James Moore's Blog, page 70

Indie Bands – What Big Bands Do Doesn’t Apply To You!

So something you see regularly that I find frequently kind of wonderfully shocking is how after a certain point your band doesn’t need to give a shit about the ‘rules’ as long as you are popular enough. Now this is multifaceted and weird, because on the one hand you want to have your band give off the most professional appearance possible, but on the other you want to be able to stay realistic in terms of what you can get done. I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense but it’s the sort of ting that can both make you a fuckton of money but also get you to lose a ton of money. So you need to look at your position in the industry realistically, figure out if you’re acting like an entitled little kind and then go from there. A lot of the biggest bands in the world, especially the ones that maintain their integrity and vision, have a strong understanding of this and use it to push themselves forward with every passing day.

I think a great way to analyze this is by looking at bands as companies. The strategies that apply to a multi national conglomerate, the sort of company whose equivalent in the music world is someone like Taylor Swift, do not apply to a young start up making no money, a startup like your band. I’m not saying you shouldn’t aim high but I am saying you need to be realistic about what your goals are and how you want to present yourself. You need to realize that certain things like print ads simply aren’t going to get you anywhere if no one cares about your band. By the same token, you shouldn’t be over promoting if you don’t really have anything going on. For example – most people aren’t going to want to write about your record if it’s been out for a while. I know that major artists get pieces written about them after a record comes out but that’s because they are supposed to be some of the great visionaries of their generations. You aren’t. At least not yet.

This also applies to how you market your records. I know that you want any album release to feel like an event, but beyond single and the like most people probably don’t care about what you have to put out. Putting out a teaser isn’t going to inspire any interest No one wants to hear a mishmash of songs from a band they have never heard before – I don’t see how this is difficult to understand – but countless bands do it because the Metallica’s of the world do. By the same token, when you see a major group decide to refuse to use Spotify that is a calculated choice based off of the fact that the major artists knows for a fact that they have a built in audience. You don’t. No one gives two shits about your band and if you’re not on Spotify or Bandcamp 95% of peoples searches are going to straight up end right there. People are looking for a reason not to listen, and if you don’t make that as easy as possible… well…

You’re going to look entitled. Something that I think is hard to wrap your head around, simply because of how the human brain is set up, is that, for a big music fan there are easily 10,000 solid records coming out every year that they will probably end up being interested in. Think about that. That’s probably more records than they could listen too even if they listened to music non stop for the entire year. Now think – in a world with this much music – does it make sense to put up any sort of walls between your fans and your music? Because all 9,999 of your competitors certainly aren’t doing anything to make their fans lives harder. Well a few of them are, but they are either big enough that they know people will care anyway or sufficiently stupid to think that they can get massive coverage. Once you start to base your promotional efforts off of the fact that no one gives a single flying fuck then suddenly figuring out how you want to develop your name becomes a lot easier!

Once you understand that people only really want something they can easily sink their teeth into then you stop playing shitty basement shows unless that’s your target demographic. You also start to realize that the way to truly promote your music at a low level is to create personal relationships with fans. This isn’t just by only playing shows and then wondering why no one wants to come out even though you talk to everyone who comes up to the merch stand. The people who have genuine success at a low level are the ones who are nice guys, who go to a lot of shows themselves and are able to put together something sufficiently impressive that their friends will then convince their friends to come out. You need to associate yourself with quality but also being someone who gives back to the music and isn’t merely trying to mooch with the desire of one day turning into their frankly disturbing concept of a ‘rock star’.

When it comes down to it, I get really tired a lot of the time just because so many bands seem lost up their own asses. They don’t seem to understand the simple realities of where they are in the scene and the fact that if they continue to alienate the people they should be befriending then they will never go anywhere. People who think that the rules they see applying to their favorite big bands will also apply to them are fundamentally always going to lose. There is a huge difference between being a professional and marketing yourself appropriately and you need to realize where the line is and make sure that it pays off in the long run. Remember if you go spending money and chasing dollars thinking you will be a pop star people will laugh at you, but if you are willing to sit down and pay your dues then you will start to find genuine success.

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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Politics And Your Indie Band

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One of the most important things that your band needs to realize when working with a label, a manager or anyone of importance is that these people are going to be utilitarians. Your band is ultimately just a chess piece to many industry people. It’s a whole game that’s frankly kind of terrifying but also necessary given how the industry works. Any given deal that goes down on a high level between companies, be it a tour, a band being assigned to a manager partnered with a label or any other sort of deal where money is being made, is part of a vast game. A lot of this too ties into what I wrote about in an earlier article about record labels wanting to be bought. You have to realize that again, this is an industry, an industry where a lot of people are friends, but also one where you can never underestimate the power of a favor and a single political misstep can screw you out of huge opportunities, and so bands become chess pieces.

Ultimately you need to see the industry from the suits perspective. Any given band is probably only going to have at most five years of true popularity. That gives them a small window to recoup on their initial investment and then go forward and make a little bit of money. Sure there are bands that go far beyond that window but those are the exception, not the norm. So at the end of the day the people running your scene want to have money over the long term. They aren’t trying to get big in the here and now. Thus they might give away a band who tour a lot to an agent they know is up and coming even if he might not be the best agent for that band simply because they want him to owe them a favor down the line. By the same token managers might sign bands to struggling labels simply because they know they can get more money from the label later. It leads to murky moral territory, but is also an unfortunate reality.

Most successful bands realize that they are simply pieces in a greater puzzle. They understand that the industry is a much more far reaching thing than their own careers and that they should be grateful for any interest at all. Furthermore they are able to look at themselves from a outside perspective and then determine who they want to be working with on order for this to make sense. They realize which bands out there are actually doing stuff worth continuing to check out and which bands are mere pretenders and know that they need to be part of the former category. Once you figure out where you fit into the scene from an industry perspective then you can start to realize where you are being used as a bargaining chip and where you are actually getting a risk taken on you. I know it’s easy to get really bitter about this and feel like you are constantly being used as a bargaining chip, that’s certainly a valid viewpoint but sometimes you just need to learn to embrace it.

Once you accept your role as a political piece in the industry things seem to get naturally easier. You no longer have to wonder why people seem to be ignoring you all the time and why the tours you want aren’t coming through even if your manager claims he is fighting for them. Sure it may be because your band sucks, but the odds are you wouldn’t have representation if your band was bad. Instead it’s just that the political situation isn’t favoring you right now. Now that is probably a sign to change managers, or at least have a very serious conversation, especially if you feel like it’s happening again and again. The manager is of course incentivized to keep you on board as long as possible but sometimes they just can’t take the time out of their day to take a risk on you. That’s when you need to shift to someone more DIY who you think will be more willing to spend time on you and make something truly special start to happen.

This is where you can start to use the politics of music to your advantage. Most people find the politics of this whole thing to be kind of shitty because they got into the scene through punk rock and want to support the bands they love. You can call crooked managers out on being overtly political and that will frequently get you at least a bit of traction. By the same token you can use yourself as a bargaining chip, make sacrifices here and there in order to guarantee better deals for yourself down the line. If managers and labels view your band as a chess piece then why shouldn’t you? I know that sounds a little bit crass and nihilistic, but let’s be real – you need to do whatever you can to get a leg up in this industry and if this is what it’s going to be then so be it. The thing is, the suits respect people who can play the game, even if they don’t do it as well as they do. If you show you can handle that then people will start to pay more and more attention.

So yeah – the constant politicking of the music industry is frustrating and it often means that significantly less gets done than should be. It’s something that very few people legitimately enjoy but that you have to be a willing part of in order to get things cooking in a way that remains productive and helpful for the collective. When it comes down to it the best industry people care more about the scene than anything else and that’s going to sometimes lead to them having to make hard choices that won’t always benefit your band. You simply need to accept this and the inherent struggles found within this industry – people here work really hard to make not a lot of money, they just want to make it work, and it’s never easy.

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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Spreadsheets And Your Indie Band

I think that a lot of bands underestimate the utility of spreadsheets. This is one of those book keeping things that I am pretty sure you are going to hate but which are also going to make your life incredibly easy when you get through. Spreadsheets documenting just about every aspect of your scene make it easy to reach out and figure out how you want to do what without having to rack your brain for answers all the time. When it comes down to it – you’re really busy. Remembering everything that goes into being in a band is hard, but simultaneously you don’t want to look like a dick. I’ll be honest with you – I don’t really know anything anymore, but I do have spreadsheets. So when the time comes to get something done I can pull up my spreadsheet and sound like I have my shit together, when I really spent the entire morning making weird noises while playing with my belly button. When it comes down to it – spreadsheets are the future.

Here’s how I generally have things sorted. I know people across the country who can book metal shows for me, but of course this list is over a hundred people long, and I work in other genres too. So instead of trying to call them all up from memory (Though that periodically does have to happen, my spreadsheets are not perfect) I am able to keep a list of them so that when the time comes to book a show in Reno I’m not clueless but rather I have someone to go to. This has the added bonus of not having to constantly harass bigger bands that I know in order to find people who can book a show or two for me. This isn’t the only thing I have spreadsheets for either. When I said I try to know as little as possible I wasn’t joking. I recently developed a spreadsheet categorizing 36 types of social media post and the best places to use them and what brand types they need to be associated with. I even keep spreadsheets for individual bands so I can remember minute details in order to help them as best as possible.

The key issue with creating spreadsheets themselves is twofold. First of all you need to figure out what information makes the most sense in spreadsheet form. The answer to this is simple – pretty much all of it. I know that at first spreadsheets can feel clunky but the more you get used to them and the better you get with the inherent programming and tabs then you will slowly find yourself eagerly embracing what they have to offer. I know they can be very alienating, so I really challenge you to spend more time with them to unlock their full potential. Beyond that of course is the fundamental issue of how to present the information. As obvious as something might seem to you remember that this resource isn’t always just going to be for you. I know you might think that for now, but that’s probably not going to remain the case. Eventually this band you’re in now will break up. Eventually you might want to share your information with someone, hell you might even get a music job. Then you are going to need to share resources and find a better way forward.

Making your information presentable can be tricky. A lot of it can be done with formatting in the background, which is inherently a complicated thing involving a lot of programming. Fortunately there are a ton of guides out there that you can use in order to develop systems that basically do all the math of being in a band for you. Seriously – I have seen accounting spreadsheets that were so finely tuned you could document one sweatshirt sale in a specific size and it would go on to update your inventory and tell you your net and gross income as well as your income percentage – and all you had to do was update a single number! Think about what this power can mean for your band. Suddenly you don’t have to try and do your best and remember if playing Kalamazoo two years ago was a good choice. Instead you have a sheet that shows you not only how many people showed up but also how much merch you were able to move and the value per head from that show.

Now I know all of this sounds intense – and believe me it is. I have spent MANY a weekend putting together sheets that I knew would pay off in the long run. When you look at it you need to consider not just the inherent value of these resources but also the time saved over the long term. For example – now that I have this spreadsheet with every type of merch I could possibly want and where I can buy it I now no longer have to google that sort of thing. That might not sound like a huge help for a band who print shirts once or twice a year, but for someone like me who has merch orders going out pretty much every week – well that’s kind of a game changer. By the same token – if you can set up a sheet documenting the types of social media posts you do then you are going to save a lot of time that you might have otherwise spent brainstorming the same repetitive social media strategies. You just want to minimize the stress that goes into your band and documenting everything is going to make your day to day much easier.

I totally understand why bands don’t want to do this. Trust me – I’ve been on long tours and filling out the sheet is no ones favorite task. Google Docs helps a lot with this because rather than trying to write things down and document it later you can just do it with a few quick taps on your phone. You also need to be willing to double check – especially at the bigger shows where there are so many people trying to buy merchandise that it’s simply unrealistic trying to keep track. No one said this would be fun or easy – I just want to facilitate your day to day so that when things start to fall apart and you are cracking under the stress then you have at least the basics sorted out to be easy and feasible – a far cry from the nightmare many bands face.

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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What Every Record Label REALLY Wants

There are certain fundamental truths in the music industry that I can guarantee will really free up your thinking. One of these truths that changed my entire strategy for developing bands is this: Every big independent label is trying to be bought by a major. I mean maybe not every one. I’m sure there is a significant label or two our there who just like being indie till death, but I’m referring to your run of the mill big record label. The kind of label that generates a seven or eight figure income but seems to be sort of stuck. These are the sorts of labels that a lot of bands out there want to get signed to. They view them as a sort of nice intermediary between the tiny basement labels and majors, and rightly so. Getting signed to a label that has a dozen employees is a great thing for any band. Even some truly gigantic acts prefer to go this route, simply because it makes more sense for them. I get it, I do. That being said – don’t get too pie in the sky about it, at the end of the day the dollar still reigns supreme.

Here’s the thing – and it’s the same thing that I’ve been remind you guys of time and time again for months now – the music industry is still an industry. As much as we might want some sort of magical capitalist fun system to drop into place there are still going to be people who want money and a quick payout. The thing is, I don’t really blame those people. A lot of these labels that are trying to sell right now where started by huge fans back in the 80s or whatever and the people running them have been doing it for their entire lives. They want to be able to retire at least somewhat comfortably and as much as you might think labels are getting away with screwing over bands the odds are the label CEO hasn’t made a ton of money doing this. So think about it – do you really think that there is a reason for 95% of labels to not want to get bought up? This is what is going to drive their signing strategy for years to come.

Now – what does this mean for independent bands like yours? Well shockingly enough – what the suits get up to could have a pretty devastating impact on your band. When looking at labels you need to figure out if they are in a position where they are trying to get bought up and analyze if they would want to sign you from that perspective. Do you really add value to the label or are you trying to suckle at the teat of their vastly superior resources in order to drive your own work forward? Many of these labels are still willing to sign smaller bands but you also have to realize where there signing strategy is headed. I mean it follows sui generis that if a label is trying to get a higher sale value then they are going to dump the vast majority of their resources into already established bands that an investor might recognize based off of name brand alone. This is why some of the bigger indies act as wholesalers for other labels merch – it makes them look bigger and better than ever.

In other words – there was jack shit for smaller bands back in the day – but now there is truly diddly squat, at least from the more established labels. They need to be bale to create a higher value so that they can be bought up in the next few years. This means consequently that you need to focus your energies on labels that are up and coming and still making a conscious effort to pick up new bands. Remember that when it comes down to it most labels are trying to build up their catalog for merchandising and licensing. That’s a huge part of why so many stoner rock bands have been signed in recent years – that stuff is treasure for licensing experts. If you want a label that is going to want to work with you and not just treat you as catalog then you need to look at their general signing strategy and see what makes the most sense. You want a label who is signing bands that fit in relative to where your band is at, not one that is constantly going to be trying to figure out how to best cater to your band since you are so far outside of their wheelhouse.

This is why big labels are constantly signing dinosaur acts whose popularity everyone knows is only going to decrease. The dinosaur acts know that they don’t need to sell a ton of unit and can get a huge advance because their name brings a lot of monetary value to the company. The label isn’t signing them in order to make money off of them directly from sales. They are signing them to raise their profile for potential buyers. At the end of the day the big bands are the ones that make label CEO’s and A&R guys look like badasses and what is going to generate them all a little bit of income. At a certain point the world of big name labels and smaller ones starts to blend together and the corporate game becomes a bit of a nightmare – especially when you realize that your indie band is unfortunately caught right in the middle.

I know a lot of this seems self evident but realizing that labels are trying to get bought is going to clarify many of their signing strategies for you. Sure you will still probably get passed over time and time again but you will be starting to be thinking in the way that you need to be in order to properly comprehend what this absolute motherfucker of an industry is all about. The more you can understand the industry from other peoples perspectives the more success that you are going to have in the long term. Far too many artists think that just because they are giving it all up for their craft they shuld get the most benefits, hardly thinking about all the people down the chain who are working hard at low wages in order to help ensure that their art gets the most exposure possible. Realize that this is still an industry and watch your personal stock soar. Or don’t and just feel put upon. Why the fuck should I care?

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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Crazy People In The Music Industry

One of the weirdly frustrating things about the music industry is the prevalence of crazy people out there. I know that seems unsurprising at first glance, of course tons of people want to get involved in the music industry and odds are a lot of them are going to be crazy, but as luck would have it there’s far more people who are crazy and demented than you could possibly imagine. This happens for a wide variety of reasons, but events like the Grammy’s seem to bring out a wide variety of them. I wanted to take a minute and look at why certain people are crazies and what you can do in order to avoid these people and not end up wasting your time and money. I know that you might end up sounding callous and like you no longer care about the underground, but most of the crazy people in the industry are kind of scam artists and you need to be able to move past their bullshit and into a bolder potential future.

What you have to realize is that a lot of these people are artists themselves, in fact they are failed artists. Something you quickly realize as you go through the music industry and people try to network with you is that most bands are godawful jokes with band members who don’t seem to understand this. Most bands aren’t worth listening to, but that doesn’t stop people in them from wanting to push them. When their bands inevitably fail then they try and take their relatively limited knowledge of ‘the industry’ to make themselves some money. A lot of these people will constantly try and remind you about all the ‘major industry figures’ they know. Those people are probably just referencing the time they bumped into someone from Atlantic at a party. If you don’t see them actually hobnobbing with these sorts of people then odds are they are a bunch of nobodies. That’s just the way the cookie crumbles, and you need to be able to see past that.

A really great indicator of the relative craziness of a person comes when you realize that you can’t pin down what they do. They will claim to be able to make ‘great deals’ and ‘really develop independent artists’ but if they can’t show clear examples of how they have done any of these things well… it’s probably best to just take your business elsewhere. A lot of people will claim to have large rosters, but frequently those rosters are just people they spoke to a few times or folks who they have had very minor dealings with in the past. Maybe they helped them get a deal on shirts or something. While I don’t want to diminish tactics like that realize that to a crazy person something like helping a big band get a cheap shirt design can be the equivalent to ‘coordinating their merch line’ and while there is something to be said for upselling yourself the music industry seems to have an ongoing problem with scam artists who don’t understand the inherent problems of the genre.

When folks are vague about their roster this doesn’t help instill confidence either. This manifests itself in several ways. I certainly have bands who would probably describe themselves as my clients who I barely have any relationship with but who I maybe give advice to on the phone for money every one in a while. The same goes with certain people I consult for. These aren’t necessarily clients in my general roster but bands I have a relationship with. So there is a certain degree of vagueness to my work. That being said – I definitely do have a core roster of acts I am connected with that I can rattle off and who will openly admit association with me. I know this can be tricky in an industry that often intentionally avoids contracts, but sometimes you need to put your foot down and figure out what you can get out of this person and if they legitimately are the real deal and not just another one of those weird LA pretenders.

Something else that crazy people in the music industry do is to ask for money up front. Now again – there is nothing wrong with that, but if you see the inherent vagueness of what they are doing already then maybe just tossing money at them right away isn’t the greatest idea. This is one of those things that isn’t a killer in and of itself but certainly something that should throw up a red flag or two. It also depends on how much money and where you are placed in the scene. If your band is actively looking for someone to pay to give them advice then maybe it won’t be a bad thing, but if it’s a person who is trying to convince you to spend money on them then you are going to start running into walls left and right. There’s a certain degree of used car salesmanship in this industry – something that I know I take part in regularly, for better or for worse – but I also try and make a point of making actual progress for the artists. It’s a trick game to play, but one where being hoary and long in the tooth will only help.

At the end of the day – you probably are going get pulled into more than a few scams. You’re probably going to make mistakes and have many regrets. There is a certain nihilism to this whole thing that you need to embrace. Every day on Facebook I see adverts for things that are probably scams, but I no longer have the time or energy to tell people that. I no longer have the time or energy to tell people how they are fucking up and instead I just get sad. There are bands I work with that sign deals I explicitly tell them not to sign and there are bands I work with that keep making the same mistakes. For those bands I wish they could just read an article like this one and realize that fundamentally – it’s going to be okay, just be a little more streetwise.

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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What I Learned By Going To The Grammy’s

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So I went to the Grammy’s last weekend. That was pretty wild and frankly unexpected. The fact that I went at all was due to a last minute cancellation meaning that a dear friend was able to bring me out for an experience that was frankly unforgettable and in many ways eye opening. It’s the sort of event that you think is a once in a lifetime deal and which you need to treat as such. Even though there certainly are things to be avoided and a certain nihilism to the whole thing you need to appreciate it for what it is and realize that musics biggest night is a strangely fascinating look into a microcosm of society that is often deified beyond what any of them actually deserve or probably want. Still this is an event that I would highly recommend to just about anybody assuming that you can find your way in, pay the high ticket prices and then dive into what is pretty much guaranteed to be one of the weirdest and most unique things that you do all year.

First of all the sheer logistics of this entire thing are insane. When you consider the amount of money that the Grammy’s Foundation must make and the amount of money they also have to invest every year it simply boggles the mind. The Grammy’s are one of those things that are known for legendary performances and every year needs to one up the year before. That’s why I honestly was not surprised to see the Metallica mic issues happen or the Adele catastrophe. In all honesty I kind of assumed that those things had been happening for years and they had just been covering it with careful editing and a five minute delay. When you consider the sheer quality of the performances then and the constantly changing stage set it starts to become truly incredible that something like this could happen. Maybe it’s because I don’t normally go to pop shows, but even something like Katy Perry’s choreography left me in awe.

The Grammy’s take place in two event centers, the first is the actual awards ceremony itself. There are, as you may be aware, countless categories in the Grammy’s and they obviously don’t have time to present all of them in the main three hour telecast. So if you are so inclined then you can watch many smaller artists receive Grammy’s. This is actually one of my favorite parts, the room is rarely more than half filled but it allows you a chance to intimately see some of your favorite musicians getting the greatest honor that could possibly be foisted upon them. What’s especially cool is when one of the superstars featured later in the evening comes out to accept a Grammy personally, like when Sturgill Simpson came up and gave his own speech. It is shocking though how many people aren’t actually present to accept Grammy’s though. I’m not entirely sure why that is, but probably some combination of logistics of getting to LA and simply being too busy with industry events that could drive their careers further than a mere acceptance speech. I know that sounds insane, but at Grammy’s week in LA this can always be the case.

The telecast itself is truly special. Not just for the much vaunted collaborations, like the truly awesome mashup of Lady Gaga and Metallica, which was, despite technical difficulties, and the mediocrity of Metallica, still a highlight. I think one performance that really stunned me was a surprise appearance from Morris Day and The Time. The constant shift of the stages and the surprisingly fast pace of a three hour long show was stunning. That being said there certainly were a few strange hiccups that you think they would have planned around – IE Adele basically cleaning up with Chance the Rapper. That’s not a bad thing, but definitely not expected and definitely led to a slightly repetitive event. Beyond that I’ve often wondered why they don’t create backing bands of all stars for moments like when Bruno Mars covered Prince. Alas – these may just be fantastical ramblings, but while the event certainly is cool and over the top the music nerd in me constantly wants to make it more so.

Finally it was time for the true highlight of the evening – the afterparty. While many of the big names often go off to the more exclusive afterparties – understandably so – you still have a decent chance of meeting a few cool people here. Hell, I met Ron Jeremy and if that isn’t a life goal then I don’t know what is. You have to remember that Grammy’s week as a whole is about networking parties and by the time this evening rolls around everyone has been going out in their finest clothes for a week now. Which means that when you get to this party most people just want to take advantage of the open bar and chill. It’s an exciting experience though and it certainly was one of the most decadent parties I have ever attended. One thing that did throw me off though was how relatively conservative people were – as cool as it is to be in a room of exclusively music industry people it’s also a little surreal to see that some people are just sober executives to the core – certainly a far step from the heavy metal debauchery I’m so used to.

At the end of the day – the Grammy’s are a fun and often surreal event that is pretty much worth the $400 minimum it costs to get in. I know that sounds kind of confused but the Grammy’s in and of themselves area confusing thing. It’s an event that you’ll have a lot of fun at and see a lot of cool things at but also one that really contributes to your personal brand. Even if you make no substantial connections and just get drunk and look at the pretty performances and the weird installations in the afterparty and take enough selfies and walk the red carpet then folks will still think you’re a badass, so take advantage of that. Remember that this industry is all perception and if you can’t keep on grinding with that in mind you might as well not be grinding at all.

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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Live Review: R. Carlos Nakai Quartet at Mesa Arts Center

“Get your arthritis out,” R. Carlos Nakai said, shaking out his arms, before his Quartet took the stage of the Piper Repertory Theater at the Mesa Arts Center last Sunday. “Some of this you can move to.” The R. Carlos Nakai Quartet played songs off their latest album, What Lies Beyond, released on Canyon Records in Arizona.

Nakai is perhaps the greatest Native American flautist to ever walk the earth. Born in Flagstaff, Arizona to Navajo/Ute heritage, the musician has had a long career finding the rhythms of the wind. He has a number of solo releases and collaborations, but recently has been involved with the R. Carlos Nakai Quartet made up of Nakai, bassist Johnny Walker, drummer Will Clipman and instrumentalist AmoChip Dabney.

R. Carlos Nakai Quartet: Dabney, Walker, Nakai, Clipman. Photo from MAC.

For the opening number Clipman sat center stage holding a wide vase-shaped drum in his lap. He tapped on it with his fingers making a light hollowed-out rhythm while the band slid into the rhythm. “Eel Valley,” the next song, Nakai explained, was about the large birds of Hawaii where they spend their time when off tour. “On Sunlit Wings,” written by Walker during a trip to Egypt, was like the sun dawning over the Pyramids. Each note held an appreciation for life.

Dabney, with long tumbling dreadlocks, took his place behind a two-keyboard setup. Throughout the performance he’d also pick up a saxophone or an acoustic guitar. Johnny Walker stood strong and steady on bass. In addition to a stacked drumset, Clipman also used a number of different drums, noisemakers and shakers.

Nakai dressed in a green, red and purple patterned dress shirt stood to the right next to a table of flutes, all different lengths and widths. Around his neck hung a bird whistle. When Nakai plays his cheeks puff out and in like a little warbler bird. When he’s not playing the flute, Nakai lets loose in a hoppy swivel moving like a wet noodle hanging from the spaghetti bowl.

To introduce “Kathmandu This” Clipman told a story of touring in Morocco and meeting indigenous drummers who played the traditional tar or bendir drum. The head of the drum Clipman had was about two feet in diameter and had an almost electric sound to it, a ringing reverberation and buzzing tones. The drum tumbled loudly with the bass like they were rolling in the mud. Together they created a drone that filled the auditorium. Then, Dabney dropped in on the saxophone and time bent in half. Each musician circled around each other like alternating wind currents trapped in a valley.

The song “Fiddy Fo,’” Dabney explained, was written in honor of the great American jazz composer Dave Brubek and his 5/4 time signature. It featured great interplay between the sax and the flute. Each musician played in a different overlapping time signature with Clipman as the  constant barometer. “Café du Monde” was a piece of French Quarter funk that hit like a strong cup of coffee.

Cover of What Lies Beyond, released by Canyon Records in Arizona.

On stage Nakai exhibits the spiritual calm that his music creates. During the final song he did the “wallaby dance,” a move he created during an improvisation session in Colorado in an attempt to eat up a little time. He bounced around with a goofy grin, his butt stuck out and the bird whistle swinging around his neck.

The encore brought the party funk. Dabney got it going with the catchy refrain, “The party ain’t stopping ‘til the speaker’s blown,” and then tried his best to comply. After the band picked up speed he grabbed his sax and let loose on each wing of the stage. He ran over stage right to match the rhythm of a grey-haired lady who was dancing with her shoulders swinging left to right at the tip of the stage. Then, without showing fatigue, Dabney leapt back to his post to play the saxophone and the bassoon at the same time. His lungs created tones no average human could make and everyone was on their feet letting their applause show their joy.

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Pricing Promotions And Your Indie Band

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So something I’ve been struggling properly developing these days has been special pricing and promotional strategies based around pricing. As a result I’m doing what I always do when I come up against a conundrum of this sort – I write about it in order to get my thoughts on the table and properly sorted out. Now this is a something that seems like it should be fairly straightforward, but I feel like the idea of regularly doing 20% off weekends or free Bandcamp days gets rather staid very quickly. I’m not saying those types of promotions are bad ideas in and of themselves but more that you want to make sure that your discount options are regular, stimulating frequent interest and also pushing a general sense of innovation and ideally encouraging customer loyalty. There are a lot of ways to do this and you see them fairly regularly but at the same time I think their implementation can be rather subtle and you need to be careful with how you do it.

Remember that one of the issues with having regular discounts is the same as having regular shows in the same market, your fans start to think “Oh yeah I’ll just go take advantage of the next one” That’s why it’s good sometimes to have alternative billing models. The added bonus of figuring out an alternative billing model is that that in and of itself can generate some word of mouth interest in your band. To illustrate, you could have a policy that anyone who spends more than $50 on your merchandise is going to get a free CD from your back catalog. This on the one hand makes the fan feel appreciated since they get a free CD, but also encourages them to get their friends to spend a lot of money on merchandise too,since their friends who are fans of the band will probably also be interested in the idea of a free CD. Now while this certainly is, I think, an effective idea, the idea of alternative billing leads to some very exciting opportunities.

Since the music business is indeed a business I see no reason as to why you shouldn’t try and borrow selling models from other industries. One that I think could be especially interesting would be affiliate marketing. Now affiliate marketing can oftentimes be basically a scam for free labor, but I think in music it could be potentially interesting. Obviously it can be hard to track if affiliate marketing on a DIY level, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to tell fans that if they bring five paying friends to a show they get in free. I’m just spitballing here, but I think by the same token you could probably do something with merchandise sales. Affiliate links for selling might be overkill for an underground band who do very little online sales, but if you put up signs at shows encouraging fans to get other people to buy shirts in exchange for a free shirt that’s certainly a type of affiliate marketing. I’m not necessarily sure how that might work, but I think it would be interesting to get gears turning in that direction.

Remember – as long as you are selling a product for over the value it cost to create it you are making money. That doesn’t mean you should be selling CD’s for barely above cost but it does mean that you need to keep that in mind when crating sales promotions. Also realize that no matter how hard you work there is probably going to buy merch that just won’t sell out that is dead space in your bands rehearsal studio, so realize that including that in giveaways is always a good thing. While this can often be outside of the purview of younger bands who don’t have a lot of merch or back catalog yet I think that if you do the math you can do some truly crazy promotions. This is something you see all the time when bands do what are essentially fire sales. I think that isn’t the greatest way to do it since it lowers the perception of the band to a group who couldn’t get rid of their merch so why should you buy it? Instead frame it as a fun bonus, eg “Buy one shirt and get two free!” If you’re selling shirts at $20 then you’re still making profit but also getting rid of deadweight. These promotion I’d only recommend in engaging in for a fairly short burst so the general public doesn’t catch on, but ‘crazy’ promotion that actually make financial sense can be a great way to really drive forward sales and generate the quick cash needed for a tour or recording session.

Ultimately you need to realize that music really isn’t a tangible thing anymore. This is one of the hardest concepts in the industry to wrap your head around but also one of the most important. In a world where digital files are the primary form of music consumption then who is going to care about CD’s? Furthermore – when all music can easily be gotten for free why should they buy your CD’s? Now I get that there are a lot of people who like to support local music and a lot of people ho like having the physical product, and that rules, CD sales currently are, and probably will stay, a regular part of my bands revenue streams. However the people buying CDs aren’t really buying them for the music, they re buying them for the art and the physical product. They all can get the music online for free. You need to realize this when you create merchandise and realize that giving away download codes with t shirts or alternate forms of merch is only going to increase the value of those products while probably not diminishing CD sales, because again, people aren’t buying music, they are buying a product and experience.

Of course every form of promotion needs to be extensively tested. All of these things have the potential to blow up in your face if you don’t do the math right or if you misjudge your demographic. That’s fine and to be expected, there are no one size fits all rules, that’s why it’s sometimes better to hire a consultant than to just wing it based off books. (Don’t get me wrong though, I love good music industry books) The goal of this article was more to get your brain, and let’s be honest here, my brain, moving in a new direction and looking at things in a new light that might be more capable of selling things with exciting pricing strategies that don’t just make you look like every other band. Remember, it’s not that every other band is wrong – that’s just arrogant – it’s that you need to believe in your capacity to do things better.

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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Touring With Opening Bands

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So something I’ve had a hard time figuring out in recent months has been the sheer struggle of opening bands on small name tours. I’ve seen multiple tours now where there was a headlining band good for say, 50 people in a given market take along an opener who they hoped might be good for 20, and yet they almost never see those 20 people come out. It’s one of the very tricky parts of the music industry. On the one hand having an opener is great because people get warmed up, you have someone playing before you if it’s a shitty promoter and there are no locals, That’s not the question I’m trying to tackle here, what I’m looking at more is the bitter and oftentimes bleak frustration of bands simply not drawing even half as well as they should. I know this can seem like out of touch rambling but it really isn’t, this sort of thing happens far more often than you could ever expect and I’ve gotten to the point where it really bothers me.

I think that simply put it’s important to realize that headlining tours function very differently from opening slots. If you’re headlining the bills are built with you in mind and people are more likely to come out for their favorite local bands in whatever genre. You are simply the icing on the cake. For many bands who go out to tour across the country too they aren’t even headlining the dates, they are content to get sandwiched in between locals because it means that more people are going to be around to watch their set and consequently buy their merchandise. This isn’t always the case to be sure, but it can frequently be a factor that leads to a false inflation of how big a band is. Headlining tours are by default going to have inflated numbers because people will go to a show just because it is a show and it is well organized and it’s a thing to do. This is going to make a band think their draw is far higher than it actually is.

Furthermore for many groups there is a lower incentive to promote their opening slots. This isn’t because they are trying to screw over the headliners in most cases but rather because they just assume that the headliner is going to take care of all of it. Now this is frequently the case for the big name tours. If there is a massive headliner then it doesn’t really matter what your band does to promote the tour because there are inevitably going to be people who schlep out early to support all of the bands and if you’re good at you job you will sell a ton of merch. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be promoting the fuck out of those tours after all that creates great brand awareness and makes you look far more influential. However, I think that this attitude bleeds over to bands that are trying to open for groups that draw only 30-50 people. It means that you end up going out and finding out that your opening band who you thought was good for 20 people in your average market is now only drawing someone every other day. I know that sounds ridiculous but that’s just the way the cookie crumbles.

I wasn’t exaggerating about that previous example by the way – I have seen tours like that. It’s because many people often subconsciously discredit the opening bands and don’t even bother to check them out when they hear about a new tour coming through town. If you’re an opening band it’s going to be hard to convince people to be googling your band to check things out. This is exactly why you need to be promoting tours like this one just as hard as you would promote a headlining tour. There’s also to some extent the curse of being the perpetual opening band. Some bands definitely impact their own draws simply by virtue of coming around every few months. So if they are touring through as the opener yet again most of the time you know exactly what you are going to get and the incentive to go out to the show is vastly reduced. I know that sounds awfully bitter but it’s an unfortunate truth that we all are going to need to grow around.

Now there is a theoretical and highly effective solution to this traditional and longstanding problem. That of course is the double headliner. If you can find a band who punch around your weight class then you are going to find yourself suddenly in a much better position to be playing the big shows you want to be doing. Now this can be very difficult to tell, largely because of the previously discussed artificial inflation of perceived draw, and that’s why you need to dig into something deeply personal and frankly a little bit uncomfortable – you need to man up and ask people how much merch they sell. That’s the only good barometer as far as I can tell of how much a band is actually worth, unless they are regularly seeing crowds over 75 people. At that point it becomes clear that there is an actual buzz about the band, but even then I wouldn’t hesitate to ask about merch sales. If you’re unsure you have an obligation to collect as much information as possible and sometimes you just need to be direct.

At the end of the day – you’re probably going to have a lot of shitty tours no matter what you do. It’s very rare that you can find a band who are worth roughly as many tickets as you or really any tickets at all. There are a lot of factors making headlining runs a serious difficulty for younger bands and oftentimes it’s sometimes best to just be willing to be in the mix with a bunch of locals and pray that you get a ton of attention just by the power of your own live performance. That might not always be the best for branding or whatever but at least it means that you are grinding forward with the willingness and tenacity that it takes to produce something truly worthwhile. Sure it means sticking your nose to the grindstone but it can be a lifesaver in the end.

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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Placement Strategies And You

Placement strategies are one of those things that are almost impossible for DIY bands to actually engage in because so many of the mare so hokey. So often it will be like “Oh do you play Americana? Then ask if the local Americana restaurant will play your CD!” That’s dumb, is not going to increase brand awareness and frankly just makes you look like a weirdo. Last time I checked you weren’t trying to weird out other people by promoting your band – if nothing else that’s going to impact you negatively. However there are placement strategies that work for DIY bands and ideas that you can engage in that are significantly less hard to keep track of then consignment deals or trying to do a merch swap with the other bands bubbling around in your scene. Remember this above all things, you don’t want to come off as an obnoxious try hard. That’s going to alienate bands and make fans you think you are too big for your britches.

So how do you figure out how to place your band in ways that makes sense for you? Well realize that first of all your band is not just your music – it’s a whole variety of products that you represent, that is to say your merch line and live shows can be just as, if not more important than the music that you play. So once you start to shift your paradigm in order to reflect that you’re going to find some serious advantages to how you engage with placing your music. Suddenly it’s not about getting your songs placed in a coffee shop, it’s about getting the line of photographs your band has created there. It’s not about trying to submit to every venue in town, instead you’re trying to play the farmers market, or a charity event, or a weird performance art piece. This is part of why it’s nice to have a wide variety of merchandise, because suddenly your ability to place products is much diversified and can, and in fact should, lead to different placement strategies for every product.

Don’t get me wrong either. Getting your music played in the right places can be incredibly valuable. If there is, for example, a local hip coffee shop where bands play sometimes and baristas who like good music then it makes sense to invest your energy into trying to get your music there. However I have seen many guides encouraging bands to try and get local restaurants and mom and pop stores to play their records. I don’t really see this ever realistically earning you more fans – that being said I’ve spent most of my career working with inaccessible and musically dense bands so maybe I just have a broken sense of things. Even still with inaccessible music there is a value to finding dudes who work in local record stores and engaging with their inner record nerd. The thing is you just can’t do it in record shops, you need to do it subtly, by meeting them at shows or in hip gathering places. This ties into a more general rule that I think should define a lot of your work in music.

Approaching people upfront at their place of business and asking for them to use your music or let you play live is pretty much never going to work. Sure at venues you might have luck, because outside of emailing the promoter you have few other options, but even then – those people are probably ridiculously busy the day of the show. Instead you need to be trying to meet these sorts of people in venues that aren’t work related so that when you ask for a placement you are asking as a friend rather than a professional. Remember – it’s not really about the music it’s about the brand of the band. Part of your brand can be being friends with a lot of movers and shakers in your local arts scene, the people who own the bars and the folks who make the key decisions. Odds are these people want to support local music they just don’t want to also deal with the stress of annoying overeager people harassing them while they try to work.

I know this ties into an underlying them in a lot of my articles that the music business is more business than music and that sucks a lot of the time. However you have to take that for the silver lining which is that by having a good business sense and being willing to really dedicate the time into the project then your business relationships with these people can extend far beyond just the simple placement we talked about earlier. Odds are that your local businessperson who is running a cool bar that is now playing your music is also going to be trying to develop other projects in the future, and once they start to do that they are going to use you as their go to music person. Just make sure that your work is truly professional. Something that I routinely forget under the waves of bands that I work with is how much a lot of local bands straight up suck. You need to keep this in mind to as you navigate the business side .I what you’re doing doesn’t make sense, or seem professional then the local folks who might support your music simply will blow you off.

At the end of the day music placement ideas often don’t work out because the band hasn’t spent enough time really thinking about whether or not their music makes sense to be used for the placement from the buyers perspective. You shouldn’t be trying to sell your products based on their desire to sell local art. You should be trying to sell your products based on their own merits, not their potential hypothetical value to the customer. Remember too that in a lot of these cases the buyer isn’t LOOKING to buy music or have it place in their establishment, so again you need to look at that and move forward with it in mind. The music industry is one that many people, our current presidential administration included, view as entirely auxiliary, many times because they don’t have the funds for it. So start from the bottom to figure out what you can build up to. There is no other way.

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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