James Moore's Blog, page 61

5 Great ASMR-triggering Albums

My silly Peruvian roommate, whom I go out of my way to avoid, comes into the kitchen just outside my bedroom door in the early afternoon. He is mumbling to himself in a language unknown. I key into the sounds of his movement. The turning on of the faucet, the water’s rush. The rhythmic pattern of the knife chopping vegetables on the cutting board.

My roommate whistles briefly. He shuts the trash bin and closes the microwave door. He mixes egg yolk in a mug. The curved wire of the egg beater swiping against the porcelain in a circular motion shatters my psyche and every nerve in close proximity to my brain dances. I fall into a trance listening, feeling an electric buzz between my temples and upper torso. This is the Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response and despite how silly it may seem, I can assure you, ASMR is real.

It’s been described as a nerve-based, emotional response in the peripheral areas of the body — the region of the senses — mid-chest to the top of the head. The feeling is pleasurable, like a cat purring with each scratch. Goosebumps of longing. And there’s no telling when it might set off. A good example is what you may feel watching the late, great Bob Ross paint, with his reassuringly breathy voice, calm demeanor; the brush plodding and karooming across the canvas. There’s an undefined connection. Scientific evidence to support or explain ASMR is incredibly scant. The answer lies somewhere between the Central Nervous System and your Chakras.

Certain music out there can produce a similar effect to ASMR. Something that moves organically and isn’t tethered to a beat. Something minimal and human-controlled, like the soft, slow, unmetered noodling of acoustic strings. Something with a lot of space in it and intakes of silence. Something that numbs you evenly and holds you in place. Try the digital night-blanket of any Fripp & Eno album or the transcendent, wind-weeping Navajo flute songs of Carlos Nakai. But even someone lazily plucking a guitar on a couch across the room could trigger it.

Here are the most ASMR-triggering albums:

5
The Creek Drank the Cradle by Iron & Wine
Released: 2002

The beard hairs on Sam Beam’s chin were at their fully sprouted form when he released his debut, The Creek Drank the Cradle. “Faded From the Winter” unspools like steel wire and strings you up by the ankles. “The Rooster Moans” and “An Angry Blade” churn along monotonously until you go numb. It’s like nodding off in a barn at dusk. Beam’s voice stays above a mumble, just audible enough to understand through the perpetual sigh of its tone.

4
July by Marissa Nadler
Released: 2014

Marissa Nadler’s voice hits your ear like a dandelion hair blown in the wind. It’s so very fragile and enters the room the like an overtly polite ghost. July, her sixth full-length, is a sleepy getaway drive on the vacant highways of Massachusetts somewhere between twilight and dawn. The dark is cold and pinches your fading anxieties.

 

 

3
Nino Rojo / Rejoicing In The Hands by Devendra Banhart
Released: 2004

Devendra Banhart dropped both of these albums at the height of the brief cut-out genre, “freak-folk,” with the likes of Animal Collective, Ariel Pink and Joanna Newsom. When these two albums play it’s like Banhart is sitting crosslegged in the sunroom fiddling songs to himself while you clean. Rejoicing came first in the spring as the sun started to stretch its beams. These are fine songs for a wasted summer day.

2
America by John Fahey
Released: 1971

This one tickles the spine up and down, pries open the bone and licks the marrow. Using only the brittle strings of an unassuming guitar, Fahey teases with tempo and accent edging you into oblivion. When I put it on I immediately go cross-eyed and lose sight of time. The acoustic ringing settles into the room then leaves you hanging in silence only to worm back in when you thought it was over. This album is a strong replacement for any narcotic.

 

 1
Marc Ribot Plays Solo Guitar Works of Frantz Casseus by Marc Ribot
Released: 1993

Marc Ribot takes on the songs of Frantz Casseus, the Haitian-American guitarist and personal guitar mentor to Ribot. Released the year of Casseus’s death, the album lulls the listener into a soporific grasp. A waterfall of static hits the back of the neck. Eye lashes flutter. Ribot’s fragmented acoustic noodling falls to swaths of total silence mid-song and returns like a tepid tide to the shore.

 

See also:
Jackson C. Frank by Jackson C. Frank
Released: 1965

+

Smoke Ring for My Halo by Kurt Vile
Released: 2011

+

Songs of Leonard Cohen by Leonard Cohen
Released: 1967

+

When by Vincent Gallo
Released: 2001

Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.

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Adulting in the Industry

by MATT BACON > So I wrote a piece a little while ago about the inherent wealth kind of required...
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Adulting In The Music Industry

So I wrote a piece a little while ago about the inherent wealth kind of required to even be in a DIY band. But after a lot of frustration today I wanted to spend some time talking about how being a goddamn adult is always going to help you be able to create value for your band and guide you in your career as an industry person. Now this works on a lot of different levels and it’s the sort of thing that can be very hard to reconcile with punk ethics. I personally find myself running into it time and time again and I feel like I have my shit pretty goddamn together for a 21 year old. Still, as you start to get anywhere in this industry it rapidly becomes obvious that there is a helluva lot more to this than just being willing to spend some money and dedicate a whole bunch of free time to the unwholesome venture that is independent music. Rather, you need to be willing to seriously drive forward on a very adult level, so let’s look at what that means.

First and foremost, you need to have a credit card. I know this sucks. It bit me in the ass hard today so I just wanted to take some time to talk about this. I know that credit cards are a bunch of neoliberal bullshit, I don’t have one, I get it. These sorts of things aren’t really targeted at DIY musicians trying to make a name for themselves in the music industry. What they are targeted at is people who want to have the easiest lives possible. When it comes down to it, the extremely shitty tradeoff you are going to need to come to terms with is that you need to balance ease and ethics. Also ease and a bunch of bullshit paperwork. Credit cards are probably the most visible example, but there’s also something to be said for owning your own place, being the sole person on your lease or simply having your shit together on bills. Now I realize that I’m writing primarily for an audience in their 20s and those things are fucking hard to get. But sometimes you need to suck it up so when you’re stuck in Wichita in November you can find a way out.

The other key thing to be aware of is that you need to have some sort of savings built up. I know this is tricky and you don’t need to tell me how hard life has become in America in the last few years. Half of Americans have $500 or less in the bank. It’s a scary fucking thing. But here’s the thing: when you work in the music world you need to have some sort of safety net. You need to be able to have a few thousand dollars to emergency spend when you have a bunch of shows fall through. You need to be able to order that last run of last minute merch in order to grow your band when shits gets dark. You need to be able to get a hotel room because the place you though you were going to stay ends up being super fucking sketchy. These are all costs tat just sort of happen in the world of independent music. Furthermore, you want to make sure that you’re not the one bearing the brunt of the costs. People always talk about their touring brothers. Well if someones you’re brother, they had goddamn better be ready to spend money when shit hits the fan.

Of course simultaneously when trying your hand at ‘adulting’ in the music industry it’s important to be flexible. Maybe someone else doesn’t have their shit together quite as much, but you know you can trust them. Maybe you just need to be a little more patient with someone so they can reach the level they really want to be at. Being compassionate has a tendency to work out in this industry. I know that’s sometimes hard to hear, but sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same. There are so many crucial opportunities in this life that are only accessible once you’ve reached a certain arbitrary age for example. Toss in the fact that a lot of these opportunities require a strong socioeconomic background and then you realize why so many people don’t have them. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t fight for those, it just means you need to be appreciative of the advantages that you do get to have.

At the end of the day all of these things are meant to serve as a safety net. They are supposed to protect normal people like you and me from a lot of the ills of society and mean that we don’t need to worry. Personally I know that a lot of my anxiety is relieved by the fact that my rent is paid three months out and I have enough savings to survive for a good bit with no job. That’s not me bragging, that’s me saying “How can I function in a high risk industry like this one without being a panicky asshole all of the time?” A lot of people lack these fairly basic skills and that’s a serious problem for them. You need to b able to have these basic things, and if you do then you’re immediately going to find that your career is much easier. In fact it will positively impact all sides of your life and lead to an overall better future.

At the end of the day – the music industry is a really challenging place to make a buck and you need every opportunity that you can afford yourself. If you’re unwilling to work in order to make those opportunities appear then you deserve all the bad shit that’s going to happen to you. That’s just how this industry works. There is a very real glass ceiling for dumb bands who refuse to get their shit together or listen to the older bands who have spent years trying to get their lives set up so that they can tour properly and not have to deal with the anxiety of this business more or less constantly. So yeah, I don’t like giving up my soul for this bullshit either but sometimes that’s just the way that the news goes and you need to appreciate this unique breed of misery to succeed.

Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.

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Goddamn Small Royalties

by MATT BACON> There’s a lot of articles out there about  labels ripping you off. Or how it is all...
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Why Your Royalty Check Is So Goddamn Small

There are countless articles out there talking about how record labels are design to rip you off, or how the industry was set up in a way that very much dicks over artists and how folks who engage in it are unrepentant assholes. There are also a lot of articles outlining how a record deal works and what you need to be looking for in a record deal. These are both really important things in my eyes and things that have rightfully been documented to death. What I don’t think that a lot of people look at though is why the number you get at the end of the day is so small. It’s easy to complain about not getting paid by labels, but I was hoping to take a moment to look at some of the inherent issues. After all – just because you CAN do everything yourself these days does not mean that you should, nor does it mean that you’re going to get it at as high a quality as a real music industry background might be able to provide to you.

So let’s look at the biggest thing that people ignore, largely because they think that they can afford to, and that’s a blatant lie I’ve gone over many times in the past. What I want to discuss with this though moreover is the percentage distribution alone takes from a given release. The average distribution company normally takes 25-35% of a cut from a label on top of other costs worked into the deal. Costs that, while negligible for artists selling thousands of copies, will probably screw you pretty badly. Yet all labels worth their salt will tell you that good distribution is a key part to developing your band. Yet they don’t consider any of the real marketing costs of proper distribution. You are screwing the pooch as it were, and again, this is only the first of many key costs that you are going to stumble into as you try and negotiate for points on a record deal with people far more experienced at this whole thing then you are.

Now that’s just the beginning. Let’s also pause for a second and think about PR costs. What are the PR costs for a big band? Probably something like two to five thousand dollars a month. Well guess what – how much is your band selling? If you’re lucky then you’re making that much on album sales. So wouldn’t it make sense that labels would charge that against you? It’s a huge cost and if your label isn’t charging you for it then you are doing yourself a huge favor. Again – the music industry is a tricky place and there’s a lot of mouths to feed. If you think you can avoid PR then enjoy selling no records. If you think you can properly push PR then you are going to find that it will drain your band of money. That’s fine, it’s a part of the game, but simultaneously you can’t act like it’s not going to have an impact on you. The music industry is not a place of handouts or bullshit, it’s a place where if you don’t quickly realize how to ameliorate you place you will get cut out.

Of course this is just the beginning, another cost that people don’t look at is of course the marketing and artist development team. Now again – these are things that you could probably do on your own, but when it comes down to it you probably don’t want to and even if you did you wouldn’t have the connections to make it truly worthwhile. All of these people need to make a living, even if they are only getting paid a pittance you need to work with paying them for that too. After all – if it weren’t for the foot soldiers at labels and such then you wouldn’t be so excited to sign with a cool one in the first place. If it weren’t for the people going out of their way to work with you and make your life easier then the label wouldn’t really have a point. It would just be an artist curation service. While that’s certainly how a lot of smaller labels work those labels frequently offer different types of deals that help artists a little more.

That being said – you also need to appreciate that just because you are going to a smaller or independent label doesn’t mean that you’re going to get over that customary 10-20% artists cut. That’s because while yes, you’re not getting quite the same services you also probably aren’t going to be selling as many units. So suddenly, some of those static costs, like the PR are a lot more ominous and a lot more threatening towards what the label can be. They need to absorb those costs somehow, which is why they frequently offer you a product deal. This is actually one of the best options for artists because it means your product is going to get distributed and marketed but simultaneously you don’t need to absorb so many of the painful costs, you just get your shit and get to move on, developing your band as you see fit with label guidance when you want it.

At the end of the day, record labels frequently aren’t worth it, because a lot of labels are scams. People will sell you lies based on heresay from the industry and you’ll think that you’re getting a good deal. Then they disappear on you with your rights and your money and you’re shit out of luck. If you do your research though and take part in a scene though then it’s going to be fairly obvious what is actually worth it and what’s going to drive your career forward. So many ignorant artists have shot themselves in the foot. But the folks who take the time to educate themselves and learn more about the model always end up on top of the game, driving towards beautiful futures and exciting new adventures we all can revel in.

Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.

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Staying In The Spotlight

I think that the hardest thing to do in the music industry is to maintain audience interest. This is one of those things that is hard to properly define for a lot of artists because on the one hand it certainly can be a lot of work but on the other it’s the only way to really make the music turn into a regular stream of income these days. Simultaneously not a lot of bands really care about the sustained interest thing. They are happy to just release a record every two years, maybe tour a little bit and kind of go away for the rest of it. A lot of artists get a closed off view about this because they think that music is the only sort of content that they need to be creating when this is patently untrue. Artists need to work on moving past this old model and realize that there is a much broader idea of what an artist can be now and we need to work at making sure that our independent bands are working to create something with that.

What you need to look at is the very nature of content. I think that not enough people can really wrap their heads around the breadth of what that means. For example, every time Selena Gomez steps out her door in a new outfit she is creating content because she is not just a pop star but also a fashion leader. Now for a band on the DIY level maybe you can’t do that, but what you can do is a really interesting and potent photo shoot that can generate press in and of itself. Not a lot of people look at content creation that way. Sure it’s not always obvious, and yeah affording a photo shoot, much less one that provokes interest can be a tricky thing, but that’s just one idea. One thing I’ve found extremely helpful over the years is stuff like the Selena Gomez thing, you are going through and figuring out what the stars do to create content and then you shrink it down to an independent level and see what you end up with.

It’s important though, when creating content to realize your place in the world. It’s important to realize that you are not Selena Gomez, by stepping out of your door you are not able to create a whole new fashion Instead you need to figure out the types of content that are going to cater to your audience and then do that. Simultaneously you need to figure out what types of content you are good at creating and then finding over the crossover with your fans. Once you are able to do that you start to cooking there then it rapidly becomes a lot easier to have a process by which you can start to do something substantial and which will generate prolonged interest in your band. Again – no one cares about your fucking outfits or you ‘fashion shoot’ that no one actually thinks is provocative, but if you continue to create content then things are going to end up working out in your favor piece by piece.

Now you might be saying that none of the big bands in you scene do this so you don’t understand why I’m saying that you need to be doing this – but again it’s because you’re not looking at content creation properly. The biggest bands in your scene are constantly doing interviews which get published everywhere. Simultaneously, they are all over social media, constantly getting ads done, going live and posting pictures of exciting things. If you do this well enough you can get surprisingly far. Just look at someone like Randy Blythe who has been able to turn his photo essays into a defining aspect of the Lamb Of God brand. That’s not unintentional on his part, he wanted to add a more intelligent aspect to a band frequently viewed as ‘bro metal’ and he did. This content creation also was able to make up for the gaps the band has had in their release schedule due to constant touring and of course his imprisonment in a Czech prison.

I have a theory that I plan on expounding upon more in a later article, but it basically goes like this – you need to be constantly creating content and it will inevitably pay off. I usually try and create three pieces of content a day when I’m at home, this translates to roughly 750-1000 pieces of content in a given year. It doesn’t make me a ton of money directly but it allows a lot of people to become familiar with my brand and lets me push my company to the next level. Ultimately content creation is for brand awareness and the more that you are able to generate significant brand awareness the more that it is going to become obvious that you are the real deal and people should pay attention. You need to be willing to turn every aspect of your band into a piece of content and the more that you are able to create then the more you are going to be able to refine this whole thing into something special and not more poser bullshit.

Of course – you’re allowed to just drop off the map for a little while. If you can’t afford to tour constantly and produce content from that and you have no desire to create content when not touring or recording music then you simply have to accept that you are occasionally going to drop off the map for a month or two and that’s fine. Sometimes you just need to accept the fact that you don’t need to be constantly on all the time. Instead you need to figure out what makes the most sense for your band. Some people are able to drive constantly and that allows their band to grow a lot more quickly. Other bands dip out for extended periods which allows them to create a big splash when they show up. Find your path and push it to the max.

Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.

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Neck Deep – A Review

by MATT BACON > So Neck Deep are back with another record. I know I’m a little behind he ball...
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Neck Deeps The Peace And The Panic Makes Me Fret – A Review

So Neck Deep are back with another record. I know I’m a little behind he ball on this one but I wanted to spend some time looking at this album and figuring out where it fits in the general pop punk canon. A genre that has really won a place in my heart in the last few years I’ve decided to apply my weird bug person brain to spending more time than necessary trying to figure out what this album is all about. Neck Deep have very rapidly ascended into the limelight, in a matter of three years they’ve gone from a buzzed about band in the underground to one of the most important groups in the scene. With their third record since 2014, The Peace And The Panic finally hitting our earholes there is a whole lot to unpack here. In a genre increasingly dominated by political correctness and the changing needs of a young fanbase, Neck Deep have shifted what they represent and created a truly fascinating piece of music.

What’s struck me about Neck Deep ever since I discovered them a few years ago is how perfectly polished they are and how everything about this band seems ideally calibrated to sell to a specific audience. That being said – the songs were always strong enough to overcome this. The band has always banked on truly great songwriting and positive and fun lyrics. That being said, Neck Deep has always had a much harder edge that I think has helped make them special. The sense that you got throughout the first two records was that sure the guys were playing pop punk but they could break out a few hardcore covers if they wanted to. They were always a fairly mosh band. This album pushes a little bit outside of that, adding a more pop element and even delving into moments of straight pop rock. That’s always a poser for a band like this one and suggests a strange new future for a band who made their reputation on being hard edged.

I think what really strikes me about this record though is the much more mainstream pop sensibility you feel throughout. There are some straight up pop ballads here, just look at a track like 19 Seventy Sumtin’ a total retrospective. In many ways tracks like this one, of which there are a handful on this record take away the bands teeth. Whereas on Life’s Not Out To Get You the track December was a standout and one that showed a more sensitive side to the band here we get those sensitive moments throughout. There are more than a few Tumblr esque quotes too, the sort of things you’d expect to see as a motivational meme. Now that’s totally cool, I get where the band is coming from – just look at how far Knuckle Puck have gotten with their positive anti-suicide message. That’s something you have to respect, but which takes away a little bit of what I think helped to make Neck Deep such a special band for so many people.

The shift here is essentially from a more nostalgic outlook, (Can’t Kick Up The Roots anyone?) to one that feels quite a bit more self aware, sentimental and even political. Sure there is a nostalgia ballad, Wish You Were Here, but again, it’s a ballad, it removes the balls that defined so much early Neck Deep. Even the track that was meant to prove that Neck Deep still have balls, Don’t Wait featuring Sam Carter of Architects seems to be the sort of polished metalcore stuff that is more the provenance of 15 year old girls than the easycore fanbase who started the hype around this band in the first place. That being said, there are a few harder edged moments here, like the final track Where Do We Go When We Go. Of course the poppier elements are hard to ignore and this oftentimes gets a little bit too preachy for my tastes. It certainly fits the band a lot of the time, but simultaneously I’m not sure if Neck Deep is where I want to go for facile political statements as much as I want music that relates to, what Modern Baseball called being “Stuck between my adolescent safety net and where the world wants me to be”.

That all being said, the band has been through a lot and their fans have too since 2015’s Life’s Not Out To Get You. The Trump presidency, the deaths of family members within the band and a general shift to a darker era of human existence all seem to justify lyrics like “I never thought I would see the day that the world went up in flames” When it comes down to it, I, like many Neck Deep fans, am scared right now. Neck Deep is the music of growing up and growing up in a world like ours is a terrifying fucking prospect. Whereas previous releases assured us of the universality of the human condition this record reminds us that there is an inherent terror to everything going on that we just can’t move past. It remind us that we have an obligation to ourselves and to our friends to fight for a better future and to work together on creating the sort of world that we all want to live in. Sure the lyrics are a little preachy, but isn’t that just a part of growing up?

So, I guess what I’m trying to say is that while yes, Neck Deep have made a significant shift with this record and I don’t like this record as much as I liked Life’s Not Out To Get You. That being said – this is still a helluva record and represents an interesting shift for the band. It shows us that these pop punkers aren’t committed to just trying to shout out to their hometown and pizza but rather that they are starting to develop intelligent political opinions and starting to realize the true power that their influence can have over their legion of youthful fans. This is a step forward for the band and one that will make you ask questions, so go out and pick it apart, it’s an engaging listen if nothing else and it will certainly have you coming back time and time again.

Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.

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Indie Bands Performing Live

by MATT BACON > There’s a lot that goes into making your band a good live act. It’s one of...
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Performing Live With Your Indie Band

There’s a lot that goes into making your band a good live act. It’s one of the hardest things that a band can do but also the thing that is going to make people actually care about your band. Just look at a band like KISS. Did they really deliver musically? Not really. But did they have a helluva live show that people still make a huge effort to go see to this day? Yes they did. This is a rule that defines the music industry to this day. Look at all the big pop artists out there, people don’t really care about what they do musically, they care about the spectacle, the presentation and all that is included within that. In a world where the physical product doesn’t matter and the live experience is just about the only tangible thing people can get out of this it makes a lot of sense to me that independent bands should be spending even more time on their live show. Yet so few do! They seem to think it will come naturally, not thinking about the importance of choreography.

The key thing that not a lot of people understand about this whole thing is that you don’t need to be a good musician to be a good performer, you need to be ready to perform. It’s one of those big secrets that no one seems to want to admit, because there is something extremely exclusionary about that. People seem to think that you can’t be taught how to be a good performer and this is patently untrue, in fact there are a few keys to being a good performer and I think that anyone who looks is going to know what defines those things. Obviously these things can vary from band to band, but I think that when you pick apart some of your favorite performers and what they do then you are going to pretty rapidly find a few defining traits that I think can be used in order to help grow your live show and turn into something special rather than just thinking that the show will magically come together somehow in a weird, magical and powerful way.

A lot of people on stage seem to refuse to acknowledge their audience. This is a multi level thing that people ignore. First and foremost is the fact that a lot of bands don’t even try to put on a show. They don’t try to pull moves on stage they don’t banter with the audience, they just kind of play, and most of the time that doesn’t work. Even the bands that choose not to talk to the audience try and have some semblance of a stage show. It might be understated, but even if they move across the stage with confidence and a bold appreciation for what they do then they find quite a bit more success. This is part of the whole inherent growth found in the music industry, you need to be willing to engage in shit and make sure that it grows with you rather than just doing whatever doesn’t make you too scared. I get that’s a hard thing to do, but it’s also what you need to do if you want folks to be excited about what your band has to say.

The other key thing to be aware of is that you need to know your audience. Be aware of what they are probably into and what they are probably not into, figure out which of your own interests are going to appeal to them and don’t ramble about stuff that doesn’t matter. That is to say, it doesn’t matter what your opinion of late 19th century anarchist politics is when you’re playing to a honky tonk bar, and similarly, if you’re performing to a group of twenty somethings it’s probably not wise to talk about your love for Donald Trump. There’s always going to be a few layers to any live show and multiple demographics represented in any audience, but you need to be able to identify what some of the core interests are and build upon that. This should be a part of your marketing plan, figuring out what your typical audience is going to want to hear and then coming up with some lines that make sense for them to connect with.

Finally, it’s important to be aware of the other acts on the bill and in your scene. It’s important to realize what other bands in the scene are doing, look at what they do that connects with other people and similarly try to see which bands people are just sitting through and figure out exactly why they are just sitting through them. It’s usually pretty easy to see why a band isn’t connecting with an audience. Usually it’s because they don’t have that charisma. They try to hard and fall over their own feet. It’s embarrassing to watch local bands a lot of the time simply because they don’t understand where they are in life and they try too hard to be rock stars. They should be selling a different type of fantasy, one of “You can do this too!” but instead they emulate the wrong people and alienate potential fans. It’s a very real struggle and finding the balance in terms of how you want to sell your band is never going to be an obvious thing.

At the end of the day – try and ask your friends for critiques of your live show, play with a little more energy and you should start to get somewhere reasonable. You need to be cognizant of where you are in life and then sit down and reevaluate your position so that you can continue to grow your brand on the stage, the place where it really matters. The stage is the single biggest struggle for bands trying to make it, and most of them will never get past a very basic level because they never learn how to create a performance that people really care about. I know it might feel hokey and silly, but if you’re a truly great performer or at least put the work in then you are goingto find a way to make it work.

Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.

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