James Moore's Blog, page 65

Youth Venues And You

One of the most under documented and yet incredibly important parts of the underground music scene are obscure little all ages and high school friendly venues. Usually they are run by someone in their mid 20s and they often play host to countless peoples first bands and helps them with their underage members who stop them from being able to go beyond. America is not a place that is often very kind to the young artist but these venues are able to give us all of the freedom that we need to explore our art, start a scene and slowly begin to realize where we can come in and what we can do to help our scene to expand and, at the end of the day, become a larger part of what we are all working towards as we drive around the country time and time again in shitty vans, engaging in the simple suffering that our love of DIY leaves us to. I’ve been having flashbacks to my own favorite youth crew venue and wanted to take some time to look at them and how they can help your band.

Now I want to clarify up top the difference between a youth venue and a DIY venue – because there is a notable difference that you need to confront. A DIY venue is typically run by crazy crust punks, is in a shitty part of town and is probably super illegal. Odds are a few people live there and that only serves to add to the charm. A lot of these traits are shared with youth venues, but be aware that these places generally cater to a slightly older demographic. The defining traits of youth venues are that they tend to be a little more official, making the high school kids who attends parents a little more comfortable with their kids going. It’s also usually run, like I said, by someone in their mid 20s with a good understanding of business. They probably went to college, played in bands and are usually capable of making a positive impression on the kids parents. That’s why a lot of times these take place in more established businesses – it makes things run a lot more smoothly.

The big thing to remember with these sorts of places is the emphasis on equality and DIY principles. These spaces are frequently driven by the concept that an 16 year old can start booking the next Modern Baseball. They focus on leftist politics, creating a community of disenfranchised high school kids, and working together to make things better. In other words they capture all of the things that I love writing about. Of course there are a lot of limitations because the people doing this are in fucking high school or college a lot of the time. They don’t know shit about shit, and that’s fine. We don’t need to attack them for that. We simply need to be aware that if you get booked with a slightly higher than normal guarantee and end up getting fucked out of your money you shouldn’t be upset. Remember these are the formative grounds for our kids and we want them to be able to learn in a positive way that brings everyone up.

Now for these reasons we find that these youth venues are frequently a little sketchy to book and I totally get why some people might not be totally comfortable playing them. The sound systems aren’t always the best and sometimes you have to deal with simply atrocious opening bands breaking out the same fucking tired covers or bands who simply don’t fit in your genre at all. That’s just how these things go and you need to accept that if you’re going to play youth venues. By the same token realize that you can really inspire some kids with what you’re doing. If you reach out to them and give them a chance sometimes they will impress you and in many cases you can view working with them as a long term investment. Maybe they suck as a promoter now and can’t get anything good done, but who knows? Down the line they might end up being a monster of a industry guy who won’t forget the kindness you showed them.

I think my favorite part of a lot of these venues is how they are such a place of ‘first’ for so many of the bands and people involved. Countless of these spots see first shows, first joints and first loves. You watch high schoolers start smoking menthols non stop so that the older kids think they are cool, you see 21 year old excitedly buying handles of liquor and then chugging them in what they think is a discrete fashion, and then puking in the alley the bands are supposed to load in from. This is one of my favorite parts of this whole thing – the sort of innocence that you have before shit gets rough and you spend your 20s in the back of a van, fighting off hangovers and screaming at the sheer suffering that you are crushed under. So we have the youth venues to introduce us to the beautiful and young lust of the scene and to entrance us with all that this music can allegedly provide, before crushing our wallets into simple oblivion.

So I encourage you to embrace youth venues. Maybe don’t bank your personal future on them but realize that they represent the future of our scene. All of your favorite bands from the next five years are germinating in these places right now, building on old formulas and hinting at so much more to come. Independent music is something that takes a long time to come to fruition so it makes sense that the people doing it in high school now are the ones who are going to be able to find some sort of future in it down the line. Sure most of it is nihilistic, cutesy and kind of silly – but don’t you want to join me and just do your best in order to believe?

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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Exhibitionism is a Hoarder’s House of Rolling Stones History

To get to the Rolling Stones’ traveling career retrospective, Exhibitionism, you have to follow the path of many tongues through Chicago’s Navy Pier. Just when you begin feeling lost the band’s iconic tongue logo appears in three-dimensional plaster cast glory standing five feet tall and directs you further still. After tongue number five it becomes like walking down some long backstage corridor at a Stones stadium concert.

Exhibitionism opened in Chicago this past April and will run until July 30. London had it in 2016 and Australia will have it in 2018. It is a dizzying walk through the history of rock and roll’s greatest act, making a path to each of their formidable excesses.

The museum opens, humbly, into a recreation of the group’s early 1962 Edith Grove apartment (see: flat) in West London where rock and roll grew like fungus on the wall. The details are nearly exact right down to the scattered 45s and show fliers. Standing in the middle it’s easy to imagine Keith sitting on the long, thin couch strumming Chuck Berry on the guitar and putting out cigarettes.

Going forward, the focus turns to the tools of the trade. Numerous guitars are displayed — used by Richards, Ron Wood, Brian Jones, Mick Taylor, Darryl Jones — but the coolest instrument, by far, is Charlie’s sky-blue Ludwig Pearl used from 1965-68. The set that would’ve traveled with the group as they shot to fame sits behind a short wall of glass. I could almost reach out and start a beat. It was like seeing an ancient tool used by the Aztecs or a headdress worn by the Aborigines.

Surrounding Watts’ set was a recreated studio of various instruments used throughout the 60s and 70s including Glyn Johns’ mixing board, Bobby Keys’ sax and Richards’ 1969 Ampeg Dan Armstrong guitar made with plexiglas.

The place was just littered with Stones memorabilia: teenage diary entries, original lyric sheets, master copies, sternly written censorship requests for the lyrics to “Some Girls,” miniature recreations of their gigantic stadium shows. An interactive mixing board allowed you to put on headphones and remix a databank of songs. “Miss You,” with just Wyman’s bass turned up and Mick spitting all over the mic, is slimy desperation and releases chills.

Andy Warhol, who lurks in the background of Stones history, had representation in a section dedicated to album art–one of the more fascinating areas of the museum. Warhol’s crotch-shot Polaroids for the cover of Sticky Fingers, as well as variations of Love You Live, were displayed. The evolution of their always alluring albums covers laid out under glass.

Exhibitionism definitely calls for hardcore Stones fans–of which there are many. The casual fan, if they even exist, might start to get bored by the time the fashion show and the stage recreations come around. The full production leaves you with a sense of the Rolling Stones’ astounding history and how they’ve not only created music’s most recognizable body of work, but also took every aspect of the industry to its absolute limit. Who else, but the Stones, could bank on millions for blown-out world tour spectacles decade after decade and still maintain their integrity? Their influence reaches far and wide and forever on the world will be licked by the tongue of rock and roll.

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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Nirvana Is The Key To DIY Music

What if I told you the most influential rock band of the last thirty years was fronted by a guy whose favorite bands included Swans and Celtic Frost? What if I told you that this band, after their mainstream breakout release then proceeded to put out a surprisingly challenging experimental rock record, and then, after the main songwriters suicide, put out a possibly even more difficult to listen too series of B sides? Because that happened. That band is Nirvana and they are the band who have shaped the lives of everyone who has picked up an instrument and decided to be in a rock band since 1991 whether they realize it or not. I’m not talking about a musical influence, though that’s certainly there. I’m talking more about the cultural significance that this band had and the way that they were able to totally change how many of us, myself included, even go about approaching our work in the underground music scene.

I think the first important thing to realize about Nirvana is how gleefully they broke al of the rules, even within a major label context. At the music industry’s most bloated, sycophantic and stupid moment Nirvana and the rest of grunge came along and leveled it. Not only that though – Nirvana’s music is a lot more challenging than people who only listen to the classics give it credit. Just try and wind your way through all the weird drones, moans and squeals that define the more interesting parts of their three studio records. This is shit that sits alongside some of the most important rock songs ever written. Kurt Cobain and his merry men did not give a fuck and broke rules and pushed boundaries in which even DIY experimental bands might have to struggle with for a little bit before finding any real success. It helps to make Nirvana’s discography surprisingly fascinating for the musicologist, since it’s SUCH an anomaly.

One of the keys here is that even after they had mainstream success Nirvana didn’t stop breaking rules even after their mainstream success. Kurts initial plan for In Utero was to release a much harsher version first and then offer up the record we know and love today. While it was never recorded in a studio we do have some demos and… holy shit are they vicious. I think that’s the key difference between Nirvana and other bands that have underground roots who blew up around this time. For example – Metallica never were able to go back to creating vital and angry thrash metal after releasing The Black Album. By the same token, Guns N Roses lost a lot of their grit once they got big. Kurt Cobain decided to just write even harder to listen too stuff, start doing heroin and eventually kill himself. I’m obviously not condoning heroin use or suicide but there is a certain degree of insane artistry to that.

The other important thing to appreciate with Nirvana is how they came out of the DIY scene I praise surprisingly quickly. Within a span of about two years Nirvana went from playing basements to headlining stadium shows and all of Kurts friends bands getting signed to major labels. Hell – his favorite band, The Melvins even went on to tour with KISS. They provided a blueprint for all of us. It was a blueprint that was almost immediately put into effect by the immediate next generation of bands, groups like Weezer who found success using the model that Nirvana showed to the world only a few years prior. The whole success of Nirvana is highly abnormal to be sure, but when you go to DIY venues and see rock bands with heavy tone and half screamed vocals you can’t help but to feel like those bands are trying to recapture the magic. Again this happened near peak-bloat in the industry, as glam came crashing down, suggesting that these sorts of insane Cinderella stories could happen just about anytime.

Finally I just want to touch on a personal side – which is how Nirvana was really the first heavy music that many of my older peers ever heard. With a period in the early 90s dominated by the corniness of Metallica and the bands who would eventually turn into nu metal, Nirvana as providing something insane and vicious, something that you simply couldn’t get anywhere else and which as unafraid to break every rule in the book in the name of crafting a bolder and more fucked up future for the music. I know countless devastating doom metal bands who came up out of small towns just because the local Wal Mart happened to carry the first Nirvana record and so countless aspiring musicians were able to get their eyes opened to music that their parents never would have showed them nor which they would have heard on the radio, at least not before Nirvana. Sure that changed later on – but talk about a hel of a starting point!

It’s hard to underestimate how much this band was able to craft how we view underground music. Even modern darlings know that it was Nirvana who were instrumental in inspiring people to create the web of DIY venues that spread across the country and which we all use in order to grow our bands. They helped to make sure that the USA would have a vibrant DIY culture for years to come and we have countless bands who have come out of that, bands who haven’t been musically influenced by Nirvana in the least but who also know that they owe a debt to the dudes who saw a future in this weird thing and created something that we all could use as a resource in times of adversity and which would only support the art.

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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The State Of Festivals Today

Festivals are in a weird place right now and I’m not sure how I feel about it. Obviously we have seen an influx in festivals in recent years, especially smaller ones thrown together by local promoters who are able to make two or three tour packages intersect simultaneously. We are also seeing a fair amount of new blood entering the major festival market and creating events that routinely bring out a few thousand people. Now that’s certainly something to get behind since it means more money and a better overall experience for the artist. However, an time in the industry when things like this start to blow up we also find that corporate interests get involved and this can so often lead to a lot of negative bullshit that hurts the collective rather than giving us the chance that we collectively need to be able to use these for everyone’s advantage. So I wanted to look at all of this, and think about how it could help out your band.

The main thing to realize is that the way that the big wigs have it sorted it’s almost impossible to break out with a big festival of your own unless you have a very long time frame and are both very independent and very wealthy. That is to say – a lot of the big breakout festivals you see that disappear after a year or two get lost in the shuffle not just because they aren’t profitable but because the amount of work is insane and no one took the time to learn how to prepare for the build up that that sort of thing needs. The festivals that seem to be able to grow into cool things are the ones that take years and years to get there. For example Hellfest started out as a small 1000 person festival run by a local promoter who then after a decade started to finally craft it into something transcendent, massive and truly special. They realized that if they went hard right away the learning curve and expenditures would be too much and they would surely fail.

Learning cures and expenditures aren’t the only reason that it’s so hard to set up a festival though. If you take some time to look – a lot of these big festivals end up getting crushed out by massive promotion companies who will book similar events in a similar time frame in a similar location for the year after the breakout event. Yeah you might think that would ruin the massive promoters revenue, but their monopoly is worth so much that they can take a hit on a festival like that in order to maintain market dominance. If you’re the only game in town you get everything your way. While those massive promotion companies certainly can claim to have positive morals I think it’s easy to see why so many of us get frustrated. They are unafraid to make sure that competition doesn’t flourish and continue to keep their club sealed up. While we are starting to see some changes within that structure I think that with the dominance of festivals in recent years it’s easy to see why major industry figures would want to keep them on lock.

Now you also need to use this dominance of festivals to your advantage. While the big fests are certainly kept pretty tightly under lock and key that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be trying to create a database of smaller festivals your band could conceivably play on. Not only are the guarantees usually a bit better, things tend to be run a lot more smoothly, you have more people to play in front of and thus win over, and consequently you have a much larger chance to making a killing on merchandise. On top of that you get to network with industry people and see all of your friends in bands. Of course – festivals can afford to be highly selective these days since so many bands want to take part, but if you can start to break into that world then you are only going to find profit at the end of the day. People joke about how you can literally just tour from festival to festival these days – and when it comes down to it – why the fuck not?

Like I said though – a lot of this can be very tricky and requires a lot of foresight and networking on your part. You are going to need to make databases and get a million connections if you want to start figuring out a productive way forward with this. Ask all your friends and then some, keep pushing and developing in order to create a database that can really work for you. One little trick I’ve found is to hit up organizers on Facebook – it will catch them a little bit off guard if you get them in that less formal contact and they will be more likely to talk to you. From their it’s just a question of having good enough music for them to be interested and consequently bite. It’s not always that easy, but if you have a strong network it’s not out of the question to be able to sit down and start to develop which options make the most sense for you and then figure out how to access those.

Festivals are kind of the best and they are in a position that is tricky to say the least. We need to collectively realize this and then work together on finding ways to make sure that we don’t end up hurting ourselves. Most people booking festivals legitimately care about the scene and just want to give their friends money. Even the big players who do what are now essentially touring festivals just under different names in different markets, are, in my opinion, usually trying to do what is best for the artist and guide them into figuring out ways forward that are going to help even underground bands in subtle ways. Sure it’s not always easy but it is a helluva time and something you need to embrace if you want to get big.

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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Nobody Knows Anything – The Pain Of The Industry

One of the most frustrating parts of the industry is dealing with the fact that you can’t really expect anyone to know things. This is a perpetual struggle I’ve run into time and time again, be it for smaller bands not getting that no, you can’t tour when you only have 200 Facebook fans and 3 pieces of press on you, or bigger bands just totally failing at social media and creating something that only hurts their brand. And yet we find ourselves constantly confronting these realities and wrestling with unfortunate cases of bands who refuse to learn their place and others who just refuse to learn. On top of that of course you have to look at labels, managers and other industry people. Just because you work well with someone and think they have cool clients doesn’t mean that you are going to be on easy street. Even major managers can have a hard time with some of the finer points of the music industry, leading to frustration on both ends.

Now this applies to me too, I’m by now means a guru, as my frequent typos on this blog suggest. Everyone is constantly learning and this is why you need to build a team who can work with you in order to build a better tomorrow. Learning things is not easy, it takes a lot of time and is going to drive you up a wall more than a few times a day. This is especially frustrating in the world of music where the margins are so small and the hours required to be put in are so high. Learning all of these things can seem like a Sisyphean task. So this leads to a couple of things that you need to start to realize as you look to go forward in the industry and try to develop your brand and product, be that music, management, a label or whatever the fuck else. The amount of knowledge required in this industry is frankly insane – there are a few people who try and know it all but the most successful people get there by having a strong network.

When it comes down to it you need to come to accept that people don’t know things and you need to start carefully laying shit out for them in order to make their lives easier. It’s hard to lay this out so it’s not condescending, so it’s often best t present vital bits of information that need to be communicated in the form of “I know you know this, but just to make sure we’re on the same page check this out…” remember that if you suggest that people have certain attributes then they will engage in those attributes. If you act like those people are the scum of the earth or dumb then they are going to do nothing to live up to it. Being officious and trying to throw your weight around isn’t going to get you anywhere. Being patient and kind is going to get people to respond positively to whatever you need and work with you on building a better future.

A very dear friend once spoke to me about this selfsame problem and said that when it comes down to it you just need to give your best 20%. If you are good at 20% of the things that you need in order to have a successful music industry brand then you are going to find success because you and blend your 20% with other peoples 20% and while there certainly might be some overlap, there also is going to be new stuff that you can’t handle on your own. Reaching out and bringing this knowledge from back to front, up and down is going to give you the sort of long term success that you want for your project to thrive. This is why you need to keep growing your team, because sooner or later you are going to have a group established who can tackle all aspects of the industry and make for a better and brighter future for everyone.

The obvious lesson that this ties too is that networking is key. You need to constantly be able to find the next person who you can work with to bring both of your careers forward. You need to embrace the constant struggle that this industry can represent and use that as a way to drive forward. Sure you might just be friends with someone today but you know that three or four years down the line you might need to work with them and be able to create something great that the two of you can build up regularly. No one reasonable expects you to know everything but the do expect you to work fucking hard and bring new stuff to the table. Ow this applies to everyone. If you show you have an attitude of hard work and stick-to-itiveness that you can blend with a certain degree of likeability you are going to find success. You just need to be able to call attention to the 20% of the industry that you have somewhat under control and try to see how that can blend with other peoples talents.

I know that this is frustrating – in fact I would make the argument that general cluelessness is the way that the music industry usually shakes out. If you want to get far in this game you are going to have to have more than a little patience and a willingness to humbly explain shit that you think is simple. The ‘teacher’ element is going to be strong as you try and grow. Again just remember that you only need to have totally mastered a small chunk of it and you need to have a servants heart, even when networking. But if you’re smart and dedicated to your craft then finding a path is going to gradually become evident. Just realize that the constant explaining is just a part of it, it’s not you having dumb friends, everyone is a little dumb and love is the answer.

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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Being An Auxiliary Dude

It’s okay to not be the main dude in your bad. I know I’ve written about this a little bit before ,bu I wanted to grow on this. I feel like my “Main dude” article cold have been perceived as slightly condescending wen that was not at all the intention. Rather I wanted to suggest that you don’t need to be the main dude in our band if you don’t want to. You don’t need to be the main dude in any band. It is perfectly possible to have a successful career as a musician whilst maintaining a fairly minimal interest in management, so long as you’re good at making friends with people and, of course, are damn good at your instrument of choice. That’s a simple fact that’s been going on for literally centuries now. Hell – a lot of these people aren’t even that good at emailing or any of that other stuff I rant on about. They just do what they like to do best and are able to find a fair amount of success going forward with that, and that’s great.

One thing that binds these, if you will, successful auxiliary dudes, together is that they realize the balance of power that this leaves them with. They understand that since they aren’t trying to run the band they need to take a back seat. They need to appreciate that there are other people in the band who really care about the future of their project and they let those people do their thing. They don’t hold up the process by insisting on seeing contracts they don’t understand or simply don’t care about, and they don’t try and propose ideas that they will never follow through on. They realize that there are people out there who genuinely care about that and they let those people do that. They maintain an active role in the band and try to remain friendly and helpful but again – they realize that the main dude is coming through to take care of a lot of the big stuff and they are unafraid to let the waves wash over them because they are willing to trust.

A big part of this is because they focus on what makes them special. That is to say they concentrate on their musicianship and their creativity. They focus on generating top quality content in a timely fashion. They shake hands and drink beers with the industry people at shows and they hone their craft into something truly special. They also do their best to not embarrass the band – which is in many ways a part of the craft of being in a band. I think the key though is that as much as you will work on building up your brand and creating something greater they do their best to be a positive influence on the band and don’t act entitled. As much as it’s okay to realize that you want to be an auxiliary dude or just a musician you can’t hold back the process by insisting on having everything your way or trying to take control of some aspect of the band that holds things back. I’ve seen those attitudes rip bands apart, and you can’t afford to have them.

Another key in being a good auxiliary dude is being communicative. I know I emphasize this all the time but guess what – it’s probably the single most important part of being in a band. If you are a auxiliary dude but you can’t get back within 24 hours about whether or not you can play a show, are going to miss a rehearsal or whatever then you’re not really in a position to try and be in a band that does cool things. People miss out on keys like this frequently and perpetually shooting themselves in the foot is not a good look – and yet so many bands get held back because of an auxiliary dude who is a flake but who they keep in the band because ‘he’s such a nice guy’ or ‘he’s a drummer’. Valid reasons to be sure – but you need to evaluate your place in the band. Guess what – if you don’t want to be the main dude that’s totally fine but you can’t hold up your peers because you’re trying to take your time on stuff that doesn’t actually matter to you.

That’s a huge part of this by the way – the willingness to let go of what doesn’t matter to you. Odds are if you’re not trying to be the main dude and you work in a gas station then a record contract isn’t going to affect you either way – it’s not like your expecting to make money off of this bullshit that we call the music industry anyway. By the same token – if you say your schedule is clear to play shows, make sure it’s clear. Realize what matters to you and then let go of the rest. If you want to create an internal list in your band of what matters to who, then you’re going to probably end up doing a little bit better. Like I’ve said in other pieces on this site – having stuff written down is going to make your entire life as a band a helluva lot easier. It also take a fair degree of personal maturity, to realize where you want to go and how you want to develop, the future you want to build and the relationships that you want to make sure you have.

As I wrap up I think that what a lot of this articles is trying to tackle is toxic attitudes in band members. When it comes down to it a lot of auxiliary dudes think that because they aren’t responsible for band affairs they can just go out and get ridiculously fucked up and embarrass the band since – after all – they aren’t the main people involved in the project! I think a big part of my frustration with music is its ability to attract adults who act like children, and I’m sure that many of you reading this article feel similarly. That being said – I don’t have much of a world outside of music so maybe people are just generally shitty. In the long run – none of this really matters. What does matter is that you try your best to be the best band member you can be and then you build from there.

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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Disappearing Music Contacts And You

Something that you need to be aware of in the music industry is peoples incredible ability to disappear. I know it sounds corny and even a little USSR-like but when it comes down to it, people ghosting you is a serious issue that you’re going to have to face if you want to progress in a concrete way in this industry. I wanted to talk about a few reasons as to why this happens and what you can do in order to protect yourself from people who have a tendency to disappear and to make sure that you don’t inadvertently get involved with one of these people. While the majority of the flaky types that I will be talking about in this piece are the record labels that so many artists have sworn off of I think that there are also important things to be aware of for booking agents, managers and anyone else who can have a significant amount of power over your band. It’s not always easy to deal with, but getting out ahead of it will always be worth it.

First of all – why do some people choose to disappear and screw your band over? This is one of the most important bits to understand. When it comes down to it a lot of this happens because people are asking for money up front and then not helping out down the line. Other times, frequently in the case of a label, it comes time for them to invest a little bit more into the band and once more they find that they haven’t gotten quite the money they thought they were going to this quarter so they just straight up ignore the artist and hope they go away. Of course this gets frustrating because if , for example, a label has the exclusive rights to your record you can’t exactly print more. This also gets frustrating when they will talk to you about other stuff but not your issue in question. Other times people think that they simply can’t take your project any further and don’t want to be mean. I’ve written about this before – people in the industry don’t like saying no and this leads to a lot of wasted time and frustration.

I think one of the key things to work into any contract in order to make sure that you can always have an out is term limits. This is especially good for record labels and booking agents. If they want exclusive right over product or shows you want to be able to have a fixed point when you can get out of those agreements without it hurting you. It also gives them an incentive to work hard for you to keep the relationship going. That being said – if you have no limits then it rapidly becomes a ethical question and if you step out of line then it’s not hard for a industry figure with the right set of connections to slam you with a breach of contract and a lawsuit that will leave you up to your ears in legal fees. If the person you are working with is reputable then they won’t have an issue with putting down a term. If they don’t want to put down a term then they are essentially banking on your hard work and hoping to fuck you over in the future.

One of the other easy ways to make sure that people disappearing on you isn’t going to ruin you is to be sure of when they are going into breach of contract. There are a lot of things tied into disappearing that can be listed as breach of contract. For managers and agents this takes the form in some clause about the person in question having to work ‘to the best of their abilities’ for labels this often takes the form of late royalty payments or inability to provide new product. Frequently artists end up caught up not realizing that the people holding them back have been in breach of contract for years. Of course, the people behind these contracts usually know this, they also know that the artist will rarely check and frequently doesn’t have the background that they need in order to be able to figure out the simple realities of the business and why they could be making quite a bit more money than they presently are stuck with.

The best way of course to evade any of these unfortunate realities is regular communication. I’ve emphasized this before – but people usually don’t disappear on their friends. If you can remain a close contact for folks then you are going to routinely find that they are less likely to disappear on you. In fact in some cases they might even feel that you disappeared on them, and if you go back in the messages exchanged between the two of you it may be easy to see why they think that’s the case. The music industry isn’t exactly a kind place and you need to remember the significance of staying in peoples faces and reminding them time and time again why you got involved together in the first place. Again – some people are simply there to take your money, but you need to be able to look past them. Scams are sometimes hard to read, and sometimes the scammer thinks they have your best interests at heart – which is why you need to stay in touch.

When it comes down to it there isn’t that much you can do about people flaking on you. There are countless stories about tours being canned because a band member couldn’t get their shit together or an agent decided to dip out at exactly the wrong moment. These things drive folks like me up the fucking wall because all that we really want is to be able to help everyone make money. People who disappear don’t have the long term vision of this whole thing their heads and thus will never get to grow up alongside everyone else for the biggest piece of the pie possible. As is we need to all embrace where we are and try to have a longer time horizon in order to coordinate on a future for our music that remains fresh and innovative.

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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The Most Important Stat For Indie Bands To Check

I want to take some time today to talk to you about the single most important statistic when measuring the success of your band, especially in the live arena. It’s a statistic that can help you to see if you are for real or a pretender, a band in a position to do great things or merely another group of frauds fucked from first to last. This is the question of merch per head. If your merch per head sales are good then it’s clear that you are on the upswing. If they suck, well then you might need to reevaluate what your band is doing in terms of branding, booking and marketing and then try and determine a better way forward for growing the brand that you believe in. While there are no hard and fast rules for this sort of thing I did want to take some time to give you a few general ideas about attacking this concept so that we could hopefully move on from there and work together on benefiting a scene that we all born to come out and love.

First of all it’s important to understand what merch per head is and why it is significant. Merch per head is the dollar amount of merchandise that you sell at a show divide by the number of people in attendance. Now this is important because if you have a low number it mens that people don’t really care about your band enough to spend extra money after the door on merch and since merch is where the majority of independent bands make their money if people don’t care enough to buy merch than you are not doing too well. By the same token you can use as a high merch pr head as justifying a larger guarantee since it means that people are coming to support your band or that they were all so won over by your band that they bought a ton of merch in order to show impressed they were and stoked about the performance. If you can prove your ability to do either of these things then you are going to wind up with a lot more measurable success.

Now assigning a value as to what exactly your merch per head should be can be a little bit tricky because a lot of it is largely situational. Furthermore this is really only a statistic that starts applying once you’re a bigger local band and your merch sales are going beyond just friends and family. As a general rule of thumb I like to say that if a band isn’t moving more than $5 per head on headlining dates then they need to reevaluate their delivery. Now this can depend on market, as some regions have more money than others and it can also depend on the bill. If for example you are headlining over a small touring band then of course you are going to see the touring band make more money if for no other reason than that people go out of their way to support groups like that. By the same token, if you are say, the first of five bands on a touring package then obviously no one is there for you and you shouldn’t expect to be selling as much merch per head.

In fact a big part of figuring this whole thing out is determining if the merch per head is determining not only the factors that influence your merch per head but also what is going to influence that based on the types of shows you play. This can be surprisingly tricky and I think that spending a little more time in order to get a better idea of how these things work would be god for any band. It’s always helpful to compare notes and try to see which bands are doing well on merch per head and try to figure out why that is. This is perhaps the most important part of being in a band since it’s how you are going to make sure that you have a regular source of income and that your band is still something people care about. That isn’t a truth a lot of people want to face but it’s one that we need to embrace if we are trying to wrap our heads around creating a sustainable dynamic for your band down the line. It’s easy to suck your own dick, it’s more important to figure out what actually matters.

Also important to think about is what you do when you see that your merch per head is really low. I think it’s important to remember that you are shooting for a $5/head figure and a good way to start towards that is to have a lot of cheap items. Many people can be alienated by a high financial bar of entry for more standard pieces of merchandise. However if you can have an item that costs $5 or below and an exuberant merch person then you are going to rapidly find yourself in a position where even folks who don’t really give a shit about your band are going to find themselves engaged in conversation and boosting that average. I’ve talked about other ways to boost merch sales in past articles too, but I think it’s important to remember that you’re shooting for an average here and if you can try and keep a running total going as you push through your night and respond organically then I think you’re going to find some interesting opportunities.

When I was a kid I was obsessed with baseball cards and I loved it when I could find an exciting new stat that calculated a players performance better than ever and could give you an even better edge when predicting how things were going to go in the next few years for your favorite team. In many ways this love of statistics has carried over to my love of music and the merch per head calculation is one of those stats that tells you a lot more about how a given show went than any raw numbers that someone might spit up. You want to gather a legion of fans all willing to pay a few bucks at merch and by following these numbers you are going to find yourself growing increasingly close to longterm successes.

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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Contracts Are A Good Thing

One of the things that bands seem to screw up the most and give me the most headaches with is contracts. Now this isn’t really a complaint – it’s the fact that I can read contracts and understand them that makes me able to have a job after all. I think the issue is moreover that a lot of bands sign contracts that are borderline incomplete or that go out of their way to fuck over the artist. A lot of musicians are rightfully scared of contracts but a lot of the time it feels like a lot of their fears merely come from the fact that they are unwilling to spend the time in order to make sure that things are at least remotely above board. Maybe it’s a difference in thinking or maybe I’m missing something but I feel like there are a few things that we need to sit down and discuss in order to help get unsigned artists a little more comfortable with the realities that define the industry and which these contracts are going to inevitably bring to their careers.

Now I’ve written in the past about how a lot of the biggest relationships in the music industry don’t have contracts and are mere handshake deals. Now that’s all well and good. It’s how a lot of people operate and it makes their lives a lot easier. However there is a sort of unwritten risk there in terms of reputations and relationships. While I’m certainly comfortable with handshake deals and have made a lot of money off of them I also think that artists need to be a little bit leery eyed especially if the people in question are going to be owing them lots of money. It’s good to have a relationship where you know that there is a term to the agreement, that you will get accounting sheets and all of that other good stuff. If you’re not getting any sort of feedback from whoever you shook hands with six months after a deal and they allegedly owe you thousands well you’re kind of boned right? That’s where we run into perhaps the key roadblock bands suffer from.

Artists need to realize that contracts are oftentimes for their benefit and a vague contract does not mean that they will be able to take advantage of the other party but rather the opposite. Look at it this way – labels are putting out, in many cases, dozens of records in a year, you put out maybe one every two years. Who do you think is going to be more adept at reading contracts and figuring out how to take advantage of the other party? Here’s a hint – it’s the side who have invested in a legal team and who do this a whole lot. The industry is not an easy space to navigate and if you get locked up in a vague and immoral gridlock then it’s only your fault when things start to fall apart at the seams and you start to sense that your band is not on as stable footing as you might have liked. It’s not that labels and the like are trying to screw over artists but rather that they aren’t always trying to foist money upon you. Rather they are trying to make a profit for both parties, you just need to be there to claim it.

There’s also a few red flags that you need to check up on even if you don’t know a lot about contracts. First and foremost if the person in question isn’t willing to offer up a contract but only wants to do a handshake deal then they are clearly screwed. Which sucks and is only going to hurt them down the line. Furthermore – if you are handed a contract and the clauses numbers jump it probably means that some key language which the band probably could have used to their advantage, has been probably removed. Just because something looks like boilerplate doesn’t mean that it’s boilerplate and if people insist that it’s boilerplate then it really isn’t boilerplate and you need to spend even more time. It’s probably good to try and read a few sample contracts that you can find online to try and identify key elements for whatever type of contract you are going to sign in order to make sure that they key elements are there.

I think it’s also important to come to terms with one of the most unfortunate parts of the music industry, that simply put, a lot of contracts serve to only screw artists and no matter how hard you try you are going to find unending struggles and no matter what happens to you in this industry you are going to continually wind up fucked, even by labels that you thought you could trust. That’s just the way the news foes and if you constantly are pushing for unrealistic targets then you are just going ot be a laughingstock and people are going to start to realize that this isn’t an industry where we can easily find a way forward but rather one that we have to sometimes compromise our values in the name of sharing our art with the world at large. I know that’s an unfortunate thing to take in but it’s also how things always pan out.

Long story short – contracts are not a bad thing and they can protect you but also be aware that the industry is heartless and you need to just suck it up and move on if you want to have access to some of the coolest opportunities out there. Sure it’s not always easy and sure it’s not always going to be the sort of thing that you want to get involved in to but when it comes down to it you need to make choices that make the most sense for your band in the long term. I know that it’s not easy and that you actually have to *Gasp* spend money and stretch your brain for serious forward motion but that’s just the way the gods built it. I know these articles generally get bitter so please be the change you want to see in the world and work on your contract game guys!

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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Went to See At The Drive-In & All I Got Was This Bruised Rib

Cedric Bixler-Zavala pointing to the door, with At The Drive-In, May 2017. All photos by Eli Jace.

It started with maracas. An afro outlined in white light. Then a train-chugging drum roll along the tom-toms to start off “Arcarsenal,” the first track off the seventeen-year-old album, Relationship of Command. “I must’ve read a thousand faces!” At The Drive-In singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala screamed.

When the rumbling breaks, the opening verse brings all the power and rage of lost innocence. The crowd was an instant cyclone of human bodies, arms up, gasping for air with each lyric. “Have you ever tasted skin?” Bixler asked. On this night we came for the internal bruising. “Sink your! Sink your teeth into!”

At The Drive-In played The Marquee Theater in Tempe, Arizona on May 8th, three days after the release of their new, long hoped for album, in•ter a•li•a. Their fourth album arrives four presidencies and countless international tragedies since their third. Relationship of Command was released in 2000 and soon after, to the surprise of almost everyone involved, they broke up.

The members would all ride the burgeoning success of ATDI to form multiple bands: Sparta, The Mars Volta, Le Butcherettes, Sleepercar, Crime In Choir, Bosnian Rainbows, Antemasque–the list extends. None ever did or would do it quite like ATDI. They toured briefly during festival season in 2012, but this feels more like a real comeback (absent Jim Ward), even if for only one album.

They kept with Relationship coming next to the punching drum roll that opens “Pattern Against User.” And just like that seventeen years went to dust.

The first new song played was the first song of the new album, “No Wolf Like the Present.” The energy hit the crowd like a giant carpet was pulled from underneath them. The breakneck rhythm forced us to break our necks swept up in the swirl. Following was, “Call Broken Arrow,” with the addicting refrain, “And he’s always stealing flowers / from my stone, stone, stone.”

Cedric, dressed finely black head-to-toe, has the same presence on stage. But, thicker in the neck, slower on the uptake. No snake-crawling across the stage. He steadies himself before standing on top of the bass drum. Looks before he leaps. But still leaps into the crowd and moves like his feet are shrinking. He’d let the microphone fall and kick it back up in a perfect half-circle, always retaining it in time for the next lyric.

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez wore a skin-tight turtleneck with his hair cut back and glasses firmly up on his nose through all the thrashing. Rodriguez-Lopez, who pulled double duty opening with Le Butcherettes, played like Jimmy Page with his hair on fire. He made the guitar cry and choke, dropping tears of feedback in a circle around him. The rest of the band, Tony Hajjar on drums, Keely Davis on guitar and Paul Hinojos on bass, stuck to the gig at hand.

The songs you’d most want to hear from ATDI arrived like injections of toxic nostalgia:  “Invalid Letter Dept.,” “Napoleon Solo,” “One Armed Scissor.” There was a moment of magic when the entire crowd sang breathlessly along to “Sleepwalk Capsules” as the song finds reprieve from Bixler’s poetic lacerations. “Lazarus threw the party. Lazarus threw the fight,” in tones desperate and helpless, “Lazarus threw the party! Lazarus threw the fight!”

They played half of the new album and those songs cemented into the old ones like a cinder block fence. They all felt like long-lost hits to the forehead. Hearing the new songs live made me appreciate in•ter a•li•a a lot more.

The set ended with a cannon shot. During the performance of “Governed By Contagions” the crowd turned totalitarian, arms raised, clapping along with the guillotine. Released as the first single last December, it is their best new song and it rips. The moshpit was in constant motion; everyone preening for every shriek from Cedric.

After merciless applause, At The Drive-In reappeared for an encore of new track, “Hostage Stamps,” and the telltale, “One Armed Scissor.” By then I was eating my tongue, no more comments, long live ATDI.

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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