his big show and he generously provide us with comp tickets. We asked how the ticket sales were going, and responded that they weren't selling very well and then he dashed off to the airport to pick up his headliner. Needless to say, the show was a monumental flop. Our estimates at the time were that this guy had lost as much as $50,000 for his company (maybe less, since the half dozen local acts never got paid) and this promoter and his company were never heard from again in Denver. His mistakes were many: Bad venue, with no alcohol sales, a headliner who wasn't big enough, unfamiliarity with the local scene, which resulted in him actually believing the local bands would bring in 500 people each. (At $15 a head, on a Sunday, with no beer) We had a good laugh when it started raining in the middle of the whole event and the several dozen people who did buy tickets cleared out pronto. It's still funny from our perspective, but I wouldn't want to have been in that promoter's shoes.

Here's a much more recent story: A small downtown venue had been working hard and booking a variety of acts for a couple years. They had become profitable and were building a strong reputation in town, when the owner was offered a large sum of money to sell the place. He took the money and never looked back. The new owners didn't have much, if any, experience with running a music venue, though, they did own other bars/restaurants. They remodeled the place to make it look really swanky. Initially they kept the booking the same, with very successful Sunday and Monday night punk and metal nights. After one guy put up a band sticker in the newly remodeled men's room, they canceled those nights. But their big mistake was new Year's eve. They booked The Supersuckers and started selling tickets for $100 a piece (which included a nice dinner). Needles to say, the show flopped and the place was vacant within a month. They bet the whole business on one show and lost.

Here's a story we were actually involved in: A few years back we set up a non-profit, tax-exempt organization with the goal of throwing concerts and donating the proceed to charity. We were approached by a guy who showed up at every meeting wearing his long expired Great White backstage pass on a lanyard around his neck. He was an accountant by profession with zero music business experience, but a strong desire to be a big time concert promoter. He showed us this big fat binder which supposedly contained his business plan for putting a huge Bonnaroo-style music festival. We should have walked away and never returned his calls, but instead, we decided to go with the flow and see how things developed before bailing out. Over the course of a month or two his plans scaled down to a two day concert event at a local county fairgrounds. In Colorado, you can't sell liquor on publicly owned property unless it's for a non-profit (who are also required to obtain the liquor sales permit and do the actual sales). Now we were on the hook and a couple of our board members had gotten even deeper involved, becoming the de-facto production managers. Of course, the plans for booking went awry and the show ended up being one afternoon and evening of country acts and a day of locals and has-beens with the headliner being... you guessed it, Great White. Knowing this was likely to be a disaster we did everything we could to salvage the show, including arrange for media sponsors, and make sure the beer distributors were in our side. The country show flopped and everything was riding on the second day. Attendees were supposed to purchase tickets and then redeem those for beer/food. When the tickets ran out, we started accepting cash. We knew the whole affair was likely to end badly, in a financial sense, so we took in every penny we could for our charity. Some of the other vendors weren't quite so lucky. Towards the end of the show, the accountant's brother, who made a critical loan beforehand, raided the box office to make sure he got his loan back and then split. The headliner got paid cash at the end of the night and there really wasn't much left after that. Not only did our charity get stiffed, but so did all the other vendors, the staging company, the sound crew, the security staff, the beer distributor and the local bands. Mr. accountant with the fancy business plan, disappeared as soon as the legal threats started flying, and we, proactively, made certain no distributor in the state would ever go near him again. Not only did this guy put himself out of business, he damaged a variety of other small businesses and stiffed a charity. Never work work with a wannabe concert promoter, until after he has proven himself.

This one may be the most interesting. A group of local musicians rented out a large warehouse/factory space in an industrial part of town where they lived, recorded and rehearsed. Eventually, they also threw a party. Realizing there was some potential for income they made a bold move. They started throwing after-hours parties with bands. In order to skirt the liquor laws, they charged a cover a the door, but gave away the drinks (at least until the keg ran dry). They threw these parties once a month for maybe a year, using the proceeds to pay their rent. Having played almost every club in town, they advertised by simple word of mouth and had really huge numbers in the door. Mostly bar/club/restaurant employees looking for something to do after closing time. Unfortunately, they hadn't found an actual loophole in the liquor laws, turns out the laws are clear that even charging a cover counts as selling liquor and when the parties got too big and neighbors complained, the cops found out and shut them down. Unfortunately, it was so serious that the organizers got hauled in to jail and eventually court, where big fines were applied. The point of this story: Always make sure what you're doing is legal, before you get busted.

What to do if you think you're being ripped off by a venue.

2009-09-28T18:48:00.000-07:00

So you've just played a show and when you go to settle up with the manager, he gives you a whole lot less money than you were expecting.

What do you do? Can you do anything?

First, you need to be calm. Getting angry and making threats isn't gonna help and is likely to make things considerably worse.

The answer is likely to be different depending on the situation. So lets start there:

What is the situation? Ask yourself/your band mates these questions:
- What was the agreement before hand?
- Is there a written contract? Do you have a copy there?
- Did you book the gig? (and therefore agree to the terms) or was it someone else in the band, or your manager, or booking guy? Are they available to fill you in on what the agreement was? Make sure you have your facts straight. Just because you usually get $300 for a gig, doesn't mean the same applies here.
- How did the show go? Did anyone show up? Did they show up for you? How do you know?
- Are there exceptional circumstances? Did it snow six feet the day of the show? Was there a line down the street of people waiting to get in to see your band? Did you start and stop on time?
- Were you an opening act? or a headliner or did you play the whole night by yourself?
- Is this a crappy little dive in the middle of nowhere or a huge big city venue that you are thrilled to be playing at?
- Do you want to play there again?
- Who are you dealing with? Is it a venue manager or booking guy, or is it an independent promoter? Have you worked with them before and do you want to work with them again?
- What is your state? Are you drunk? or high? angry? emotional? or calm? Should you let someone else deal with this, or leave it until tomorrow?
Communicate: Armed with all the info. available don't be afraid to approach the manager (or whoever) and politely, calmly ask them to explain why you are getting what you got. Most of these people deal with this situation routinely and will be happy to chat with you about it. The answer may be as simple and frustrating as "This is what the boss told me to give you" or could be very involved requiring complicated enough math that you will need a calculator, but either way, they will explain it. Just leave your attitude at home. It's a given in this business that you are probably not gonna get what you feel your show was worth. You don't need to explain that. Just stick to the facts. What was the agreement made at the time of booking? How many people came to the show? Were you supposed to be paid a flat amount? or a split from the door?
Consider the facts: Is there a disagreement on how the band was supposed to be paid? If so, try to talk directly to the people who made the agreement. If you've got anything in writing, look it over and make sure you understand it.
Consider the long term consequences: If you say "***** you guys! We'll never play here again!" will you regret that a couple months down the road? What is your relationship with the venue/promoter? If you hit the guy, will he have you arrested? Is it even worth arguing at all?

In our experiences, on both sides of the coin, we've noticed that it's usually a mis-understanding or mis-communication. Commonly the person collecting is not the same person who did the booking, so they may not be aware of exactly what the agreement was. The band booker may have asked for $300 and the venue replied, "Well, if you bring 100 people in the door, we will guarantee you $300." That's different than a flat $300. Many venues will take money out to pay for sound and security before they pay the bands, you should be aware of that before you collect. Many venues will not guarantee a local or new act anything and pay them based on how many people or how much money came in at the door. Many places require a band to play for free the first time, as an audition. Many venues ask the band to distribute or sell tickets and then pay the band based on how many of them came in. In that case, people who came in and paid full price without a ticket may not figure into pay at all.

Many bands will get off stage thinking they had a huge crowd and the show went great and then get upset when they are told that most of those people came in to see one of the other bands on the lineup. Try not to get emotional. This is a simple business transaction to the venue. You are supplying entertainment, they are paying you for it. Read our article on how to Make the Most out of Low Paying Gigs. Sometimes getting little or no pay from the venue can be inconsequential compared to winning over new fans, selling CDs and other merchandise or impressing the venue to the point they want to book you back, at a better rate.

When should you sue? Almost never. Firstly, that decision is best made days later and should follow attempts to clear the situation up during the days following the gig with cooler, sober heads and directly between the people who booked the show in the first place. Depend on the documented facts. If you have a written contract and they failed to fulfill their end of the bargain you may be able to win in court. But be warned, they will never book you again and they will tell their booking buddies at other venues what happened. If you sue one venue you might find it hard to get booked anywhere in that town. If the promoter books multiple venues (think AEG or Live Nation) you better have a really strong case and be content to never play any of their venues again. Even if you sue and lose, they aren't gonna go near you ever again.

The best advice is to make sure you understand what the agreement is before you even agree to play the show.

Stories:

A local band with a big following played a St. Patricks Day gig at an Irish pub. Between sets the manager of the venue caught the band getting high in the alley out back. He not only threw them out before they could finish the show, he called the police and then refused to pay them. The band had a contract, but having broken the venue's rules and the local laws gave them no recourse. Many written contracts have a clause allowing the venue to not pay the band if the cops are called or there are other serious problems. The band figured they would never be asked to play that venue again, anyway, so, apart from legal fees and hassle, there was no reason to not sue in small claims court, except for the fact they might have to explain to a judge how smoking marijuana was OK for a reggae band.

Another local act hired a gung-ho new "Manager." He booked the band to play a big New Year's Eve show. At the end of the night, he was unhappy with the pay and pulled out a contract. The contract was so vague and confusing, it should never have been signed in the first place, and made it almost impossible to determine what the real pay should be. Clearly, his idea of what it should be was considerably different than the venue owner's. During the following negotiations this manager got very upset and threatened to stab the venue's booking manager. Thankfully, he didn't. But later, when the band found out that was the reason they weren't getting booked into their favorite venue anymore, that manager got fired.

An act from another state, just trying to break into a new city played an opening set at a new (for them) venue. Being new to the region and not having a local fan base and only a couple people showed up to see them. The venue offered to pay them at the same rate they pay everyone else, $2/head. Obviously, any band that drives a hundred miles to play a gig is gonna be disappointed with getting only $6. They sent the biggest guy in the band over to take a more aggressive approach to being paid. The problem was that he wasn't the one who booked the gig and agreed to the terms of payment in the first place. After much back and forth and confirmation on the part of the venue that this band did not have any sort of guarantee, the venue gave the band a few extra bucks to help them pay for gas. They never got booked there again.

A national touring act from another country was booked to play on a Saturday night. They were driving cross-country and had mechanical problems in Utah. The venue had pre-sold a number of tickets and was charging full price at the door expecting the band to arrive at any minute. They were scheduled to perform at 11:00 pm after an opening DJ act. The whole show was a nightmare! The DJ opening act had one of his turntables break down the night before and while driving around town to get another one for this show, he was pulled over for speeding and arrested on an outstanding warrant. A hastily arranged impromptu act finally arrived and stared playing around 10:30pm. By then, fans were leaving, demanding their money back and asking if the headliner was going to show. Finally, we started getting cell phone reports from the act. They were on the freeway heading into town. They finally arrived around 12:30 pm and set up and played. In that city, the bars have to close at 2:00 am. We picked up the drinks and let them play until 2:45. At the end of the night, after prolonged negotiations the band did not get paid (beyond the deposit they had already received) based on the fact that so many customers had left and demanded refunds on the way out. This was one of those bad luck kind of shows where things went wrong but it was really nobody's fault. Everyone lost money, even the bar staff who had hoped to make good money were disappointed. Sometimes its best to just let things go and chalk it up as one of those nights.

Never Use the Word Premiere

2009-09-14T18:47:00.000-07:00

Music Editors at your local weekly Arts & Entertainment rag, magazine, newspaper, radio station, or website either groan or laugh outright every time they read a bio or one sheet that describes the act as "the region's Premiere rock (Or fill in any other genre here) band". Believe me, they've all seen the phrase more times than they can count and would probably go into convulsions if you asked them provide an estimate of the number of times. Commonly, they just stop reading right there and move on to the next band's promo material. If they are really nice or have heard good things about your band from someone whose opinion they trust, maybe they'll just listen to your music and ignore the crap they just read in your bio.

Think about it. What does the word "premiere" mean in this context? Does it mean that you are the best band of your kind in the region? No! If that's what was meant, then that's what you'd write... Right? Does it mean the first band of that genre in the region? No, because if that's what you meant, that's what you'd write... Right? If your band was critically acclaimed or had won awards, then you'd use that to describe your band. What the word "Premiere" means is that whoever wrote the bio couldn't think of any better word or phrase to describe the band. That's really lame. Hire a Publicist already (and then fire them and ask for a refund of they use the word "premiere" when they write your bio.)

Sadly, there are other words and phrases that are used almost as frequently and are equally meaningless and annoying to people who have to read your bio. "...taking the region by storm" is a common one. "Up and coming" usually means so new you're still unknown. There's dozens of them.

The lesson here is that if you have something to say about your band, please back it up with facts, quotes or references. If you are the best, then you've probably won an award stating such or at least can get a quote from some gatekeeper or tastemaker who will say that you are indeed the best. If you are the first to break into a new genre, then that's something to brag about, hopefully. When you post that bio on your website or myspace profile and then send the link out to people who might review your music or book your band, you don't want to slap them across the face with meaningless crap. You want to impress them with how great your band really is. Using meaningless words, cliches, catchphrases or jingo that you picked up somewhere else is probably just going to make your act look lame.

The 80% Rule

2009-08-26T20:15:00.000-07:00

By David Barber
Commotion Music Promotion, Inc.

In every music community across all genres there are approximately 10% of the acts that are really good. They get all the best high-paying gigs and some may even be worthy of major label attention. There are also around 10% who are terrible. They should just give it up and quit because they just don't have the skills needed to ever succeed in music. Then there's the 80% that make up the rest of the scene. A huge gray area filled with acts at varying levels of mediocrity, some talent and maybe a couple good songs. Some of these bands are improving and will eventually take their place in the top 10%. Most of them wont. Most of them will break up. A few will continue playing on despite themselves and some may even get worse, sliding down into the bottom 10%.

Where is your band? Probably some place in the middle. Hopefully improving. How can you make sure you're getting better? Here's a few characteristics we've noticed of bands that are improving:

Play as much as possible. Play gigs, rehearse a lot. The more the better. The more a band plays together, the tighter they get. The more often you play in front of people, the better you'll understand how the crowd will respond to your music. We've seen mediocre sounding bands hit the road hard for a year and then come back to town and blow everyone away. Why? Because they played so many shows in front of new fans, that they had to learn how to win them over in one set. They learned which songs got people dancing and which ones didn't. They changed some songs up, so that people would respond to them differently (mostly so they'd stay on the dance floor. - Not all music is supposed to be danceable, so this doesn't apply across the board, but if people are on the dance floor, they are probably having fun. If they're having fun they'll want to see your band again). They came back from the road tight, polished and professional. You don't have to go on the road to do that, but you do have to play a lot of gigs. This is an old cliche, but it's true of the top bands: Play every gig as if it were the most important one of your career. You never know who's gonna be out in that audience. Could be a reporter from the Rolling Stone, a major label A&R Scout or a rich guy who might hire you to play his company party. Even if it's just a couple new fans, they might buy your CD and tell their friends all about the cool new band they heard.

Promote your band and your gigs. We've seen nine member acts where not even one guy could be bothered to go out and hang up a poster. It's guaranteed that people who don't know who you are or where you're playing won't be coming to your shows. Assign at least one band member, friend, relative or fan to get the word out. There are countless ways to do it, and we've written about a variety of them right here on this web site, but here's a few of the most obvious to get you started: Posters, flyers, handbills, (every band member should have a handful of these things always available to put out wherever he/she may be). Work the Internet: Your web site can be a powerful tool to let people know where you're playing and what you're doing. make sure you are also collecting email addresses so you can contact these people later. Have a profile on Myspace or Fcaebook with a few mp3s. Use the blog, the calendar and post info. about every show. Build that friends list with people who like the music and make sure they all know when you're playing. Post on message boards and anywhere else you can. The internet is the cheapest and easiest way to get the word out.

Be seen. Most of the bands at or near the top are well known on the scene. After rehearsal they go to the bars and clubs they play regularly and listen to other bands, meet them and make friends with them. People always welcome that guy with the spikey hair from that well known band. Work it. Make your shows the place all the region's hipsters want to be seen at. Along the same lines - making friends with fans or industry pros - or anyone - can make the difference between "Let's go see a band play," and "Let's go see my friend's band play."

Invest in your band. The bands that do the best usually take some or all of the proceeds the band brings in and they plow it back into the act. Money is needed for studio time, CD production, posters, web sites, etc. Bands on their way up commonly have a band bank account where anywhere from 25% to 100% of the money the band takes in gets deposited. If you're a band made up of musicians who need the income from $300/night gigs to pay rent and buy food, your never gonna have enough to produce a CD. If you don't have CDs to sell, you're missing out on another source of income. It's a vicious cycle. The good news is that once you get to where there is a consistent $1500-$2000 coming in from corporate and other high-end gigs, there's more money for everything. In the mean time, get a day job, try teaching, see if you can make money as a studio player, just don't rely on gigs to make a living.

With some good songs, practice and hard work, you can get your band into the top ten percent and keep it there long enough to get the attention of the record labels and other industry honchos.

It's About Selling Beer

2009-08-19T20:09:00.000-07:00

By David Barber

Commotion Music Promotion, Inc.

When performing live at most venues, you might think that you are there to play, to put on a show, to focus on the music. In some respects you are, but when it comes to the financial aspects of your gig, you are there to sell beer. Most musician's don't like to hear it, but it's true. The owner of a strip-joint once told us; "I'm not in the stripper business. I'm in the beer business." For him, the strippers were simply a way to get people in the door so they would buy his over-priced beer and alcohol. For a live music venue, it's basically the same deal, except that it's your band playing instead of a hot chick doing a pole dance.

Face the facts. You are entertainment. Not much different than a movie, a football game or a stripper. Your job is to get people into the venue, so they will drink. The more people, the more beer will flow and the more you can expect to get paid.

If you don't like it, then there's a perfectly viable circuit of coffeeshops, churches and all ages venues out there, too. Just don't expect to get paid as much for playing them.

Even the Summer festival circuit lives or dies by the beer sales. Ticket sales and cover charges account for some income, but it's commonly small potatoes compared to alcohol sales.

We hope this isn't too much of a surprise to you, but it's funny how often musicians who have no following to speak of, will complain about how hard it is to get a good gig. When you're new you need to play everywhere you can and build name for yourself. Once people know they will enjoy the music, they will be more likely to pay a cover and come to see you. When you've got a big following and can pack the clubs, you will see the smiles on the faces of the booking managers as they watch the bar sales increase. So stop whining and promote yourself.