6 days til iB4the1.1!!!!

Yesterday I presented to you the concept of the EPK – a quick video meant to introduce yourself to strangers without having to accept candy and enter their black Oldsmobiles.  Today I’m pleased to introduce our brand new press kit!

A press kit and an EPK serve generally the same purpose, except one is more ADHD oriented than the other, depending on whether you read very slowly or have a terrible internet connection.  There are benefits and fallbacks to both – while an EPK allows for the viewer to get an informative and personal summary of your work, a press kit allows for you to go into way more detail than a several-minute video.  It’s hard to predict whether people, press, and bookers prefer one or the other, so why not create both!

Press kits are PDF documents that vary in length and style, but key aspects include:
(click images to enlarge or download the whole thing HERE)

1. Your bio

2. Descriptions of your work

3. Discography

4. Press articles and quotes

6. List of past shows

7. Contact and booking info

[Click HERE to download the whole thing]

To build a press kit, I recommend using a publishing program, preferably Adobe InDesign.  But others that can make something equally magnificent are Quark, Microsoft Publisher, and very clever usage of Microsoft Word.

Once again, it’s a very self-involved process, and since one of the main challenges artists often have is writing their own bios, I always recommend having someone else whip one up for you (plus, the Adriels know that talking about themselves in third person makes them go crazyyyyyy). Because people sometimes don’t like to navigate through websites and wait for Myspace pages or videos to load in order to learn about you, a press kit allows for them to flip through at their own speed, and focus on the aspects that matter to them.

We’ve been using press kits primarily for bookings since the beginning, even when we were a student organization and my design skills were limited to Microsoft Word text boxes, but they’ve always been one of our most vital aspects, sometimes even more so than this here website.

Here’s something fun and somewhat embarrassing…a history of our press kits, from the very first through the current!  Don’t laugh.  I’ll probably never show these the light of day again.

(2003-04)

(2004-05)

(2005-06)

(2006-07)

(2007-08)

(2008-09)

(Spring 2009)

(2009-10)

THERE!  Now you know our whole lives.  And also how long it took me to learn Photoshop.  But of course we’re not the standard, and though I’m running this series of how to do stuff we do, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we know what we’re doing.  So here are some (somewhat outdated) press kits from other artists!

Blue Scholars | J*Davey | Janelle Monáe | Slick Corea

Make sure to look at the last one…it’s siiiiiiick and basically represents the design that I’m forever aspiring for…in life.

I’m really trying to convince myself that our presence in the Bay wasn’t stunting our friends’ creativity, but it does seem like ever since we left Nick James has been holding it DOWN!  And now, in addition to his series of weekly remixes Nick James Plays, he also just dropped this hot heat of hotness, The Early Years.  I’m quite juiced as I await the download, so here’s the man in his own words:

Nick James Presents…The Early Years, is a compilation of unreleased remixes and beats I have compiled over the past six years.  In the past I have remixed whole albums such as Jay-Z’s The Black Album, American Gangster, and an 18 track mixtape remixing various songs from 6 different Nas albums entitled, The Nas Remixes.  I’ve always remixed as a way to get better at sequencing and mixing music and in the process I have accumulated about 100 remixes.  Thus, I decided to create a download to provide a snapshot of unreleased music I’ve done over the years.  The beats on this album are free for anyone to loop and use as their own.

Whaaaaaat…free beats and music!!! Here’s a preview:

Get em.

Download Nick James Presents…The Early Years

Tracklisting after the jump.

When I was cleaning out my stuff in the Bay I came across an old issue of The Source featuring an interview with an Aquemini-era OutKast.  In it, André talked about how people were accusing him of being gay because he wore bead necklaces over his basketball jerseys.  Today we have another artist who has proven to push the visual boundaries of musicianship, and since Lady Gaga is queer-identified, the rumors have spread that she’s actually a dude.  Oh, homophobes…always a step ahead!

But of course an artist’s gender or sexual orientation is never a reason to not like them or their work, and so the other argument that I’ve been hearing against Gaga is that she just does too much.  Like, you know…it’s not that she does it, it’s that whatever it is that she does, she does so much of it that it exceeds the allotted amount of muchness that one is normally allowed to do.  Now, don’t get me wrong…there are certainly key moments in history when someone is actually “doing too much“…and yes, it’s understandable that for some, having anime eyes that cry blood might be a lot to process.  But for real, people????  Do we really want to live in a world where artists have to constantly fear being accused of “doing too much?” If it’s not the artists who are pushing the way we listen to music, view fashion, or interpret art in general, then who?  WHO, I SAY??  Look, I know some of the naysayers are older people, but I’m convinced that most of the Gaga haterz are people of my generation who have been raised in such a mundane and manufactured pop culture environment that they’ve been convinced that rapping a line or two about being an alien suffices as “weird.” Because if that’s all it takes to be weird, then I must be nutso insane.  And I really hope I’m not.  Like I reeeeeeeeeeeallly.  Hope.  I’m.  Not.

On a final note, here’s a brief history of artists who might not have fulfilled their destinies had YouTube comments existed during the time of inception.

For real, Michelangelo?? You’re gonna paint ALL them angels?  That’s just doing to much.

For real, Egyptians?? You’re gonna build a giant statue of a lion with a person’s head that people can’t even live in?  That’s just doing too much.

For real, Michael? You’re gonna be chased by claymation tourists, turn into a claymation rabbit to escape, only to then engage in a desert dance-off with that rabbit?  That’s just doing too much.

Not to say that Lady Gaga is equivalent to Michelangelo, Michael Jackson, or the entire ancient Egyptian civilization, but you get my point.  A shawl made of Kermit the Frogs is small potatoes.

One week until the first chapter of iB4the1 drops, people!! As we put the final touches on our first official recorded project, each day for the next week we’ll be giving you a bit more of a detailed breakdown of what we’ve been doing during this 11th hour, and bringing you in on this process that we’re still very much learning and getting used to ourselves.

The first order of business is the video above, our new EPK! Now as business-savvy as I like to think that I am, I must admit that it wasn’t until two years ago that I found out that “EPK” stands for “electronic press kit,” and not “evil pokémon killer.” But much like Pokémon, an EPK is meant to display your  powers, evolution process, and hopefully leave viewers spazzing out.

EPK’s typically run anywhere from 3 to 10 minutes, and for musicians specifically, key aspects include:
1) Who you are
2) Why you matter
3) What you’ve done
4) What people think of you

Yes, it’s a very narcissistic process, and given that these things are generally targeted towards people who don’t know squat about you, you can imagine why it would be a challenge to captivate someone to watch a mini-doc about a complete stranger. So when it came down to putting ours together, we decided to attempt a bit of a fusion between a standard EPK and a collage of road and studio footage that we’ve collected over the course of the past couple of years…something that would display all the basics, but that could also be somewhat funny and entertaining, and that pulls you into the process of being on tour and in the studio, regardless of whether or not you care about who we are.

So I spent all weekend putting this one together and tried to make it look all like it was on some Fade to Black shit, but most EPK’s are actually a bit simpler, and can be put together with basic iMovie or Final Cut skills.  And whether you’re a new artist or have been around for ages, it’s a good idea to have one in your back pocket.  Hit the jump for some EPK’s by other artists that I dig.

Although we’ve been having a mighty fun time with our PR folks at Audible Treats, there was something refreshing about never having to deal with someone you work closely with telling you that “Tupac isn’t a good rapper.”*

When Papa Lo was our primary PR guru, we didn’t have to worry about her insulting West Coast rappers, although she did constantly play Michael Bolton during meetings at her house, which is an insult to us.  Since then, she’s continued to do great deeds with us, as well as a plethora of artists, organizations, and arts projects.  This Tuesday she’s going to be in Sacramento’s Capitol Roots, spilling all her secrets to you Norcalians out there.  Join the fun!

*That’s right, Dan!  I’m airing your blasphemes to the internets!  May they rot with the Europeanly-ambiguous wrong-turn websites and forgotten Angelfire pages!

world. internetlings. it’s been a trying week here at the iLL-house. to be real talk, having no money…….sucks. compounded by the idea of needing to spend money to make money in hopes of having just enough money to pursue what you love, the great recession can push any would-be dreamer to listen to kudi’s album, possibly in an eeyore costume and/or a snuggle with a bottle of jim beam you overdrafted for that turned out being just as expensive as the bottle of jameson you really wanted because you overdrafted for it =(

when so many of us are finding emo, it’s no longer a secret that i actually hate hip-hop and really take refuge in the ballad-driven metal glory of evanescence. that’s right!! shit is deep. i encourage iLL-fam to do the same. haterz.

drizz, this is what we missed last wednesday gadammit!!!!!!!!

Apologies, dear internetlings, for neglecting to post a Saturday Morning Cartoon yesterday…I’ve been steady on the grind putting together our new EPK, which I promise will be better than the Hammer Man episodes that I’ve been wanting to post but can’t seem to find on the Youtubes.  So this fine Sunday I bring you a weekend combo…the childhood media confection of mine that also happened to very much shape who I am today, through its subliminal hippie politics.  It’s true, I do believe that in the 80’s the Fraggle Rock cast and crew was comprised of the Sesame Street employees who couldn’t stop smoking Snuffleupagus and passing out muppet liberation flyers.  The result was the show that featured a band of underground musician critters who taught important lessons in:

Autonomy,

maximizing self-potential,

spirituality,

holistic health,

and existentialism.

Classic.

Quote of the Day: “God kicked you out of heaven ’cause ya didn’t pay your rent!”

This video is so hardbody!!  Or perhaps more like malleableblobby.   You already know that we’re huge fans of stop-motion, and huge fans of Grizzly Bear, and in this video the band takes it a step further (a step towards TRIPPIN BALLS!).  Just watch it.  Your eyes might explode, but in a good way.