Musician’s Notebook

Hey … pretty soon, you be able pretend to be your favorite local band when you play the popular interactive vid, Rock Band!

Harmonix is planning to add tools for bands and game developers to turn their songs into tracks for the game, according to Billboard Magazine.
At first, game tracks built by outside developers will only be available to Xbox 360 users, but the company wants to add these tools so they can be used by all consoles.

Now, tracks that are developed by other parties won’t be available through the actual ‘Rock Band’ store, but they’ll be put up for sale in other areas (I’m sure they’ll tell you where you can find ‘em!).

It’ll give local bands the chance to have a piece of the game pie while it’ll give Harmonix a way to build and expand both its platform and catalog without having to invest any extra time and effort into actually developing the tracks themselves.

Bottom line?  Inventiveness, initiative and inclusion … and who knows?  It could mean one serious upward thrust by local acts that are really wanting to get ahead in this world of rock …

Stay tuned … I’ll bring more on this story as it develops …

Okay … normally I’d be jawjackin’ about the latest happenings or doohickies in rock music, right?

But, y’know, sometimes yer PC just doesn’t wanna behave when you’re doin’ the Last Writes (meaning, finally posting your finished copy)! It becomes so S*L*O*W* that you can only hope it’ll be published sometime before Barack Obama leaves office …

There’s good news though, campers! I’ve found a little app that’ll clean your computer and get rid of all the junk you’ve got layin’ around yer C: drive.
Best of all: It’s free!

It’s called “CCleaner” (short [honestly!] for Crap Cleaner!) and, when ya run it, you’ll be able to clean your files, registry and manage your startups (those applications that start when your computer does).

And it does it all with 100% efficiency!

Now, the best way to run it is to close all your browsers first (whether IE, Firefox, Opera or one yer mama made for you at Christmas). That way, you can get maximum cleaning!

Before ya know it, your PC/laptop/whatever will be running a lot more smoothly!
CCleaner™ is a product of Piriform, Ltd.® and is available by download from this site.

LONDON (Billboard) - Never mind the bullocks. There’s more money in advertising.

Johnny Rotten (and some stampeding cows) have started a moooo-ve (had so say that. Sorry …) toward punk advertising in the UK.

The Sex Pistols frontman, now known as John Lydon, stars in popular U.K. TV commercials for the butter brand Country Life. Dressed like a country gentleman, the one-time rebel is seen watching English folk dancers, running from cows and yelling, “It’s not about Great Britain — it’s about great butter!”

On other UK channels, punk forefather Iggy Pop stars in ads for the online car insurance brand Swiftcover in which the shirtless Stooges frontman declares: “You think I’m selling car insurance? I’m not — I’m selling time!”

But he is selling car insurance — and lots of it! Swiftcover says its first-quarter sales soared 31 percent over the same period last year, thanks to the ad.
And Lydon has heated up butter sales — the ad brought an 85 percent increase in sales of its “spreadable” brands in fourth-quarter 2008!

Snowy Everitt, director of the London-based marketing agency Espionage, which specializes in putting brands and music together, explained what happened:
“Punk doesn’t mean what it meant 30 years ago. For most people in 2009, punk isn’t about music, it’s about attitude. Butter isn’t fun, edgy, sexy or cool — but, in times of economic crisis, advertisers need cut-through, and anything that gets you talked about is worth a punt.”

Swiftcover marketing director Tina Shortle agrees.
“We weren’t too worried if the target audience didn’t recognize Iggy as a celebrity,” she says. “We just wanted someone renowned for having fun and enjoying life.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if more brands looking to get cut-through go for rebellious figures,” Everitt added. “If it works, why not try it?”

Activision Blizzard is releasing three new music-based video games this year — “DJ Hero,” “Guitar Hero 5″ and “Band Hero” — and has confirmed that “Guitar Hero: Van Halen” is on tap. The company provided few details on any of the games. “DJ Hero,” which previously was confirmed, still doesn’t have a full set list in place, but the company has released new details about the controller. It will be a single turntable device with three colored buttons similar to the five fret buttons featured on “Guitar Hero.”

And while Max Clifford has undoubtedly helped to make his client Jade Goody famous, the author Hunter Davies, who became acquainted with The Beatles during the 1960s when he was working on their authorised biography, disputes the ubiquitous publicist’s claim that he somehow “made” the pop group when, at the age of 19, he was working in the EMI press office.

“I have about 500 Beatles books, plus about 2,000 magazines, programmes and articles about The Beatles, yet I have not read one reference in them to Mr Clifford’s contribution,” harrumphs Davies.

“I was with the Beatles for 18 months and from none of them, or from Brian Epstein, did I hear the words: ‘Thank God for Max, we would not have done it otherwise.’ ”

He says that while Clifford may, as a junior assistant at EMI in 1962-63, have “shifted a few handouts”, Epstein was responsible for The Beatles’ “real publicity work”.

Margaret Forster’s husband has the good grace to add: “The truth, of course, is that no PR person made them. They made themselves.”

For awhile now — well, on and off, anyway — we’ve talked about how you can start a new band. Not only have we walked through the first gigs, but we’ve gotten tips on how to make the band more successful.

But there’s one guaranteed way to be sure your band becomes a hit with the fans: It’s called the “WTF” method (and it’s about time we gave those initials to something decent, right?):

It means WATCH THE FANS!

Y’see, when you’re onstage before a live audience, you never know exactly which songs will fire up the fans. Obviously, if you’re good, they’ll listen, dance, holler or whatever.
But, if ya really wanna know how to get your band from “just another musical group” to favorite,

WATCH THEIR EXPRESSIONS!

While performing, each member can focus on separate sections of the crowd. As you go through your set, look at their faces … watch their movements.
If you see excitement, movement or other animation that shows they’re into the song, then you’ve got at least one number that you can tailor your sound and stage work by!

But if they seem too interested in talking to others, seem oblivious or even bored, then wipe the number from your set — at least until you can “fine-tune” it to bring the crowd to its feet!

Now, about the winning numbers (no, not lottery. I’m talkin’ about the set!): Have someone make a note of those songs and the fans’ reaction. Then, when you’re back into rehearsal or songwriting, work out new numbers (both fast and slow) that’ll most likely get the same response!

By this “trial-and-error” method, you can build a set — and a reputation — that’s dynamite!

Underprivileged youth in California have been given the chance to get involved in film and music programs thanks, in part, to hip-hop group the Black Eyed Peas.

The group – through their charitable Peapod Foundation – have formed an initiative with the Adobe Foundation and the Entertainment Industry Foundation to give kids the opportunity to interact with their community through music, dance, video and art.

“As a group, we’ve made a commitment to help give teens the artistic tools and opportunities to help them realize their fullest potential,” said frontman will.i.am, “Thanks to the incredible generosity of Adobe Youth Voices (AYV), we are able to expand our vision and give even more kids a chance to be productive, enterprising adults.”

Last year, the Black Eyed Peas opened the first Peapod Academy, a state-of-the-art music and educational/recording facility serving foster care youth and other at-risk teens, at the Watts/Willowbrook Boys and Girls Club.

The new joint Adobe Youth Voices/Peapod Academy sites plan to expand worldwide, building on more than 160 sites in 31 countries. The facilities include a high-tech curriculum developed by AYV with the latest multi-media production tools and mentoring programs. Past students enrolled in AYV programs have had their work showcased at venues such as the Sundance Film Festival and the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival

The Adobe Foundation’s commitment includes a $1 million cash donation along with other in-kind support, including a comprehensive training program designed for youth and educators, and volunteer support from Adobe employees. The Peapod Foundation will contribute an on-site fully-equipped recording studio at each site, along with expertise and mentoring.

Hey … do we have the future of music right now, on our computers?

There’s a little computer application called Spotify. It pops up on my screen as a sleek box. You can install it in seconds.
And it’s easy to use. In fact, one day soon, Spotify (or something very much like it) will provide all your music needs, anywhere, anytime, at the click of a button. For free.

Spotify is an unlimited music “streaming” service, so you don’t download the music, you listen to it in real time. But it is fast, accessible, you can make up your own, and it has deals with all major labels, giving it a vast (and ever expanding) catalogue to rival iTunes. It is paid for with
15-second commercials every half hour, but unlimited music without commercials is available for a £9.99 per month subscription.

Spotify’s major flaw is that it is purely computer based, so you can’t listen anywhere you want: on your Mp3 player or in your car, for example.
But when mobile phone and Wi-Fi computer broadband technology converge (as they inevitably will) then it really will be ‘game over’ for CDs, records and even downloads (paid for or pirated). There will be no point to iTunes, no function for record stores. There will be nothing but music, sweet music everywhere, a big digital jukebox on the web!

That is, if anybody can afford to make music any more. Whether advertising revenues and subscriptions can support the music business is open to question.
Yet record companies are embracing Spotify in the hope that it will bring an end to rampant illegal downloading.
When the U2 album first leaked online, it was downloaded over 100,000 times in the first 10 hours. But now you can listen to it on Spotify, faster and easier, without breaking the law.

Did I mention it was free?

Well, we’ve brought the band this far in our ongoing saga … but now comes the recording of your first, all-important CD!  Rehearsals are becoming more frequent in preparation, and there’s some anxiety building inside each member.

But what, exactly, does it take?

First of all, be sure you’ve got your songs down pat.  Since “time is money” in a studio, you wanna make sure you have as few re-takes as possible.  And that takes practice!

When you’re ready, you should scope out the studios in your area.  Not only do you want one that has reasonable rates (at this stage of the game, you’re probably not able to spend thousands of bucks in one or two sittings!) but also one that has a good reputation.

Once you’ve found the studio you want, check out their engineer .. the guy who knows the consoles and computer programs that are necessary to get “just the right sound” for you in-studio.

You’ll also need a decent producer, who can check out the instruments, try you in various combinations or added instruments, and offer suggestions to make the sound better.
If you’ve got those two bases covered (along with costs) and have rehearsed the songs you wanna record to a tee, then you’re ready.

Now, you’ll most likely be allowed to pay by the hour — but, despite it sounding less expensive, it’s much better for your band to pay for a block of time (generally, four hours is good if your band is tight, confident, and listens to the engineer and producer).

Once the session’s over, be sure to get a CD of the songs you’ve recorded (on occasion, the producer will provide the full session tape at a reasonable price).  This is the one that’ll be used to press others from.

Now, I’ll continue this in our next session, which comes up in about 20 hours.  So, ’til then, I’ll see ya on the flip side!

Now, we’re gonna get back to the band you’ve started.  By now, you’re probably getting (a) a number of gigs lined up, (b) more rehearsal time, (c) a number of new songs — maybe even those you’ve written — into your repertoire and (d) some decent local exposure!
Hopefully, you’ve even gotten a CD demo made of your band’s music (in fact, this is essential if you’re gonna market your music to A&Rs of various labels, radio stations, etc.  Just be sure it’s professionally done in-studio; execs need to hear you clearly and solidly to make their decisions).

Now comes the part we’ve all been waiting for:  Band Management.

Y’see, your job is performing; you’ll need someone else to keep track of your gigs (remember?  Where you’ll be playing next?), negotiations with label/radio reps, equipment, sound checks and income.
But, all too often, new bands will “hire on” someone who’s a school friend or someone they hang out with to do this.
Baaaaad move!! If you’re really wantin’ to keep things organized and moving, you’ll need someone who knows the ropes! Your friend may have the best intentions, but, remember: startin’ a popular (and profitable) band is serious business!

Here ‘ a method you can use to find a good manager:

• Go out and listen to other, more established local or regional bands.  If you can establish contact with them (many of them have MySpace pages), find out who their manager is, and get in contact with ‘em to see if they’d be interested in taking on new talent.
• Invite those managers to your next gig.  While they’re there, be sure you have time to talk with them, give them copies of your bios, and ask them to consider managing you as well!

Just remember that, if you’re accepted by a manager, listen to him/her.  If they’ve helped other acts move up in the music world, they’ll do the same for you! But it’s gonna take trust, and doing what they say.  After all, they are the experts in the field!

ATTORNEYS … NECESSARY?

As you grow, you’re gonna need to put a good attorney on retainer, just in case legal issues come up that you’ll need to handle. Also, these are useful because they can read through offers and contracts for you and give you sound advice as to what to do about them!

But be sure to get one who’s qualified to handle the musical issues! One of my close friends is also the attorney for country great Billy Ray Cyrus, and he knows the legal side of the field up one side and down the other!

Of course, this can and would be handled by your new manager. Nonetheless, it’s vital to have one on retainer, just in case.

Okay … that’s it for now, but stay tuned … there’s be more in less than 24!
See ya on the flip side …

A studio of your own? For only a C note? Yep … with Alesis Company’s “Studio-in-a-Box” , you can get on the microphone and podcast yourself!

Packaged with headphones and a CD copy of Audacity (a great recording tool!  I’ve used it often myself), Alesis’ podcasting kit is as close to a studio-in-a-box as you’ll get for a hundred bucks.

The mic installs easily and, unlike others that’ve been tested, it has a gain knob right on the body—no need to wade through software to adjust your levels. It sounds great, too, rendering full, rich tones.

WIRED: Best features-to-price ratio. Stand has a rubber mount so your coffee-fueled foot tapping won’t jack up your ‘cast. Bundled headphones sound decent and save you some startup cash. Comes with 30 days of free hosting at cyberears.com.

TIRED: Deep voices lose some resonance. Audacity’s user interface is confusing, and it crashes often. But hey—it’s free, right?

So, if you’re into recording or even broadcasting yourself, this package is meant for you! And with Audacity packaged with it, how could ya go wrong?

GIG UPDATES

Despite the death of keyboard player Billy Powell, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s previously announced UK tour will go ahead as scheduled.
While it’s as still unknown who will replace Powell in the band, Live Nation (who, just yesterday, officially confirmed its merger with Ticketmaster) has confirmed that the dates will go ahead as scheduled.

And Coldplay will kick off a North American summer tour July 10 at the Amphitheater at Clark County in Portland, Ore. So far, 14 dates are set through early August, with more to be announced. The British band made a lot of headway in the Grammys on Sunday with their album “Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends” and song “Viva La Vida,” so they’re pumped up and ready to rock!

Okay … that’s it for this edition. More coming up in about 24, so I’ll see ya on the flip side!

Okay … now you’ve applied to every spot you can think of that might need a band. You’ve sent out demos, press kits (those are the bios, pics, etc., neatly organized with your demo recording) — perhaps even had a few auditions.
But no one’s hired you … yet.

Listen … don’t give up! Keep promoting yourself wherever and whenever you get the chance! Here are some ideas:

blog sample

First, why not start a blog about your band? One of the best places to start with this is Blogspot. It’s free, and you can popularize it by using some great keywords including: Whatever type of rock music you play, “indie band”, let the people know where you’re from by adding your hometown, like “Atlanta indie band” and so on. That’ll get it found on search engines when people begin to type in those words!

Second, consider a MySpace page, filled with info, pics — even samples of your music. Again, submit it to search engines using good keywords (the best way to submit, by the way, is going to Add Me and click the free offer).

Now, ya saw the pic of an early newspaper I was working on. You might wanna create a free newsletter to let people know what you’re up to.

And don’t forget civic things you can do around your area! That way, they’ll see you as a group and build an appreciation for you! Listen … the more favorable publicity you get, the better!

Oh … here’s an extra help: Go to Unsigned.com and list your band! Be sure to tell your friends (including those in your email address book!) about your band being in there.

Now, we’ll go further with this in the next post (in fact, probably cap it off there, and then come back in a week or so to see how things are goin’). ‘Til then, if ya need more help, just give me a shout-out here, okay?

Okay … let’s get back to findin’ ya some places for your band to play (aka “gig”, “venue”).
The band you see on yer left, UK’s popular THE FORE, is playin’ in front of thousands at the UK’s Scoutabout. They’ve also gotten gigs as support bands, rockin’ in front of as many as 30,000.
But they’ll also play gigs on London’s High Street, where only 100 or so show up (mostly shoppers in the district).

Now, I brought them up to tell ya this: As Spencer and the band have learned, you play wherever you find the opportunity! Whether it’s a birthday party, a get-together, picnic, or bar-mitsvah — if they’re looking for entertainment, put your name in for the gig!

Here are some ideas that can help:
The business card on your right was sent out by a successful band in Huntington, W. Va., in the mid-1960s. Today, it’s still important to get your name into as many hands as possible, so the b.c.’s are essential! And you can download programs on your PC that’ll let you make ‘em yourself (bypassing the expensive printers. All ya need is the paper designed to print ‘em on!).
Pass them out to every place that might want a good band of your calibre: Check phone books for associations like Elks, American Legions, VFWs, places that normally have bands playing on weekends, etc. Be sure to look presentable, and, if possible, have a CD with your band’s music (called a demo).

It’s also a good idea to have a portfolio of your work handy. Here, you’ll wanna include reviews (at each gig you play, have a friend write a brief bit about the band’s performance), photos (have someone make good-quality pics of the band, with and without instruments!), brief biographies of the members, and venues you’ve played before (whether there are 5 or 500 in the audience!).
Now, the manager (or person in charge of the entertainment) probably won’t give you an answer immediately, but don’t let that get you down! Keep rehearsing, and go for other venues while you’re waiting! Be sure to keep accurate and up-to-date records on whom you talked with, what you presented, his/her reaction, and when to check back. More about portfolios in the next blog.

Once you get the gig, be sure you have every piece of equipment working perfectly! That means sound equipment, amps, PAs and microphones as well as your instruments!!

Now, we’ll continue this in the next post, so stay tuned … there’s more in 24!

Your ability to contact your audience is paramount to your success.

Mailing lists, for instance, have been the crux of many band’s campaigns from garage band to hit-maker in the past.

When it comes to your blog, the best thing you can do is have readers subscribe to your blog’s RSS feed, either in a reader or by email.

The first step, of course, is to make subscription a prominent choice. Keep an RSS button in the header. Or put a FeedBurner email subscription form in the sidebar. When you put that form in your sidebar make sure it will appear above the fold (the top part of a website that can be seen without scrolling down - anything that you can see only after scrolling is below the fold).

Getting those email addresses is simply too important to your success.

You should also refer to the ability to subscribe in your posts. Some blogs use tag lines at the end of each blog post that say “Enjoy this post? Subscribe today” or something similar - the bottom of this post even has one.

Make it prominent, make it clear and make it easy.

If you have a 5-step process before your reader can subscribe, you’ll probably lose them after the second step. Make it as simple as putting an email address into a form and confirming from the email account, or just clicking an RSS button that instantly opens your feed.

Making it easy to subscribe is perhaps the easiest yet most effective thing you can do for your blog.

Get your fans coming back for more and make subscriptions prominent.

Last time on Band Blogging: Podcast Your Tunes.

Last time on Band Blogging we spoke about keeping the conversation going on your blog; this time we’ll talk about using podcasts to promote your music.

I came up with the tuneback concept for my own band which has worked exceptionally well. The premise is that each week, we spend an hour, and an hour only, writing, recording and publishing a new song.

This has gained us many friends and listeners online, as well as secured us coverage in respectable and popular media outlets such as the Sydney Morning Herald.

Technically, this is just like a podcast. You can take the concept further and make a show of it, discussing the development process of the song and its roots in inspiration, before or after playing the song itself.

Podcast Directories

The next step, after you’ve got your regular song (or show) together is to submit it to various podcast directories for exposure, such as the iTunes podcast directory (here’s how) or PodcastAlley.

Isolating yourself from the rest of the web community is a bad idea when it comes to blogging and podcasting, so get the show in as many different directories as possible.

On that note…

Don’t Be Afraid To Network

You can find other blogging musicians whose work you enjoy and do shows together, or even start a podcast network and support and promote each other’s podcasts.

Blogging is one arena where you should adopt the viewpoint: collaboration, not competition. Blogging is truly about relationships and connections, and embracing this can only benefit everything you do online.

Simply Another Medium

There are so many ways a musician can draw attention to their music; band art, blog posts, street teams and the like are all mediums to direct someone’s attention and put it on the music itself. Podcasting is just another way of doing this - of course, like radio, the medium is more suited to the purpose simply because it’s an audio medium.

Let me know if your blogging band has started up a podcast of their own!

It’s been quite a while since we last discussed the topic of band blogging. We’ve talked about the software you should use to set up your blog and how to plan for releases of music through your blog.

We’ve also talked about emailing the people who leave comments on your blog.

This post is about a related practice, keeping comment threads active. We email those who comment on our blogs to develop loyalty and relationships, but we keep comments active for another reason:

Social proof is formed by perception.

A glaring “0 Comments” on every blog post is very bad. See, there’s something called social proof and in essence this means that, since people are generally scared of the unknown, they wait for others to get involved before taking an interest of their own.

In other words: if nobody else is commenting, people assume you suck. Then, they leave.

If you keep comments active, your social proof is proof indeed.

People start to take an interest; if others are getting so actively involved, it must be good, right? So they download your tunes, leave their own comment of gratification, and then happily hand over their email address for your mailing list.

Well, that is, if you have all the other elements of your site - such as eye tracking - in place.

Keeping the conversation going

Social proof for marketing purposes isn’t the only reason for getting involved in the comments and replying to your listeners. Developing relationships with your listeners also builds strong loyalty, especially as they begin to perceive that relationship as friendship.

This builds an extremely loyal Core Audience, which is absolutely vital to getting your music out there. Word of mouth is the most effective may of building your brand, and Core Audience is the group of people that starts that word of mouth motor.

To summarize, what you need to start doing on your band blog:

• Encourage people to comment
• Reply to comments, whether they are positive or negative
• Don’t censor, but do keep spam and abusive content in the bin - keep the environment pleasant
• Don’t dominate the comments - if you’re the only one commenting on your own posts, it actually has the opposite effect on your social proof

As always, if you have any questions or comments, I’m more than happy to read and reply to them.

See what I did just there?

Greg Sandoval at CNET News has an interesting article, When rockers cut ties from labels, up that talks about Trent Reznor’s recent decisions regarding the music industry and his place in it.

From the article:

Attention to detail is of vital importance to musicians forging careers independently and online. The messages customers receive when purchases are confirmed really are important details to consider.

Why? In this case, because that confirmation message can really make a difference in the loyalty of a fan and the longevity of that fan’s loyalty depending on how well the message is written. What does it do to create a sense of connection with the customer? We all know that fewer repeat customers bring in more profits than twice the amount of one-time customers.

It’s important for musicians to pay attention to each and every detail when working on their promotional materials and mechanisms. Even more important than the content of a purchase confirmation message are the details of the band’s mailing list, as mailing lists provide the band with a tool more indispensable than any other tool (except maybe a shiny new Mac Pro with Logic Pro installed): freely given permission to make contact with an interested, targeted audience any time they want.

This kind of power shouldn’t be abused, of course, and abusing it means that the mailing list will dwindle.

What kind of details are we talking about? Positioning of the subscription form on the website (one of the keys is prominence, but eye tracking should be taken into account), the process that one goes through to subscribe (double opt-in is good and gives subscribers confidence in you), the aesthetics of the process, again, the confirmation email, and the ease with which someone can unsubscribe (believe it or not, this is very important, especially if you ever want to get them back again).

From album inserts to posters to websites to blog posts to conversations, the details are so important to ensuring your long term success.

Blogged with Flock

Tags: trentreznor, mailing list, online purchases, musician’s marketing

Or does your band have any promotional items at all?

Artists need to ask themselves the questions:

As far as the public is concerned, who am I as an artist? What do I want people to think of me as and perceive me as?

And then…

Do my marketing materials really reflect this perception? Will they form it, or create an opposing perception?

These important questions are what my good friend and colleague NDK Creative Artist’s latest article over at the Free Articulator discusses.

“Marketing is first and foremost a Perception-thing; it’s about image in the PR sense,” he opens with. He then follows with a crash course on how to use promotional items to form a certain perception. It’s a good article, and an important one, to all artists worldwide.

You can read this piece after you click here.

What does promotional items mean when it comes to a band?

Remember that no matter who you have designing promotional items for your band, you’ll need the copyrights to those items when they’re done. Of course, you’ll need to negotiate some terms and conditions; they’ll want attribution and perhaps a payment of royalties from the sales of merchandise and other material that their work is sold on. You’ll want the copyrights in their entirety, as well as the master files (Photoshop PSD files for instance) so the work can be adapted for a variety of uses.

Forget this last step, and watch the wolves tear you apart as soon as you start seeing success.

Tags: marketing, musician’s marketing, promotion, promotional items, band marketing, copyright, intellectual property

Nancy Prager, a copyright lawyer and writer whose articles I am a frequent reader of, has had some great commentary on the Radiohead “controversy” in the past couple of weeks (as well as the emerging “controversy” regarding Reznor and Saul Williams).

Prager’s conclusion on the whole thing:

“While In Rainbows may be a musical work for the ages, it wouldbe inappropriate to use Radiohead as the poster child of bands pursuingalternative paths if its journey leads them back to the major labels.”

I believe her to be correct. Free music downloads are a friggin’ great way for musicians to start building an audience. I’ve done it myself for most of this year. By the time I’d published the third tuneback, I was building buzz and had a few major publications, such as the Sydney Morning Herald, interviewing me and even releasing my songs on their site.

That’s not bad growth for three hours work (the tuneback concept imposes a rule of one hour spent writing and recording a song).

But building a career? You can’t do that by releasing free music forever, and in an age where - as Nancy says - some don’t even want to pay $1 to obtain the album and go over to the file sharing sites, you might want to wait until the ass-end of your career before you start giving fans entire albums for free.

Radiohead can afford to do this. They are sitting on more money than George W. Bush is sitting on stupidity. But if you are reading that, chances are you’re not sitting on that much cash. If you are, my email address can be found in the right sidebar (I have a bad case of starving artist syndrome). If you don’t charge for independently released albums you won’t be able to make any income from your songs. On the other hand, the tuneback is a minimal time and effort investment for building audience. There’s a balance when it comes to freebies.

The scary part is that Radiohead and Saul Williams are setting a dangerous precedent. Pubs already pay insulting rates to bands because they know they can get a cover band in for free. The problem of piracy has begun to plague album sales in the same way. This can only make it worse.

Or maybe, NDK was right when he proposed that Radiohead were really asking their fans: given the opportunity to steal from us, will you?

Tags: radiohead, in rainbows, saul williams, trent reznor, free music

Led Zeppelin will offer downloads of their music from all major online music retailers as of November, around the same time as their reunion gig in London.
Led Zeppelin is one of the last rock giants to allow their downloads to be acquired digitally, one of the last hold-outs across the world. When the last hold-outs cave in, it becomes clear that “Digital Downloads” are not just a passing fad for the music industry, but the new hegemony - something we at Musician’s Notebook already knew.

While Led Zeppelin doesn’t need to worry about forging an audience and a career, digital downloads are a vital part of the modern band’s effective marketing campaign, among other things (such as band blogging). It’s advice that may run contrary to the music industry’s own beliefs, but we all know that they’re not very good for you anyway.

We’ve come along way from the controversy around Metallica’s anti-Napster stance all those years ago. Personally, I don’t understand the controversy: Metallica has legal rights and the legal right to enforce those legal rights. They are legally, morally and ethically justified in demanding that fans don’t rip them off. At the same time, offering downloads of songs, whether it is free or for fee, is the distribution medium of right now and there’s no going back. If you have a problem with your songs being sold at iTunes, please leave through the third door from back - yes, the one that is marked “Career Incinerator”.

Led Zeppelin is also selling ring tones and full songs for mobile phones with Verizon Wireless, so you might say they’ve also sold their soul to the devil.

After my last post on using your own ringtone as a cheap and effective audience building device, Jeff, a Musician’s Notebook reader, left a comment about MyxerTones. The dilemma he mentioned was the difficulty that many people face with getting the ringtone from the computer and onto the phone. I use an O2 XDA which allows me to transfer an MP3 over pretty easily, and hadn’t thought of the potential difficulty for owners of numerous handsets.

MyxerTones looks like a great solution - you select the sound file from your computer, and it’ll send it straight to your phone. Difficulty erased!

It’s pretty common for someone to ask you where you got your ring tone after it rings; who sung it? Where did you buy it? People ask these things every day. Are you missing an opportunity to promote your music by using another artist’s ring tone?

You can reach the masses through blogs, but loyal audiences are developed one by one. Next time someone asks where you got your ring tone, take the opportunity to create a fan.

Unsigned Bands Promotion is great resource by Marc Gunn for independent musicians and bands who are slogging it out to promote and market themselves on a tight budget. The site is full of great tips to pull you out of a promo rut - here’s just a few:

• Boost traffic to your band website
• Building a mailing list with minimal expenditure
• This may be the most important characteristic of your band’s behavior if you’re to develop an audience!

Check out Unsigned Bands Promotion today and thank Marc for his contribution!

Since we started looking at our bands as businesses back in one of the first Musician’s Notebook posts, we have to remember that every business has a public relations department. This means some part of your paradigm for building and promoting your band has to come from a point of view that puts the emphasis on relationships.

Many musicians and bands see the media as an indefeasible enemy to attack and hound. But the smart ones see it is an ally; the media might not know about you yet, but this perspective will help you. In public relations speak, the media is another public. No longer is it just your audience you need to manage relations with, but the media just the same - or more importantly. Never forget your audience, but leveraging well-developed media relationships will take you far.

The other common perspective is perhaps more dangerous, as it leaves no room for a challenge; the concept of the media being an impersonal entity. The fact is, the media is comprised of human beings, people like you and me, people with tastes, interests, strengths and weaknesses. You are not out to build relationships with robots. You’re out to build them with people, and every part of your approach needs to bear this in mind.

You can change your perspective, or, on the other hand, you can keep seeing the media as an impersonal entity or an indefeasible enemy, and you’ll never get anywhere with them.

Here’s a tip for you: with band blogging, more than many other forms of blogging, it’s important to build a sense of loyalty and relationship with your readers. In the early days, you’ll want to email new commenters and maybe have a round of friendly email conversation. Developing this personal relationship means you retain their friendship for the long term, translating into ‘band brand loyalty’.

Music, like all art, is a form of communication, and thus, especially in the early phases of the blog, it is important to reinforce the fact you have important things to communicate paramusically, through communication with commenters and readers, and through writing about those opinions on the blog.

Even once you’re pretty well established, make sure you send out an email once in a while. It helps!

In the last post on Band Blogging on the PodPress plugin, we were setting up an infrastructure so we could go on to discussing strategies for releasing music online, through the blog.

There are three factors to consider in releasing music:

1. Timing
2. Audience
3. Situation

Timing

If you have ten songs you want to release on your blog, don’t do it all at once, and not on the first day you launch the blog, either. Again, strategy is required! Consider these things. I stress this because most musicians are all about throwing stuff out there without a plan or a care to thought, and then wonder why nobody’s listening.

Only ever release one song at a time is a golden rule in this situation. This is not like releasing an album to retailers. This is using an asset to build a loyal audience. So if you have a finished recording and three demos, release the finished recording, and if that particular song builds a following of its own, you can leak a demo every few months to keep the enthusiasm going. Same goes for remixes and varying versions of the same song.

If you set a schedule of release that listeners expect you to keep, stick with it. I promise my listeners a tuneback a week. When unforeseen circumstances get in the way of this, my listener count suffers a bit of a drop.

Audience

Unfortunately, not everyone remembers to come back and check the site all the time. Make sure you collect email addresses from anyone you come into contact with, and offer a mailing list subscription service on the blog. The most important thing you can have is a mailing list. Also, let interested parties know. One of my early tunebacks was inspired by Cory Doctorow’s work. I let him know as a gesture of goodwill, and he linked back. Got some good traffic from that experience, and some stuck around to listen.

Situation

Using the first two factors will give you a pretty good release strategy. However, there’s the more variable ’situational’ factor that comes into it. You need to consider what else in the environment may influence your releases. Midnight.Haulkerton is going to be releasing an official website soon, and we’re holding back blog-wise and in terms of tunebacks while we prepare for that. At one time, I had severe family problems. They weren’t the usual kind; in fact, they were problems that meant I had more time on my hands than I wanted. But that meant I couldn’t create tunebacks and hence had nothing to release.

Other situations may warrant a quicker pace of release, particularly when you have two songs ready around the same theme and the first catches some public interest. This was the case with Overclocked and World Ending.

The main lesson is this: don’t treat releases flippantly. You need to have a plan and live by it. Throw all your songs out there at the same time and you’re throwing a whole bunch of assets to the wind.