James Moore's Blog, page 85

When Does Your Indie Band Need A Manager?

A very close friend of mine asked me to be his agent earlier today and I kind of freaked out. Not because I didn’t think I could do it, but more because said friend has been around a whole lot longer than I have, and has been able to do a whole lot of cool stuff in the music industry over the years. This got me thinking about the role of agents and managers in the music industry, and why and when you should seriously consider getting one. The thing is – even though it might benefit me financially I don’t believe everyone should be getting representation. You need to do a lot of stuff on your own to get someone who is more than just a friend to generate interest in having someone represent you.

Of course – there is no shame in getting a friend to be your agent or manager. (And for the curious, in the modern context there isn’t really a difference) If they seem smart and have their shit together then it might make sense to get them on board, especially if they might be willing to do it for cheaper than their peers. You need to realize though that strong representation will want to reach out to you when you are worthy. If you find your way there and have a lower level manager working with you, then you are going to need to be able to back off of that contract if you need to and to have some sort of agreement with your manager providing you an out. You want your contracts to be pushing your career forward, not holding it back.

So when do you know you’re ready for representation? Generally I think it should come at a time when you see that you are pulling 50 people at your bigger local shows. At that point, shows are paying for themselves (At least if you have a traditional four or five piece band) and people are starting to pay attention on a national spectrum as well as a regional one. Once you’re one of the biggest bands on your local scene and have done a handful of regional dates it might make sense to start going out and about in search of a manager. It might not be easy, but it’s definitely a crucial first step. A manager is going to be able to hook you up with a booking agent (Which actually might be MORE important than a manager in many cases) and give you a national presence. If you’re sweeping up at home, this is where you are going to want to move next.

People ask me all the time what do I do as a manager – since it can mean so many things to so many different folks. For the main groups I handle, the role of a manager is primarily that of a team organizer. I work with the PR and booking agents to help ensure the optimal forward motion. I also strategize what the bands next steps will be and discuss with the label when they would like to orchestrate releases. I am something of a hub for the artist, slowly planning out their future and figuring out what the next moves are going to need to be if they want to get bigger than ever. If you’re at a point where you have a ton of different people to handle and are not sure how to move forward then that is going to be when you are going to want to pick up a manager.

Not all management solutions are right for everybody. Some people don’t need a full time manager, some people just need consultation, which is a service I much more willingly provide if only because I’ve been through the whole rigmarole so many times at this point that it comes as second nature to me. If you think you can impress your consultant and use their advice to talk your music to the next level, then watching them turn into your manager should be a fairly straightforward process. Everything about the music industry is evolving one step at a time such that people will only gradually take notice. If you rocket to fame, you might make money initially, but it probably is going to be very difficult for you to maintain any level of long term success.

A good manager can make your career, a bad one can permanently screw you over. This is one of those things where you need to go with your gut if you want to advance properly. Sometimes a contract doesn’t mean as much as you hoped it would. The odds are that you’re going to end up okay – managers with bad reputations tend not to last that long anyway, and you can usually sniff them out pretty easily. Marching forward in the music industry as one is destined to do requires a lot of foresight and determining the significance of having a manager can be a real struggle. So ask your friends, ask managers you know who are too busy to take you on, ask more experienced musicians and slowly piece together what kind of manager you need and what you want from said manager. You won’t regret it.

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

The post When Does Your Indie Band Need A Manager? appeared first on Independent Music Promotions.

What Free Culture Means For Independent Artists

Free Culture now there’s a interesting notion to look at now isn’t it. Free Culture is also the name of a book by the lawyer and political thinker Lawrence Lessig. It would be outside of the scope of this blog to provide a review, though certain aspects of that post might take on certain review-esque elements. That is most certainly not what I am seeking to accomplish tough. Rather – I would like to touch on the train of thought it got me going down and the realizations it forced me to make especially in regards to independent bands and the development of culture in a scene that is far too often ignored and even swept under the rug. The usage of culture is crucial for young artists, and I’m sorry to say we might all be screwed.

The core point of Lessig’s work is that copyright law, as it exists today is both overtly encroaching and furthermore apparently allows for copyrights to continue indefinitely. Obviously – neither of these situations are ideal and can lead to a serious struggle for independent creators who can’t afford to fight the legal battles that make these things worth fighting. Oh yes – did I mention that because of lawyer fees there is basically no way around copyright infringement? Yeah – that happened. Simply put – modern changes to copyright law, perhaps most notably the 1999 Digital Millenium Act, have set it up such that to use any copyrighted material makes you a criminal. And god forbid pirate any of it you felon you! While steps certainly have been made since the early 2000’s when Lessig wrote his book the freedom of culture is still an important thing to consider.

Given the advent of streaming one can certainly say that we are in a much better place in terms of cultural freedom today than we were a few years ago. Now we can access all manner of copyrighted content with services like Netflix, Spotify or Audible. Now there are pay gates for these things but they tend to be fairly reasonable and allow us to maintain the ability to learn from culture. That being said – this should not be taken as the be all and end all. As any hip hop producer or film music supervisor can tell you, access is not the same as use. That’s where this whole thing stats to break down. If all culture is just developed by ripping off other people then maybe, just maybe we should be able to grant these rights to people.

The reason that copyright laws are such a ridiculous clusterfuck is tied back into that notion of monopolies that we discussed on a previous piece here. 98% of currently existing copyrighted material is making no profit. For most pieces of content their commercial life is over after a year. That being said – given the system of lobbying that we have in place today it is the vested financial interest of say… the Dr Seuss estate to invest money into lobbying for copyright law to be extended. After all, if they are making $100,000 a year off the estate and see that they have an opportunity to extend the period over which they make said $100,000 then OF COURSE they are going to invest a significant portion of that money into extending copyright law.

“But Matt” you say, “I don’t sample anyone’s music and I just want to get my movies in film and TV, so aren’t copyright laws helping me?” On the surface yes. Inasmuch as they are directly impacting the work you have out at present, but this is one of those things that can’t always be handled in a cases by case basis. Even if it can… think about it. Don’t you have a riff or two that could arguably be said was ripped off of a band you cite as an influence? That’s not you committing plagiarism, that’s simply how the human brain works. People derive a lot more from their influences than I think anyone truly understands, and that could hurt you in the long run. No one wants to have to deal with massive corporate interests choking out indie bands.

Furthermore, say your director friend gets a break and wants to give you a few hundred bucks to have your song in their movie? Well – if you’re signed to a record label you’re never going to see that money. Sure you might own the synch license and the copyright, that is to say, the song itself. But generally it’s your label who are going to own the masters – and you won’t be allowed to make any masters outside of your recording contract. If the label wants more than the few hundred bucks that your director friend has to offer… well then it looks like you’re just out of luck. And THAT is just the beginning of the problems that copyright laws foists upon indie bands. It prevents you from engaging in financially viable opportunities, simply because of the lawyer fees. In other words – they have made all of us criminals, and though that’s kind of badass on the surface, it mostly means that there might be something a little screwy with the system.

Lessig provides a few suggestions in the text as to how we could fix these problems – usually boiling down to an online database that would serve as a way for commercially viable copyrights to endure and would allow commercially dead content to pass into the public domain more easily. This might be a start to an enduring problem that no one REALLY knows how to fix. But truly truly I say to you, this is only the beginning. Limitations on culture, while occasionally valid, ultimately hurt everyone in the long run and if we want to have a system that maintains copyrights in the internet age then we are going to need to radically change how we perceive the value and utility of content in a time where it merely exists as a bunch of 1’s and 0’s.

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

The post What Free Culture Means For Independent Artists appeared first on Independent Music Promotions.

Deftones create new metal classic with heady “Gore”

The theme of this review is consistency. For twenty years Deftones have put out consistently adept albums steeped in their own style of what could be whittled down to, in layman’s terms, as “metal.” But, it’s so much more than that.

Gore is the band’s eighth and was released on April 8th. The number eight, the vertical symbol of an infinite loop, is a most accurate figure to associate with this album. Deftones continue to deliver, expanding their sound in subtle and intricate ways. They remain rooted in the punk metal headrush of their debut Adrenaline, but with each album since the sound has grown heavier and more melodic in equal parts. Gore furthers the formula into peak Deftones territory.

Gore is undeniably a Deftones record, but there are a lot of new elements that on past albums were never fully explored: the use of feedback, Frank Delgado’s effects being the focal point during a song, elongated intros and outros and thick layering. Song structure is rarely straightforward. Each song has about five or six different parts that clamp down on each other, bleed into, collide and break through each other jerking the listener into awareness. It’ll catch you off guard.

There are so many little fine twists and turns at first it can be unsettling. When I first listened, it felt overloaded, like there was too much going on, like they were trying to cram too much into each song. But, that becomes the winning mark after stepping back and letting the songs soak in. Like most Deftones albums, it gets better with age. Gore may be the heaviest record to leave shadows of songs in your head afterwards.

Guitarist Stephen Carpenter, drummer Abe Cunningham and bassist Sergio Vega are stitching together some wildly inaccurate metal grooves. If you headbang to this without knowing the song, you’ll fast get off beat. They’re starting to develop their own sense of timing and it really turns things inside out.

The first proper single, “Prayers/Triangles,” opens the album. It is a fine representative of their sound currently. A slow, meandering guitar lulls the listener before the drums break and the chorus slashes through. Throw the bottle at the wall when “Doomed User” comes on. Deftones to the core. Carpenter plays with shades of Slayer then hits the time change with an evil guitar groan. Cunningham hits every accented cymbal with pinwheels rolling in his eye sockets.

“Geometric Headdress” erupts like a tank through a wall. Chino Moreno’s scream scorches like a propane tank left to explode. Then ten seconds in it flips to an offbeat rumble with a wily guitar pushing the listener out of rhythm. Midway through “Hearts/Wires” settles over the album like the final rays of sunlight. A few simple guitar pluckings crawl over each other while Moreno sings of a memory lost. “The slit in the sky where you left / is all I see,” he aches. The slow build is hypnotizing.

The heaviest song on the album is the title track. The pitter patter of Cunningham’s hi-hat leads into a devastating guitar butcher stab from Carpenter. Oh yeah, this one is a classic. Careful with this one here. Moreno howls likes he’s burning alive. The pit will blow like a hazardous chemical reaction whenever they play it live. Get the gore on the final minute. Thunderous feedback beating your head in.

“Phantom Bride” enlists the help of Jerry Cantrell, from Alice In Chains, on guitar. Midway through Cantrell releases a reflective guitar solo that weaves into the song. Jerry wails. Lord, Jerry wails. The guitars spill out reminding me of mid-90s Smashing Pumpkins before getting obliterated by Carpenter’s heavy strings. Beautiful. Sets the heart racing. It’s a new turn and it works.

Deftones just continue to breathe new life into an old sound. They keep the rigid metalhead fans happy, but still find room to expand sonically, creating new categories of genre. Gore, the third album since Vega took over for the late Chi Ching on bass, follows Koi No Yokan and Diamond Eyes on a continuing upscale of creativity that doesn’t seem to be slipping any time soon.

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

The post Deftones create new metal classic with heady “Gore” appeared first on Independent Music Promotions.

Another Record Store Day Article

Yep, this is another lame Record Store Day article. The trend his year has apparently been to say that Record Store Day is negatively impacting the music industry and should be cancelled. This is to some degree true. For a long time indie bands could rely on vinyl sales knowing that more mainstream music fans would never buy in and thus record store day was really and truly theirs. Of course, as with SXSW, ‘independent distributors’ and club tours, major label interests have come in and thrown their weight around and screwed up vinyl releases for pretty much everyone who isn’t signed to one of the big boys (and even the bands there are facing some issues) Does this mean that Record Store Day is fully evil though? Or is there a mix of factors here?

I really don’t think Record Store Day is THAT evil. Yes, it is a great example of majors messing things up for the little guys, and yes its influence on the industry is overrated but I think it also plays a more important role in the American psyche. That is to say – while normally many people would just stream stuff, Record Store Day is one of the few times in the year when you will really see a large group of fans thinking about buying music. Obviously it has been rigged against smaller bands, when previously it was meant for smaller bands, but in terms of the music industry as a whole it’s a pretty helpful thing. Of course, as Neill Jameson puts it in a brilliant article for Decibel, even then, it’s fairly easy to evidence that Record Store Day isn’t doing that much for indie record stores either. For the record, Jameson’s opinion is probably far more valid than anything I have to say, largely because he y’know… worked in a record store. These are just my opinions as an informed outsider.

See – the important thing about Record Store Day is not so much that it moves copies, but that it keeps the subconscious the notion of the record store going. We are far too often willing to just ignore and forget that these stores were once a key part of American culture. They hold a valuable place in the hearts of many of our parents and grandparents, and the ideas that they support are important because they remind us that music is worth something. That’s why this whole whining about record store day thing gets my goat. Every other day of the year we talk about how streaming is helping indie artists (Even though it probably really isn’t that much better than piracy) and how we just need to accept that music is worth nothing. Well maybe having a day where we say that music is worth something is important because it maintains a sense of hope that there is something of merit and value left in the music industry.

Perhaps it is fitting though that one of the last symbols of the old music industry should have such an ignominious death at the hands of the very people who choked the rest of the industry out. It really goes to show that every time the independent labels manage to find a good thing major players can kill it with another fucking Motley Crue reissue. Who even cares about half of these bands, or hearing another remaster anyway? Ultimately – when you are trying to make money off of selling records as a major, you are going to have to start selling to an ever broader and more basic fanbase leading to reissues that no actual music fan has cared about for years. That’s the real issue with Record Store Day, it turned something for the fans and by the fans into another corporate event that really is only hurting the majority of musicians whilst providing minimal benefit to bigger interests. Of course, we all know it won’t canceled, we just have to make do with what scraps we can before the whole thing becomes a massive corporate choke out.

So is this why we can’t have nice things? Because even though more money is being made from Record Store Day than ever before, the people who made it viable are being screwed? Yeah pretty much actually. It stands as a larger metaphor for the industry. It forces us to realize that the big boys have us at every turn. There are solutions of course, the most notable of course being that we need to have more record producing plants (And from what I understand real progress is being made on that front) But I think we need to take this as a lesson. This is why I get paranoid when things I love start to blow up, I worry if they are going to need up backfiring hilariously like Record Store Day has, leaving us all swallowing the turds of giants who never bothered to learn how to play the game properly in the first place.

Consider this, before I leave you dear reader. I’m in my early 20s I’m as invested in the music industry as anyone can be. I live and breathe this. You’re reading me, so clearly I’ve had something valid to say. I have never participated in Record Store Day. I regularly visit record stores and get stuff, but Record Store Day has never really interested me. Record Store Day never seemed like it catered to someone like me who was just a dork who didn’t have the money to be a collector, and I think there are a lot of people in my boat. Maybe it doesn’t make sense to have a Record Store Day because it alienates those who normally love record stores.

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

The post Another Record Store Day Article appeared first on Independent Music Promotions.

Monopolies, Power and What It Means For Indie Bands

There is a significant problem in the music industry and it’s one that no one is really willing to talk about for reasons that will soon become obvious. The issu eat hand is that the handful of publications who truly move public taste on a grand scales are also unwilling to cover bands who aren’t already huge. Of course – it somehow gets worse – the reason for this is not that the people running those big league publications are assholes, but rather because they are not allowed too. Why? Because they are owned by the same companies who own the record labels. Even if you have a group claiming to be an independent, it’s not hard to tie it back to a larger corporate interest. In other words, we are fighting against monopolies and independent bands might be more screwed than we would like to think.

Of course, that’s not the only way that the major label monopolies are able to nefariously impact the music industry. You also have things like the Apple Music suggested artists, who, as we are continually learning, are really just suggestions curated to make big name artists like Ke$ha even more popular. If you’re finding out about bands from one of the worlds biggest companies, you don’t think that there is going to be a vested financial interest worked in there? As we’ll discuss later, it actually makes a lot of sense. Am I bitter? Well yeah, they tried to justify making us give away our music for free by claiming democracy and then used their allegedly democratic system system in order to ruin the futures of countless bands who didn’t already have a place of their own amongst the ominous major players.

I know I sound crazy, and I might very well be giving too much credit to those who have power, but in many ways it makes sense for them to feed their massive circle jerk. It creates a system that feeds itself, and in an industry that has increasingly little money, being able to sustain yourself by owning all affiliated enterprises both lateral and vertical can be extremely helpful. In other words, the major labels don’t have the pull they used to with new artists, and they know it. So what are they doing? Choking out all the newer guys and building up altars to those whom they know can succeed and make them money for year after year. That’s why concert attendance is up, but it is increasingly difficult for low level bands to tour.

This is an unsustainable model though – and I think we are starting to see the cracks. People like being able to find their ‘own’ music, and as we have hammered down on this blog time and time again – niche markets are the future of independent music, there simply is no other way. As the income stratification continues to… um… stratify… people we are left with something of a shadow economy, and there might be more than scraps to be fighting over once this shadow economy starts to properly evolve into something real and viable underneath the crushing power of the Katy Perry’s and Miley Cyrus’s of the world.

Of course, some bands are able to break through this cycle. It’s not likely though and is usually due to non-corporate entities showing interest first, or indie bands buying into massive corporate PR. In both cases that’s a legitimate way to go, Pitchfork, before they got bought out, were able to break a lot of really exciting bands that way. Consequence of Sound hold a similar role today, however they are very much beholden to the need for clicks, and the bands that get clicks are the big ones. To keep covering indie bands that excite you, you have to make whatever money you can supporting the huge ones, and the more space you dedicate to the huge ones the more money you can make and then it’s a question fo paying the bills or writing about Subrosa… and that can be a tough choice to make.

Part of my inspiration to write this article came from a recent piece I did for Metal Injection asking, “Is Lamb Of God The New Metallica?” The article went viral unlike anything I have ever written before, it got hundreds of comments and earned me a couple of death threats (Nothing too serious, don’t worry beloved readers) It was really a wake up call as to how even mentioning big bands like Lamb Of God and Metallica could allow an article I wrote to blow up. People are fickle, and if you can capture controversy then you know that you are going to at least get a reaction. That’s why blogs won’t write about you, they want hits, be it for money or to massage their own egos, and there is nothing you can do about that.

Is everything screwed forever? No. There is still a sense of democracy out there, even if the music industry is increasingly dominated by monopolies. What we are starting to see though is a niche economy, so niche in fact that the monopolies cant control it. The second that they start to dig their claws in is the second that a scene starts to die, just look at grunge. What it means though is that if you can cater to these markets you can circumvent so much of the lies and slander that dominate this industry and find your own path. Given the choice between a path of deceit and one of hard, honest work, I think you know what you should go with.

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

The post Monopolies, Power and What It Means For Indie Bands appeared first on Independent Music Promotions.

Lifestyle Changes And The Music Industry Life

The music industry implies certain lifestyle choices. Lifestyle choices that you need to be aware of before diving in. I wanted to touch on this this week because Pallbearer are sleeping in my living room right now and that’s one of the main things that we have been talking about. For better or for worse, when you’re in music, choices that you made as a teenager are going to alter your life, and force you to recalibrate goals that everyone around you said you should have growing up. This doesn’t mean you need to completely deny those goals, but you need to realize that when you embrace this life you are setting yourself up for an alternative path that has no real pedagogical background and is instead based on your ability to improvise and get stuff done.

One of my personal struggles is that a bunch of choices I made when I was 17 have gone on to permanently alter my life. I’ve become a dude who is on the road for months out of the year and there is nothing I can do to change that. I don’t regret any of it necessarily but it certainly opened me up to some existential struggles that I never realized I was going to have to face. Odds are – if you’re trying to do this for real then you are going to find yourself in a similar situation. This is because the music industry, when approached seriously, is more than just a full time job, it’s almost more of a psychological disorder that forces you to work nonstop and grind away until maybe, just maybe you find a way to make just barely enough money to live off of. In other words, the poverty line? Well that’s the goal.

That’s what you are seeing, with the decentralization of music, more and more people moving from hip and happening cities to the suburbs, or even really rural parts of the world. The amount of money you can save is insane, and when you have the choice between living in New York City and hemorrhaging money on rent and bills versus paying a third of that to live in a more mundane environment… Well it seems fairly obvious what kind of choice you should be making. Especially if your work is exclusively online, as is with so many music industry professionals. While there certainly are merits to living in the city (I certainly don’t plan to leave anytime soon) one needs to keep these things in mind and remember that the ‘burbs are always an option. And this is only the beginning of the lifestyle changes brought on by music.

To list all of the changes music brings on would be a Sisyphean task, but what you do need to know is that I never thought I would break as many laws, have as many friends who were addicts, and drink quite as much as I do if had never gotten into this in the first place. Toss in the late nights, early mornings and perpetual singleness (Although there are a nice handful of hookups with groupies balancing this one out) and you start to get a sense for how painful this can be. Am I complaining? No. There are a lot of great things that come from this lifestyle too, not just the seemingly perpetual gift that is free pizza (And boy, there is a lot of free pizza) you get to meet people from all over the world and develop new interests with folks who truly ‘get it’. It’s just that there’s a lot of downsides, physically, emotionally and mentally you are going to have to deal with.

Don’t take this as a letter of discouragement, I regret nothing about dropping out of college to do this. Its just that you nee to be aware that surviving in music require a very specific personality type. It requires being willing to think long term. In many ways you have to, because falling asleep drunk on yet another strangers floor? Well that doesn’t seem like a good time at all, unless you can couch it in the hope of something greater. So yes your diet will be shitty, probably for the rest of your life, and you need to ask yourself – is that worth it as compared to the benefits? For a lot of people it is not, and that’s fine, you can still interact with music, but it’s probably better if you back off from doing it full time.

This is one of the main messages I seek to get across with this blog – that you need to weigh things out before diving into them. This is an industry that requires a lot of heart an the willingness to suffer a lot. Odds are if you dive into the music industry you are going to be in pain almost non stop and the easiest way to fix that will be the cheap beer people keep buying you. Of course… I think you can see how this becomes a massive problem further down the line, and explains why so man musicians become burnouts. You need to be careful going forward, but I know you can do it. Just walk with knowledge and a touch of grace.

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

The post Lifestyle Changes And The Music Industry Life appeared first on Independent Music Promotions.

Precision And What It Means For YOUR Career

I might get called out for this one because it’s something I’ve struggled with for a while – and that is precision. Even as a kid I didn’t understand why I couldn’t just be ‘good enough.’ But now that I am in the professional world I have to worry about this a lot more since I’m no longer fretting about my grades and whether or not my parents are going to make me cut my hair but rather the entire future of various companies, brands and bands. As I’ve been learning (Oftentimes the hard way) over the past few months, precision is crucial if you’re trying to move forward in the music industry. It’s not fun, but it will put you a cut above the competition, and, in my case at least, it helps me to sleep better at night. If that’s not reason enough to go all out then I don’t know what is. Once you prove how precise you can be, things only get better.

Most people are not precise. In fact – most people don’t care at all about precision because they’ve spent their whole lives working stupid dead end jobs that don’t really matter, for people who also don’t care about precision. But if you want to move forward, you need to use a reputation as a precise, accurate individual to prove that you are capable of something greater. Most of this isn’t that hard either. It just requires simple steps, like a more clear approach to how you phrase emails, the kind of confirmation you get and the amount of follow up phone calls you make. If you can prove that you are doing all of this, then people are going to be willing to give you more money because they see that you care, and you want to make sure everything was done to the fullest possible extent.

Here’s the beautiful part of it. If you become ‘that guy,’ the most dependable person in the room, the one who when people have something they don’t want to worry about, forward the project on to then you ARE going to make more money and be able to do more cool stuff. Not just that, but you are going to become indispensable, and people are going to trust you more. Eventually you become such a part of the machine that you can’t help but rise in position. Why? Because like I just said, everyone depends on you. Once you are ‘that guy’ they will have no choice but to let you rise. You have them all by the balls and they were the ones who let you make sure you got an extra firm grasp. It’s kind of funny how life can work out that way sometimes, isn’t it?

I’m not trying to paint this as a nefarious thing. If you are that guy, the hustler who is always precise then the company is going to rise alongside you. Remember, 5 percent of the people do 95 percent of the work. That’s not because they are better or more intelligent, jut that they show up to work and they want everything to be right all the time. These are the people who get the cool gigs and who are able to take lavish vacations in Jamaica, because even in Jamaica they will be spell checking promo packages and verifying that tour schedules are precisely locked down and set up in a way that is amenable to everyone, from local promoters and PR all the way to the record label and management company. This way, one person will be able to bring up everyone around them, not just themselves.

As we’ve discussed before on this blog, if you’re only in it for you that’s not going to help anyone. You need to realize that by being aforementioned ‘extremely dependable guy’ you’re going to be working a lot of extra hours that not a lot of people are going to realize you are putting in. Not at first at least. A lot of the things that come from being a precise person end up manifesting themselves easily in your life, they just take time. You learn that you need to spend time double checking everything and dealing with the perpetual gray hairs that something as stressful and fast moving as the music industry can be responsible for.

Full disclosure, I’m in the midst of setting up a tour right now and it’s gray hair-tastic. I also have a band sleeping on my floor and need to clean my apartment before a massive networking party taking place here Friday night. I’m screwed. But guess what, people have come to trust and depend on me, so I have no excuse but to step up to the plate and deliver. There is a lot of stress you have to deal within the music industry, but the more precise you are the more you will be able to offload it and build towards a better future for you and your friends.

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

The post Precision And What It Means For YOUR Career appeared first on Independent Music Promotions.

The 5 Key Fundamentals to Successfully Promoting Your Music

There are a few key elements that really make your music promotion sing.

Without a proper understanding of these fundamentals, you might be making some major mistakes in your marketing, and that could be undermining your intention to succeed.

Here are the five key fundamentals every musician should know about successfully promoting their music.

1. A Plan

It all begins with a plan. A plan doesn’t need to be perfect. Odds are you’re going to be tweaking it and making changes to it along the way anyway.

But you need to start somewhere. You need to figure out who your audience is, where they like to hang out online, what platforms and media you’re going to be using to promote your music, how often you’re going to be performing and releasing new music, and much more.

A lot of artists don’t like to plan. They want to fly by the seat of their pants and see where things take them. That’s fine as long as you have no false notions about making it big. If you take random actions in a random way, you’ll end up somewhere random. If you take deliberate actions in a calculated way, you’ll end up somewhere you want to be.

So start making your plans, as they have a way of coming together when you are clear about what you want.

2. Time

You can’t successfully promote your music without adequate time to take action on your plan. This might seem obvious or even silly, but it’s a fundamental truth that can’t be changed.

Think about all of the strategies that are out there, the articles you’ve read, the podcasts you’ve listened to, the social media sites you’ve been invited to, the emails that are bombarding your inbox, all of the music promotion tips you’ve ever experimented with.

Ask yourself honestly: how many of these strategies have you actually gone all-in on? It’s all well and good to experiment, but virtually everything takes time, and unless you’ve remained consistent and focused over the long haul, your efforts are being diluted. This only gets worse when you get distracted by the latest trend.

You need time to market your music, and you need to be very deliberate about scheduling your promotional activities in your calendar. Set up reminders for yourself if you need to.

3. Budget & Resources

Don’t get me wrong – your music can be promoted for free, and there are a lot of great ways to do that. The problem is that you can’t do it all for free. You can’t travel for free, you can’t record for free (unless you have your own equipment), and gear costs money too (unless you inherit it).

But if you’re serious about getting your music heard, you can’t be too tight with your money. Items like publicity campaigns, Facebook ads, and gig services like Sonicbids can all be incredibly effective, but they’re also going to cost you some money.

The simplest way to create a budget for yourself is by saving every penny you earn from music. If you can’t do that, then save a percentage from every gig or every merch item you sell. Then pay for things when you can afford to – don’t go into debt unnecessarily!

Take an honest and thorough inventory of the money and resources available to you. Then figure out how you’re going to allocate and leverage them to promote your music.

4. Connections

The right connections can make a huge difference in your music promotion efforts.

If you have a huge database of fan email addresses, you have people you can reach out to every time you book a show or put out a new release. If you know bloggers, podcasters, reviewers, or other content creators, you can partner up with them to create media. If you know journalists, media people, or publishers, you can reach out to them to get coverage.

And on it goes. There are many different ways to leverage your network. But no one is going to put the puzzle pieces together on your behalf. It’s up to you to create the connections in the first place, and then to dig for the greater possibilities that exist in working together to achieve a mutually desirable goal.

5. A Good Attitude

Bottom line – there aren’t too many artists out there that “make it” when they act like jerks. It’s just that there are several well-publicized examples of misbehaving rock stars out there.

Many artists don’t even say “hello” to the people they’re sending emails to let alone try to connect with the individual in some way. You can’t build lasting industry connections using the spray and pray approach.

Even though it might seem like the “long way around”, or the “hard way”, it’s best to create fans and connections one person at a time. In the long haul, it will balloon into a huge network of valuable relationships. But you won’t get there overnight.

Whether you’re booking shows or following up with radio program directors to see if they’re playing your tracks, you need to have a good attitude. Don’t forget – this is not easy to do, and it’s why we need to be reminded often!

Closing Thoughts

In summary, to promote your music successfully, you need to:

Make a plan. It doesn’t need to be perfect, because you will be making changes to it along the way. Executing poorly on a poor plan is better than executing perfectly on no plan any day.Make time. Schedule your promotional activities in your calendar and don’t get too ambitious. Focus on what you can handle!Create a budget. Music costs money, so start saving and make a plan for how you’re going to spend it.Build connections. It’s not just what you know, but also who you know.Have a good attitude. Challenges are coming your way, uninvited. You can’t control that. What you can control is your attitude.

Once you have a solid understanding of these key ingredients, you are well on your way to creating an effective music promotion strategy. Just remember that it all starts with the craft. If your music isn’t great, then there’s no point in trying to promote it!

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

The post The 5 Key Fundamentals to Successfully Promoting Your Music appeared first on Independent Music Promotions.

Beat Poet Turned Mystic Saul Williams Shines on Martyr Loser King

Review by Jon C. Ireson

With Saul Williams latest stream of consciousness, the beat poet, turned mystic, turned rapper, turned icon satire, turned crooner (whew!) has managed to coalesce his strengths in to an innovative and compelling piece in Martyr Loser King. Williams previous full length release Volcanic Sunlight was a hit and miss effort which saw him make a foray out of the bombastic loquacity of his roots and in to an at times awkward style of inharmonious singing. Think Kanye’s moping mess 808s and Heartbreak. Luckily, the similarities to the world’s most deluded man end there. Even when Williams is branching off in to a somewhat dubious venture, his soul is raw and the emotions are bubbling at the surface. Just listen to the cathartic bellow of ‘Explain my Heart’ and you get a voice dripping in candor and sincerity.

Cut to 5 years later. After a tour, a run on Broadway as the lead in the Tupac inspired Holler If Ya Hear Me and a lengthy tenure in the poet’s Mecca, Paris, Saul Williams has returned with his strongest album in over a decade. The brilliant linguist has been blessed with grossly talented collaborators on previous efforts (Rick Rubin, Trent Reznor) and this offering seems to prove the mettle of producer Justin Warfield, half of the darkwave duo She Wants Revenge. Martyr Loser King is that album where every divergent experiment pays off and comes together in a voice that is as eclectic as it is united.

Mecca, Paris, Saul Williams has returned with his strongest album in over a decade. The brilliant linguist has been blessed with grossly talented collaborators on previous efforts (Rick Rubin, Trent Reznor) and this offering seems to prove the mettle of producer Justin Warfield, half of the darkwave duo She Wants Revenge. Martyr Loser King is that album where every divergent experiment pays off and comes together in a voice that is as eclectic as it is united.

Album opener, ‘Groundwork’ comes galloping out of the gates without a trace of drums till the 3 minute mark. The mission statement is delivered over a snaking Moog bass line and frenetic chopping guitar. Williams finds the sweet spot between the monotone metric of his early work and the emotional wailing of Volcanic Sunlight. His adapted style of sing-rapping is mean, it’s commanding, it’s the voice of a tribe leader through the talking post.

The dream bleeds in to a wash of wispy vocals, rumbling bass and classical piano samples. No sooner are you accustomed to that warm scene than you are whisked away to a land of distorted barking and snappy breakbeats. Williams is at his best when he leaves pop song structure behind and opts to paint a picture in lush, broad strokes.

Saul Williams / MARTYR LOSER KING presents BURUNDI from Moon Road Films on Vimeo.

Amongst the surrealist imagery, Williams political mantra is resolute. Reclaiming the ‘loser’ moniker as the triumphant convocation of the underdog. Not only shall we overcome but we’re coming to get you. Williams duets with Warpaint’s Emily Kokal on the centrepiece “Burundi’:

“Virus, I’m a virus, I’m a virus in your system

Fuck your history teacher, bitch, I’ve never been a victim

I’m just a witness, Hitler can come get this

Rabbis in Ramallah throwing burkas on these bitches”

The piece is a battlecry. Gather the gangsters and philosophers, the cogs and the cognoscente. There is an enemy to fight! Plus there are some bomb-ass beats. So that’s cool.

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

The post Beat Poet Turned Mystic Saul Williams Shines on Martyr Loser King appeared first on Independent Music Promotions.

Industry Expert Interviews – Visionary Artist Shaun Friesen

For the latest installment in our Industry Expert Interviews series we were lucky enough to speak with visionary artist/author Shaun Friesen, who has recently released The Riddle Solver, a visionary buddhapunk prayer that re-mixes technology, spirituality, and economy into a new quantum humanity. He also happens to be I.M.P’s chosen artist!

Shaun has presented his multimedia artwork at numerous tribal and community festivals around western Canada. 

In 2008 Shaun displayed two culmative art prints, Sun and Moon, from his Digital Unionseries at a successful fundraising group show called ‘Soul to Soul,’ in visionary artist Alex Grey’s MicroCoSM (Chapel of Sacred Mirrors) gallery. Shaun studied with Alex and Allyson Grey in 2009, participating in their visionary arts intensive. The following year, for the release of the 6th edition of the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors Journal, Shaun designed a viral campaign for CoSM.

In 2009 Shaun supported New York based media theorist Douglas Rushkoff with the release of his book Life Inc: How The World Became A Corporation And How To Take It Back. Using his digital ninja dexterity and nanotech production skills, Shaun knit together the renaissance sequence featured in Rushkoff’s Life Inc: The Movie. In 2010 Shaun received Digital Alberta’s Best Animation Award for these contributions. 

Since 2010 Shaun has been a designer with the visionary art global microgallery collective, the Galactik Trading Card Oracle Complex. He lead the production of a 92 page hardcover tome, a 10 year Oracle history and treatise on visionary design and visual remix, which was released globally in September of 2011.

You’re a professional creative with a particularly strong vision, please tell us a bit about your design practice. What is the philosophy behind what you do? What motivates you?

Nature motivates me, and acts of atrocity against it provoke me to light the world on fire – or at least the collective human soul understanding, of what the world is.

With my design practice I identify the very best invisible essence that a business, brand, artist or teacher (or all of the above) has to offer, and make it visible. I aim to distill the essence of a subject, project, or person down to a core visual message of unspoken impact; beauty, awe and grace.

I have always liked the title of Animator, as it makes me feel a bit like Dr. Frankenstein – I support you to come alive.

Our readers may be interested to know that you created all of the I.M.P artwork. Can you please share how you came up with this truly epic imagery? As well as your interpretation of it?

I was working in my sketch book at the time, and after the first consultation meeting I felt like the most recent sketch would be an ideal starting place. After a high res scan, I added the vector composition of the planet, the magnetic field, staff paper and musical notes, which would later be refined into the numerous logos.

Maintaining company colors was a primary importance. The re-brand had to be visually on-par (or beyond) the bands the company represented, or even looked up to… tool, nin, etc. The slogan of ‘Music With Depth’ was a big part of the integration as well, seen as the space photos and the photo I took of vancouver: the ocean; waves.

In the end I see the new branding represent an unprecedented, never-before-seen explosion of music and creativity. The black is the industry, being blown apart, as well as trying to trap the new, inside some kind of old paradigm. The most visible staff paper annotations, on the left and right, are the first 8 notes of Beethoven 5th Symphony. I feel like the art (as well as the company mission) is linked to that level of epic. Unstoppable. Cue music.

What music-related art have you been captivated by lately and why?

The artist, illustrator and architect Roger Dean. He’s the visual master who was commissioned to do most of the Yes albums. Definitely captivated, because of his imagination, and technical execution. More than any other music-related artist I think he truly approached a record cover as a fine art canvas. But of course this was back in the day when album sleeves were tangible, and required an in-depth investigation – an environment to be immersed in – while immersed in the music itself.

Beyond Roger Dean, LP’s themselves have been captivating me. Mind you, not looking at album art on google, from the 60’s, or even LP re-issues, but actually holding the album from the 60’s and 70’s and trying to time travel a bit, and feel what life was like when that album was released. Fuck, that’s the only signal there was back then… Not an interconnected, intercontextual spiderweb of hypermedia, but a self contained island in time.

The Doors LA Woman, Born on The Bajou CCR, Paranoid Black Sabbath (mostly the inner photo) and I really like  Chicago’s Best of. Chicago’s wordmark and album design are definitely under recognized; their visual voice a well knit conceptual cohesion spanning 4 ½ decades.  

 

What makes a great album cover?

Art only – no text, such as Autechre’s Draft 7.30, King Crimson’s In The Court Of The Crimson King and of course… Pink Floyd’s Darkside of the Moon.

Visually quaint, cute, quirky, puns don’t work, though dark satire always does. Always mystery over ambiguity. Legitimacy over Parody. Striking, rather than Shocking. Rage Against The Machines self-title debut is striking, while NOFX’s Eating Lamb / Heavy Petting Zoo is shocking; it’s a cute quirky punk rock pun. Sexy Innocence works, far more than Adult Slutty, such as Deftones Around the Fur rather than The Strokes’ This is it.

My favorite album covers are those that are enticing, micro-piece’s of an entire world, and at the same time, work as an emblematic visual flagship of the whole. Any album cover by stars and artists likes Bjork, Tool, Nine In Nails, David Bowie, Tom Waits are exemplary, and so very hard to separate from the music itself.

So, what makes music-related merch memorable? We’ve all seen that band hoodie at a gig that we must  buy!

In terms of merch, it’s usually a core aspect of an albums visual signature – such as a background subtly brought to the foreground for full audience focus. This is the NIN visual formula.

In terms of hoodies or garments: simplicity, mystery, puzzles, riddles. Op art. Sci-fi. A visual integration of the occult – like Dead Kennedys level occult. An indirect pattern of ambient flavor. Depends on your genre of course and what your audience is willing to wear. I’m not too sure who would wear a baboon puking up an octopus… or maybe it’s eating it… I’m not too sure (Asking Alexandria’s Baboon vs Octo Shirt).

Please don’t put your square album cover on your shirt…please. Push beyond and further into your album art brand. Like Roger Dean, treat the garment as a wearable canvas. The print-on-demand technology these days it quite astounding. 15 years ago I remember bands having to drop $600-800 minimum for a 2 color silk screened shirt – pretty insane compared to print-on-demand digital submersion and all-over-shirts.

Music/album artwork includes some of the most iconic and recognizable art ever released. What are some important considerations for independent musicians when planning the art that will represent their music?

It’ll be around forever so don’t rush it. Contribute something visually equal to your music. Make it something that, 10 years down the road, you’ll still be proud of.

The first album art I did was for Inner Surge Signal Screaming. 10 years later and I am still proud of what I made, how it represents the music, and also how it artistically depicts the incoming upgrade of the information highway, way back in 2006.

Where should a musician start when looking for the right artist/graphic designer for their project?

You don’t necessarily need to find an artist with a lot of past album work, more-so a visual style you like.

Find someone who has the ability to technically jump mediums. If it’s not the artist themselves, then an art director or visual support person who can offer technical assistance in building a brand that can hit every platform you’re wanting. Whether integrated into motion for a music video, a sleek FB identity, stage banner, or a drum skin cover, it should all be united.

Ideally local – someone you can meet with in-person. Ideally someones who’s been to your gigs and knows your project outside of studio recordings. There’s almost always a visual artist or designer at every gig. If your focus is primarily studio work, there’s almost always a visual artist or designer in your FB network.

Remember this arrangement is the fun part, and is the big finish to all your hard work. Don’t settle still you feel like you’ve found your very own Alex Grey.

 

How much vision should the musician have to bring to the table, and how much should they defer to the visual artist?

It depends on the relationship to the artist, and what role you give the artist in the project: how well you know them and trust their art practice. It is very much a meeting in the middle of creatives.

Before you approach your Alex Grey, have ready 3 art pieces or album covers that most closely embody your vision (as well as band logos/word marks if your artist will be designing your bands logo also).

Make sure you have high quality recordings ready to pass along, 80-100% of the album, as well as a concrete track listing. The visual artist will need to sit with your sonic work, and probably obsessively listen to each intricate detail: each tone, melody, rhythm, and lyric.

make sure you have a talented photographer as well (See’s James interview with Ryan Donnelly) Your photographer is as equally as important as your visual artist.

 

Any current projects you’re working on that you’d like to talk about?

Commercially, I’ve once again taken up the mantel of web designer for the Inshala Family Festival (www.Inshala.ca) a yearly 500+ person electronic music festival in Southern Alberta. In their 9thyear, their website was a project I helped steward until 2012. It’s always such a pleasure to craft this digital ecosphere, their online media archives, and help build momentum for the coming year. Their musical line-up is always astounding.

I’m also very blessed to be working with an organization called IndigenEYEZ (www.indigenEYEZ.com) An NFP working on the de-colonization of indigenous youth across western Canada. This team is very much stewarding an injection of land-based wisdom into the western mind.

I also recently – and finally — have a store up of my own art available for purchase. This includes many clothing pieces, such as hoodies and print-all-over shirts, as well as tech gear, such as laptop skins and phone cases. This is the first time I’ve had my own art on merch items. Buy your Free Zen gear at  Society 6 (https://society6.com/freezen/collection/meta-tech) or Cafe Press (http://www.cafepress.com/freezen)

If you are wanting to download more of Shaun’s insights on art, culture, and being a creative entrepreneur, check out his manifesto on post-paradigm life and visionary culture THE RIDDLE SOLVER, now available on Amazon (http://www.amazon.ca/dp/0994984111)

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

The post Industry Expert Interviews – Visionary Artist Shaun Friesen appeared first on Independent Music Promotions.