MEG-A MUSIC TORONTO - TIPS FOR INDIES
MEG-A MUSIC TORONTO & INDIECAN WORK TOGETHER.
IF YOU WANT TO HEAR AN AMAZING ONE HOUR RADIO SHOW FEATURING INDEPENDENT
MUSICIANS, PLEASE CLICK THE BANNER ABOVE. THE TIPS WILL COME
FROM LISTENING TO THE BANDS, THEIR STORIES AND THE INDUSTRY INSIDER
WHO IS ON EACH SHOW GIVING EVERYONE INSIGHT INTO THE MUSIC BUSINESS.
Meg-a
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Indie Bible as our “two thumbs up” best
resource for indie artists. Sorted by region and genre, find
those that will play your music, who will review your music and
who will help you with your career. We’ve used it
– it works. If you want music to be your day job then
this is worth the $35. Fifty articles from lawyers, label
executives, Derek Sivers of CD Baby and more cover topics like promoting
yourself, distribution deals, agents, sponsors, and many other keys
to running your business. The articles alone are useful. If
you buy through this banner, $10 goes toward the promotion of independent
music!
Travelling
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.....................................................................................................................................................
Making
It In The Music Business!!!
Focus.
Limit anything outside your career that you can. Boyfriends, girlfriends,
irrelevant job, irrelevant school (okay, high school and college
can be VERY relevant—so you're not off the hook), drugs, hobbies,
clubs, etc. I said, "anything that you can." I know it's
impossible to drop completely out of your social life, but a distracting
relationship, a demanding sport/hobby, a pregnancy, etc., can derail
your focus very quickly. You can't be in two places at one time,
let alone three, four or five. The people you depend on must be
equally as focused. That's why moms and dads move their whole lives
so their children who are Olympic hopefuls can get training. It's
like that. You're in training—like an athlete.
Network.
All the other performers and musicians in your area are trying to
develop their own industry and venue contacts. Share yours and get
theirs—as a group you can move forward more quickly than as
an individual. Try to develop an atmosphere of cooperation that
extends across the boundaries of musical style—being a bigot
in your own genre only limits your opportunities.
Get the facts.
There are dozens of books available to learn about the music industry.
Read them. Learn from others. Learn about song copyrights, promotion
companies, record companies, record deals, independent releases,
songwriting, song publishing, CD pressing, digital distribution,
online downloading. Read The Ultimate Survival Guide to the New
Music Industry: Handbook for Hell by Justin Goldberg, How I Make
$100,000 in Music by David Hooper, The Gigster Textbook by Ryan
Michael Galloway, This Business of Music by M. William Krasilovsky,
Guerrilla Music Marketing Handbook by Bob Baker, CDBaby artists'
area.
Choose your genre.
The more you focus your musical style, the more chance you have
at commercial success. You probably can't find too many places that
you can place boot-scootin' country mixed with occasional Mohawk
spiked-inspired punk—although it would be really cool to try.
Edgier style mixed with smooth jazz probably won't work. If commercial
success is not your goal, then go crazy…no limits. But if
you're trying to be a mega star or want a quicker start, you could
make an already uphill climb much steeper by combining the wrong
genres.
Choose your image.
This goes along with choosing your genre. If you keep changing your
onstage persona, your audience will never know what they're looking
for. They want to find something new and then stick with it. The
audience doesn't always follow when you re-invent yourself, but
it will be easier to make changes later in your career than right
after your initial successes. If you're still not sure who you are,
go to http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes1.htm and start
figuring it out.
Learn to "sell".
You need to be a cooperative person, even if you're not. You need
to get a song across in a way that rips the heart out of your listener,
even if you're shy. You need to pitch ideas to record companies,
promoters and managers, even if you are inarticulate. Learn to communicate
on many levels.
Practice.
Even a pro has trouble overcoming a screw-up when they are obviously
unprepared. A little mistake is common, and fine. Constantly messing
up because you're not ready, is not.
Play live. A
live performance is worth ten rehearsals. If you don't have paid
bookings, play for free.
Write or acquire original songs.
It is hard to compete with no new content. If you can't write, there
are armies of songwriters who want you to cover their songs. Contact
groups like the Collin County Songwriters Association, Blogging
Muses (World's #1 Songwriter Blog Site), GarageBand, or IdolUnderground
as sources for writers and material.
Polish.
Review with your team after every performance, rehearsal, disaster
or success. Reinforce what works, tweak what doesn't. Do it always,
even if you just address it in informal conversations.
These suggestions will help you pretty much
no matter how you want to execute your music career. How many of
these you use will depend precisely on how serious you are. Now
stand up and get to work.
Commit and show up.
Say what you'll do, do what you say. It's just like a job and people
get upset when you don't.
Answer your
freakin' phone messages and your email. If you're
not, you are not only rude, you are missing opportunities.
Eliminate
impediments. A lot of things stand in your way,
some that are due to your limitations or bad decisions, others are
thrust upon you. Get them out of your life, if you possibly can.
Bad friends reinforce your self-doubt, set up conflicts, get you
into trouble, or let their problems slop into your life. You may
be shy; learn to "act" past it until you're comfortable.
You may be angry or mean; learn to manage it. You may lack confidence;
learn to overcome it. You may not have the proper equipment; figure
out where to borrow, rent or buy it. You may not have experience;
enter talent shows, open mic nights, sit in with other bands or
friends—get the experience. You may lack transportation; make
friends with people who have cars, find mass transportation, learn
to use a cab, or focus on all the other stuff that you can while
you are waiting to get transportation. Think outside of the box.
No one is going to do this for you.
Build support teams.
Enlist someone creative and high-energy to help you create your
vision; where you want to be in how much time. Find friends who
want to help you make the vision happen; people who can write press
releases, make media contacts, or book your act for a fee. Pull
the people who are just hanging around with you into street team
work, like getting the word out about shows, and creating energy
in the audience (loud applause, encores, etc.).
Be knowledgeable
enough to be secure. You're going to get offers.
Learn what a good offer looks like compared to a bad one. Hire help,
or be totally prepared to hire help (have them lined up) for when
the offers happen. Not knowing, not being ready, means you will
freeze when the opportunity comes. You'll either sign a bad contract,
or fail to sign a good one, because you won't know the difference.
Again, read The Ultimate Survival Guide to the New Music Industry:
Handbook for Hell by Justin Goldberg, How I Make $100,000 in Music
by David Hooper, The Gigster Textbook by Ryan Michael Galloway,
This Business of Music by M. William Krasilovsky, Guerrilla Music
Marketing Handbook by Bob Baker, CDBaby artists' area.
Promote online.
Garageband, Live365, Taxi, IdolUnderground, Myspace,
YouTube, Facebook.
Promote offline.
Local newspapers, TV, radio, charity events.
Learn about
equipment (lights and sound). The Gigster Clinics
are there for ya' :-)
Drive your
own progress. No one wants you to make it as much
as you do. Everyone is running their own lives. They get distracted,
things come up. If they're into you and your quest, they'll be fine
when you ask them if they did that thing they were going to do for
you. Nag—gently—but nag. Set your own goals. Communicate
them to the people on your team, especially your mentors and visionaries.
Be relentless.
Do not stop pushing. This may take ten years, but sometimes outlasting
everyone else is what gets you over the top. The Beatles didn't
happen over night.
______________________________________________________________
MYSPACE
TIPS FOR BANDS IN PARTICULAR
By: Mary-Elizabeth Gilbert – Meg-a Music Toronto
Just a tip on how to gain friends, establish connections and meet people that can change your life, literally.
I know life gets soooooo busy sometimes, but if you are an individual and in particular a band on MySpace, especially if you are starting out, take a moment to get to know the people that send you a Friend Request.
I have seen so many people add themselves to a profile and not make a personal comment back, I've done it myself, especially in the beginning when I didn't completely understand the concept of MySpace, but I really do try to be different now, its only enhanced my life with people that I never would have known otherwise. Be curious and take some time getting to know people, most will appreciate it.
For bands, PLEASE, do not just promote yourself on another band's profile or person's profile with a big splashy poster of yourself. Take a moment to look at the person's profile or musician or band's profile, listen to their music and make a personal comment about them. It takes two minutes depending on what you say and the people that could become your friends in life or fans will so much appreciate it and remember you more for it. You can add a splashy poster if your a band afterwards, that's cool to do, but all I'm saying is take a moment of time to discover who it is that wanted to add you in the first place.
If people randomly send you a comment, try to comment back to them as well, just to say "hello" and say thank you for dropping by. It builds personal connections to your fans, friends, some very amazing people and just one profile has the ability to alter the course of your life in the most positive way, imagine how many other profiles and people can do the same.
If you get really busy and you can't comment back to everyone, post a blog of thanks and explain that you are busy or send out a bulletin letting people know you are busy, its so much better than silence, at least then people understand.
MySpace can change your life in such a positive way if you not just only take a business/marketing approach, but also take a personal approach. You never know what missed opportunities you may have if you don't.
Just something to think about. Much success to you, but more importantly, much more success to you in your journey to knowing some incredible people and music coming into your lives and connecting to others in a positive way.
FOR
CANADIAN BANDS TO PUBLICIZE YOUR BAND
AND EVEN FOR BANDS IN GENERAL
By: Eileen Nonoyama/Joanne Smale – Planet3 Communications
Taken from www.cmw.net
Canadian Music Week Festival
Performing at any music festival gives a band an opportunity to expose themselves to a new audience. However it also, paradoxically, makes a band easy to overlook. There are hundreds of bands playing every night and one of the few ways to make your band rise above the rest is media attention. Word of mouth is the best way to create a buzz for your band, and buzz can help you go from a half empty room to a venue packed to the reams and a line-up outside. A good recommendation from a newspaper, radio host, TV personality or online blogger goes a long way in helping ensure that when people look at the festival listing, your band name jumps out. A publicist's job is to know who, when and how to contact the media (and there are many companies out there that specialize in entertainment) but not everyone can afford a professional so the following is some basic tips on how to do it yourself.
Media Kit:
The first thing you'll need (both on your own and if you take on a publicist) is a media kit. The key basic components are a band biography, a band photo and promotional copies of your album.
Your bio should be relatively concise and easy to read. Be sure to include the names of your band members, what you sound like, the band's noteworthy press and tour history, your town/city of origin and a brief history of the band. You're not writing a novel, make it easy for a journalist to pick facts from. Be sure to include a link to your website (we hope we don't need to tell you that an updated website is essential).
In this electronic age, your band photo(s) don't need to be 8x10's on glossy paper. It's much more useful to have image files that can be sent instantly on request to media. The image must be hi-resolution (300 dpi is ideal) and of moderate dimensions (at least 4 inches on the smallest side). Remember you can always size an image down but there's no good way to increase the size of a small one. JPG/JPEG files are the most universal and easy to work with. Keep your band name in the file name. It would also be a good idea for these to be available off your site, but be sure to clearly mark them as hi-res so regular fans won't download them and kill your bandwidth.
A copy of your CD or a site where you can download tracks/stream audio is also very important. Don't try sending MP3s to media unsolicited, it takes up a lot of room in inboxes that are already overflowing and will just get dumped. If you can afford it, make a good recording with a good mix (and if at all possible, have it mastered) and start the CD with one of your best songs. Mark your best tracks so that the journalist can flip to them quickly. Music journalists have a mountain of music coming at them at all times, you need to make a good impression quickly and easily.
Prepare an introduction. A short personal message to a journalist telling them why they should check you out. Include the most interesting things from your bio and (very import) be sure to clearly state when (date and time) and where you are playing. Make things as easy for journalists as possible. The more work it takes for them to find/listen/read about you, the less likely they are to do so.
The Media:
PRINT There are four daily newspapers in Toronto: Toronto Star, Toronto Sun, Globe and Mail and National Post. They all have dedicated music writers/editors who can be easily identified by reading the papers. Thursday papers for the Star and Sun and Fridays for the Globe and Mail have bigger arts sections but articles will appear every day of the week. All four also have online editions where you can look at recent articles if you're unable to get the physical papers, but content online is not identical and we highly recommend looking at all the physcial papers daily for at least a month. Writers, like all people, have particular tastes and you will want to find the ones that are most likely to like your band.
There are three free Monday - Friday papers in Toronto: Metro, 24 Hours and Dose. The fact these are free, found all over the city and tend to have multiple readers (a Metro left on the subway is probably picked up and flipped through many times before ending up in the trash) makes them important. Like the four dailies, your best bet is to pick each one up and read through them.
There are two free highly circulated weekly papers: Eye Weekly and Now Magazine. Since these are going to be found in almost every club involved with CMW they'll be one of the most accessible to people out at night. Keep in mind because both the weeklies tend to decide their content much further in advance than the dailies. If you've waited until the Monday before CMW it's too late.
Toronto is a city with a LOT of specialized and community media. There are local papers such as the North York Post that is only available in a specific area. Local community media will always be interested in local content. If you're from North York, they'll be far more interested in your band than one from the Beaches. Look around in your area for the boxes (almost all of these types of papers are free). There are cultural publications such as Caribbean Camera, Share and Pride which focus on the black community (Carribean Camera obviously emphasizes those of Caribbean origin but not exclusively). Le Metropolitain focuses on the Toronto Francophone community, Xtra! and Fab focus on the gay community, etc. Chances are if you are of a specific community, you or your family will already be familiar with those publications. Even if they don't seem to cover music, it's worth trying. There are three university campuses in Toronto: University of Toronto, Ryerson University, and York University. All three have campus papers, in some cases multiple ones. Like community papers, they do prefer to have content directly relevant to the school (are any of your member current students or graduates). There are also many colleges in the Toronto area, some of which will have their own papers.
If you are very enterprising and plan well ahead there are also monthly publications that are worth targeting such as Toronto Life, Word and Exclaim!. But these publications tend to decide their content very far in advance. In Toronto Life's case, you will have had to submit a simple club show listing three months in advance. Chances are, by the time you think of them it'll be too late. However Exclaim! does have concert reviews and it never hurts to let them know about your show. There are genre specific publications as well, which vary in frequency of publication. If you play genre specific (metal, punk, folk, etc.) you should be aware of these already.
RADIO There are many radio stations in Toronto but as anybody who's flipped through dial knows, few of them play indie artists. Your chances of getting on a station that only plays Top 40 is very, very slim. If you are a rock/punk/metal band you can target The Edge. That station has an Indie night and radio personalities who are more likely to be supportive of independent bands. Even if they won't play your music, an on air mention from a sympathetic DJ can go a long way. There are other genre specific stations, and again, if you're in a particular genre you'll already know them. There is also talk radio, don't be quick to discount their power. Stations like 680 News and CFRB have huge amounts of listeners and getting them to cover you before they do the weather and traffic is no small thing. AM is not dead. Campus radio will be the best bet for independent bands. All three universities have a radio station that broadcasts across Toronto. They all have segmented programming with a different host almost every hour. Check out the websites or listen to them over long periods of time and chances are you'll find shows/hosts that may support you. Some colleges also have radio stations but their range will be much smaller.
There is also the CBC. The morning and afternoon drive shows will have entertainment content and are much less rigid in their playlists than commercial radio. The two best shows for independent music are Brave New Waves and Radio3. Both are not Toronto based, and being national programs won't want to be Toronto-centric, but if they like your band they'll play you and may mention your shows.
TELEVISION There are many different TV stations but only a handful will actually be of concern to an independent band: CBC, CTV, City, Global, OMNI, Sun TV and Rogers. If you want to end up on the local newscast that night, you'll want to send a very brief document stating Who, What, Where and When to camera assignment at each station the day before or of the event. If you want advance coverage you'll want the various show producers for those newscasts. Some of these channels will also have lifestyle programs (Breakfast Television, Rogers Daytime, Ishtyle, etc.) that you may be able to get your band on. Keep in mind, the more popular the program the harder it is to get on, and the further in advance guests are booked.
There are also four entertainment driven programs with Canadian mandates. eTalk, Star! Daily, Jam Showbiz, and ET Canada need Canadian entertainment stories every day. While they are also by their nature devoted to people with star power, that doesn't mean they'll ignore independent artists.
MuchMusic is the obvious channel to go to. Independent bands naturally tend to get overshadowed by the Top 40 ones and if you don't have a video (a high quality one on Beta tape, not a home video) they are less likely to cover you. However they are music oriented and have a Canadian mandate and you will never know unless you try. Much More Music and Bravo! both have more mature demographics that may also be worth trying if your music is appropriate.
WORLD WIDE WEB The internet is now an indispensable part of many of our lives. There are countless ways to promote yourself online. It would take a book to talk about them all, and by the time you got that book published half the sites will be gone or abandoned. Things are constantly changing.
There are no shortage of E-zines out there, Chromewaves.net, Iheartmusic.net, Torontoist.com are but a few. There are also countless blogs out there some of which are associated to mainstream media, but have separate content. Eye Weekly, CBC Radio3, Carl Wilson (Globe & Mail)'s Zoilus, etc. Just about every band also has a MySpace now, and should know the potential that holds.
There are also message board communities to consider, from the various YahooGroups to the Wedge board at the Much Music.com site. However, these communities tend to be hostile to "spammers" who join and post about their band and nothing else. Take part in general discussion, even a little, before flogging your band
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