Check out this interesting article including interviews with bands as diverse as Hawk Nelson and Steel Train.

Social Media and Music PR: The State of Play as Told by Artists and Publicists

You may or may not know but this blog is directed at beginner to intermediate musicians and bands that are just starting out. If you are in that situation, one term that you should be aware of is “pay to play.” Pay to play is a phrase that describes any scenario where your band gets booked for a gig but has to pay for having the gig. Sometimes you may be in a pay to play situation and not know it.

For instance, a common pay to play scenario is you get booked for a gig where the venue or promoter requires you to sell a certain number of pre-sale tickets. The booker hands you, say, 30 tickets, and says, “Just sell these and we’re good. We’ll settle up the day of  the show.” Sweet! Your band has a gig! Wait just a second, though. This is pay to play. Sure you didn’t have to pay anything to get the gig OR the pre-sale tickets, but what will happen is captured in that phrase, “We’ll settle up the day of the show.” When you get there on the day of the show, the booker says, “OK and from you I need the money for 30 tickets.” You pay him and play. That is pay to play. You, the band, paid the booker before the show.

Only you can decide if a pay to play scenario is right for your band, but, in general, this is a detrimental practice for bands. The venue or promoter is placing the cost risk for the show on the band. Struggling young bands already have enough on their plates without this risk being added.

Here is a great video I ran across for one method of DIY screenprinting.

Tips is a series of blogs dealing with the little things that make a big difference.

For those with a copy of Microsoft Word, it can be frustrating and even impossible to get a flyer printed on 1/4 page sections of a standard 8.5 x 11″ sheet of paper. Here’s the best way we know how.

1. Get your full size flyer together in a single image file.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tunecore is offering free PDF copies of its “Music Industry Survival Manuals.”

Included are the following titles:

1. How to market, promote, and make money from your music while keeping your rights
2. Music publishing and copyright: cover songs
3. Mastering
4. Vinyl 101
5. Mixing
6. Copyright
7. Tips to sell more music online.

You can find these at the Tunecore Music Industry Survival Manual page.

There are many reports lately of the death of Myspace as a promotion tool for bands. Given the site rankings, it is definitely true that many potential fans are no longer on Myspace (#11) but instead on other services such as Facebook (#3), YouTube (#4) and Twitter (#14). This is not to mention the rise of myriad competing music promotion sites such as Purevolume and Reverbnation.

It has always been our stance at Rawk & Rowl that bands should be prepared and remain flexible to take advantage of all avenues of promoting their music and interacting with fans. We believe the best way for any band to achieve this is to maintain their own web site and email list, along with banners and widgets which can be provided to all of these different sites. We have always been a proponent of services like Glue and Bandize that allow you to post content from one point and see it publish to multiple sites (Facebook, Myspace, Purevolume, etc all at once). And hopefully we can do a review of these soon.

The bottom line is that your band needs to think about what your promotion strategy is and what is important, and keep alert to the tools that can help you achieve that without getting bogged down to much in the details. What is ultimately most important is writing and playing music, so the less you have to deal with promotion the better. Nevertheless, online promotion, even though it is a saturated market, is still a necessary evil for any band, and could give you an opportunity to be heard that would otherwise not be there.

In case you missed these posts, let me mention them again. I am working on making an indexed page where they can reside. Oddly enough the post on the Maxon tube screamer is the most visited of all our posts.

• Maxon OD808 = Ibanez Tube Screamer 808
  A post on how these pedals are the same, but you will save a chunk of change going with the Maxon.
• How to add a header image to your myspace
  It’s easier than it seems, though you could spend days looking for the myspace code for it.
• Downloadable tab files
• Sell your CD at your local record shop
  How to distribute an album yourself!
• The right way to grow your friends list on Myspace
  A downloadable PDF we put together that details some methods for (legally) adding tons of friends and keeping them up to date on all your shows.

There is an excellent article over at Build !nternet outlining current trends in Myspace design. Definitely read this if you have a myspace profile for your band!

Once you’ve finished reading the article don’t miss out on the discussion beneath. I have personally been coming to the same conclusion recently that a band should have their own .com as well as a myspace. It’s definitely something to consider since with your own website you are freed up to do a lot more with your online presence. In addition, and this is the thing I am really liking about having my own band website, I can see stats of who is visiting and downloading music.

Here is the article:

http://buildinternet.com/2009/02/battle-of-the-bands-myspace-music-profile-trends-roundup/#more-1645

I know. That is a bold claim isn’t it? The “right way?” Well whether it is or isn’t, I know my method of adding friends on myspace has been and continues to be successful for my band, so I have written it all up in an easy to print PDF for you to download. This tutorial includes plenty of screen shots and I hope it is helpful!

Adding Friends on Myspace

OK so you went through the long process of recording a demo, EP, or even a full length on your own. Now what do you do?

Well assuming you don’t skip the process of duplication where you get 100, 500, 1000 or more copies of your CD ready to sell, you probably want to get your CD out there.

The first place to start is at your local record shop. Go in and ask them if they sell CDs on consignment. This means that you provide them with a small number of copies of your CD, and they put it on the shelves for a period of time and sell it. At the end of that time, they can request more copies from you and pay you for what did sell.

Sometimes you don’t even have to call. In Seattle, I went to a couple of the locally-owned record shops’ web sites and found the information I needed regarding consignment, either directly on the page, or just through email.

One thing, though, you are still responsible for promoting your release!