Latest Headlines

Black Friday deals for musicians

By
Brett
 – November 27, 2009Posted in: Music Business
Black Friday deals for musicians

image by Allan Chatto

Did you forget about your band this holiday season? Great deals are not just for those who waited in line all night.

Our friends at Quickstar Productions are having great deals from Black Friday until January 1.

For $799 – They will print 1000 CDs with 2 or 4 page booklets, 3 color printing on the discs and black or clear jewel cases. This is half off their normal price, but the price is not listed on their website. Email Quickstar Productions, at disc@quickstarproductions.com,  to get this great deal.

Musician Cooler is offering the book “Get Your Band Out of the Basement” for only $7.99. This is $5 off the normal price.

And, let your fans have some of the discounts as well. The Monday after Black Friday is known as Cyber Monday and is a time to offer online shoppers great deals. If your band uses Bandcamp or CDBaby it is easy to adjust prices for the holidays.

What is the biggest obstacle to a successful band?

By
Brett
 – November 26, 2009Posted in: Music Business, Rookie bands
What is the biggest obstacle to a successful band?

image by Brad Folkens

After interviewing musicians, we at detone8.com ask for one piece of advice they would give a new band. Often, that advice is watching out for creative differences.

Creative differences is a nice way of saying, “we don’t like playing in this band anymore.” It can be a necessary tool in growing as a musician, but it can also destroy a promising band.

“If people don’t have a passion for the music it tears bands apart,” Steve Reter from Drop Out Year warned. “I have seen so many bands who have come and gone.”

Reter has been a part of Dropout Year for over five years. He started out as the bands personal manager, but as the band went through numerous lineups he added stability by becoming the singer.

According to Reter, success is a hard thing to keep up on, but it is the most rewarding things he has ever done. The way Dropout Year fights the never-ending battle against creative differences is by having a common thread that ties the band together. All of the members have individual influences, but they all have a similar style of punk rock they all listen to and want to play.

Even if a band of great musicians come together, there is no guarantee against the threat of creative differences. If the band loves the music, but no one else seems to care, the love can turn sour.

“Musicians play a crappy show and no one shows up,” Jesse Barnes from The Actress Adorable said. “They play 13 more shows and no one shows up and they quit.”

Barnes has seen talented musicians create great bands, but when they spend no time promoting and marketing their band the lack of interest becomes demoralizing. “They take shortcuts and it is a mistake,” Barnes said.

Creative differences will unravel a band without a solid foundation. Joe Bird, a founder of Quickstar Productions, has seen countless band come and go.

Quickstar Productions is a distribution company that helps unsigned bands get their music sold on iTunes or MySpace. But, even the bands with huge potential can fall to creative differences when the band members don’t have the same commitment.

At 17-years-old, Bird was in a band touring with and opening for major label bands. Bird has been in many other bands, but he said that he felt that band had a great chance of making it big. Yet, the band broke up after a short time.

“I didn’t take it seriously,” Bird said.

Bird warns to watch out for band members that consistently fail the band. If the band starts having issues and they don’t get fixed, start looking for new members.

Ways to avoid creative differences

  • Don’t write what’s popular now- For more than five years Dropout Year has built up a solid line up of punk songs based on a love for the music. Even with all the different styles of music the members listen to, every member is dedicated to punk rock. Is what you’re playing now what you will like playing in five years?
  • Work with a producer- Even if it is just a friend, another person’s honest opinions can bring stale music back to life. Jesse Barnes of the Actress Adorable suggests talking with local bands you like and see whom they are working with.
  • Remove bad elements- When one member of a band is less dedicated than the others, it will drag everyone else down. Joe Bird suggests giving the member a chance to change. If the person fails to deliver a second time it is time to find someone new.

Tips for DIY touring from Van Atta High, Ludo & Dropout Year

By
Brett
 – November 23, 2009Posted in: Music Business, Touring
Tips for DIY touring from Van Atta High, Ludo & Dropout Year

image by Joe Seggiola

A successful tour is not created overnight. For bands like Dropout Year, Van Atta High, and Ludo it comes from years of hard work and having dedicated out of town fans.

The success of these bands comes from maintaining fans, making contacts and never turning down a show that could help their careers.

“Network, network, network,” Steve Reter, singer for Dropout Year, said.

Playing 200 plus shows a year, the east coast’s Dropout Year has learned a thing or two about surviving without a booking agent.

Looking for unique ways to reach new fans, Dropout Year set up a tour of Hot Topics. The band collected the names and numbers of Hot Topic managers, then they set up a tour playing acoustic sets in stores.

One of the ways Dropout Year is able to continually play shows and go on 2-to-3 week tours is from networking with other bands. Dropout Year’s intense promoting in their local area allows them to pull hundreds of fans to a show. By letting out of town bands play these shows Dropout Year is able to trade for shows in other bands’ hometowns.

Dropout Year warns that some bands will not return favors, something you have to learn to live with. “Be realistic,” Reter said. “Some bands will not help you if you help them.”

“Play everything,” Tim Ferrell, guitar player for Ludo, said. “That is the only way to get people interested.”

The music festival SWSX never invited Ludo to play at the festival. Yet, Ludo made sure they played at SWSX four times.

Without support from the organizers, Ludo went directly to the fans and played house parties. The buzz created by these parties led to record labels getting themselves invited to the parties to see Ludo play. Now Ludo is on Island Records.

“The worst thing you can do is not salvage a relationship with anyone in the industry,” Clark Starace, bass player for Van Atta High, said. “Things will come back.”

Van Atta High has been able to tour the country and draw crowds of 100 kids or more to shows hundreds of miles away like Michigan.

The band works every day with social media sites like MySpace, but they don’t spend their time adding friends and putting ads on comments. Every week they profile a fan on their homepage, with fun questions and a personal message to their fan of the week. The also write personal messages to fans. Starace said they don’t like to use bots or other impersonal ways to promote the band.

Much of Van Atta High’s touring success has been a growing out of town fan base. The band has been able to sell out shows out-of-state including one in New York City. With their dedication to marketing the band has leverage in booking tours.

Van Atta High and Dropout Year both hope that by successfully booking tours the bands will get picked up by professional booking agencies. “It’s not that we can’t handle the work,” Starace said. Yet once a booking agent sees that a band can manage themselves on the road, the agent can get them bigger and better shows.

Tricks from the pros

* Create street teams everywhere- A street team it vital to keep a presence in other regions. By creating a street team in other cities it allows your band to keep in touch with fans, make new contacts in the area and give the most dedicated fans a way to be a part of the band’s success. Just remember people have lives, too, and if they are to stay active give them a reason. Bands like Van Atta High and Dropout Year talk with their street team and give them lots of perks for helping the band.

* Don’t be afraid to sleep on people’s floors- Hotels are nice, but expensive. Also, going to a hotel separates the band from the fans. Ludo has been able to create unique experiences with their fans by staying at their homes and hanging out with them.

Health Insurance for Musicians (Links for week of November 16-22)

By
Brett
 – November 16, 2009Posted in: Links, Music Business
Health Insurance for Musicians (Links for week of November 16-22)

image by tahitianlime

The Chicago Tribune opinion story about heath insurance for musicians – This article does not give any solutions to the problem, but it does give examples of why musicians need health care coverage.

MusicPro Insurance – This company offers all kinds of insurance for musicians. From equipment insurance, health insurance and even touring insurance.

A Futureofmusic.org health insurance study from 2002 – The study found 44% percent of musician’s asked had no health insurance. 48% of those insured had plans costing less than $100 a month, but there was no information on the quality of these lost cost insurance plans.

If you want to know more about health insurance for musicians futureofmusic.org is sponsoring a  FREE 30 minute phone consultations on heath insurance for musicians from HINT.

An alternative for MySpace, .music is the next step for musicians

By
Brett
 – November 13, 2009Posted in: Marketing, Music Business
An alternative for MySpace, .music is the next step for musicians

image by Nataly

Because MySpace.com has so many advantages for musicians, only the foolish would not have an account. MySpace may no longer be the superstar of social networking, but for musicians it’s almost perfect.

Almost.

One of the biggest drawbacks to MySpace is the owner. No, I’m not talking about Tom. I’m talking about Rupert Murdoch.

In an interview with Australia’s Sky News Murdoch threatened to remove all websites he controls from Google. In the interview he said that people who find his sites from search engines are of little value to his advertisers. “We’d rather have fewer people coming to our websites, but paying,” Murdoch said.

Does this mean he wants to make MySpace an unsearchable, pay-for-content site?

Unlikely, but as long as Murdoch controls MySpace musicians need options.

One option in the not so distant future will be .music.

Based on Constantine Giorgio Roussos award winning project from his days at USC, .music is the idea of an exclusive Internet extension for all things music related. Tools will exist to for selling music and merchandise, getting recording deals, and even musicians trading services with each other. Roussos is trying to make .music a near replacement for .com in the music world.

Roussos’s business plan was started almost a decade ago, but his first venture, Unsignedperformers.com, was too early. The concept was similar to MySpace today, with personal profiles, but few people were ready to share pictures and personal information.

Yet by 2004 MySpace and Friendster changed the way people used the Internet.

The way Roussos saw things, as much as MySpace helps musicians, it can also be a waste of time.

“MySpace does not increase the money you make for the amount of time you spend working on your site,” Roussos said. “Do you think is it work making $200 a year for the hundreds of hours your band spends each year on MySpace?”

MySpace and .music will differ in majors ways, starting with getting paid for advertising.

While Bands and personal profiles drive all the traffic to MySpace they see none of the profits. Roussos’s plan for .music that bands will get paid for endorsements that are placed on their page.

The creation and control of the site would be similar to MySpace. Roussos company, Music.us, would host the site for a fee and have tools available for bands to create their pages and make money.

Making .music work should be simple. Once live, .music would replace .com at the end of a websites URL. To find a band a person would just type THEBAND’SNAME.music.

The .music extension would even protect bands against squatters trying to buy popular domains and then selling them later at a high price. All the band sites would be required have to have content. Without rights to the music, no one could use a band’s name on .music.

Tools for .music would include ways for bands to sell tickets, merchandise and even trade services with each other. There is also a plan for a virtual T-Shirt store. Bands would submit designs and then shirts would be printed when a customer orders them. The bands would never have to touch the product or have to worry about excess inventory.

According to Roussos, .music will start testing over the next few months, but when the site will be launched is still up in the air. The .music approval for the Internet has not been approved. But, it’s not because Roussos is not trying.

Roussos and his investors have put in years and large sums of money to get .music going. They have a website petition with close to 1 million names asking to add .music to the Internet, and put in an investment of $200,000 to secure .music. There is just one problem. The international committee that permits URL extensions has not allowed a new extension in almost a decade.

ICANN, the committee with the power to add new extensions, said they would be adding new extensions to the Internet in 2009, but over the last few months ICANN is now saying it will likely be sometime in 2010.

“Now it is a waiting game,” Roussos said.

.music may not be available for over a year, because Roussos said he want the site to launch with full force. For those who can’t wait, invitations for testing .music will be sent out to musicians that sign the .music petition. Until then, keep working on your MySpace pages.

Breaking Through the Noise: Tom DeLonge on Music’s Future

By
Brett
 – November 11, 2009Posted in: Links, Music Business
Breaking Through the Noise: Tom DeLonge on Music’s Future

image by BluEyedA73

DeLonge gives some insights from a musician who has seen record labels at their peak and now crashing around him. He talks about why some artists want to give their music away for free, and they will make money from other sources.

“Number one, really take pride in how you present the band in the public even when there is no music,” Tom DeLonge said.

Selling out your first show

By
Brett
 – November 10, 2009Posted in: Getting Shows, Interviews, Marketing, Rookie bands
Selling out your first show

image by Rick Audet

When a pop rock band emerges out of metal stronghold Iowa it would be a miracle if anyone came to see it. Yet through a well-executed marketing plan, The Actress Adorable was able to sell out the first show they ever played.

By bringing in close to 300 people to their first show, The Actress Adorable has been able to get any show they want from hometown venues and have given their fans quality performances from day one.

It all started with metal guitarist, Jesse Barnes’, dream of starting his own band.

When Barnes wanted to start a pop rock band, he was going to do it the right way. He was not going to cut any corners, something he had learned from previous experiences.

Barnes had played in a professional touring metal band only months before starting The Actress Adorable. His time with the band left him with bad memories of how to run the business aspects of a band.

As the newest member of the band, Barnes was paid the least from touring. Often Barnes was paid as little as a $100 while at the same time the band’s roadie was getting paid $800.

“These guys ripped me,” Barnes said.

After this experience, Barnes considered giving up on his dream of being a professional musician.

Barnes decided to enrolled in college, and shortly after realized he could not give up on his dream to be a musician. On a trip to Michigan he heard some bands that he had never given much of a chance.  He started listing to Under Oath and Armor for Sleep and realized he wanted to start a band without a being tied to a specific genre.

Barnes and three of his friends started writing music, but is soon fell apart. One of the members did not like playing anything other than metal, forcing Barnes to rethink his strategy. He now realized to create a great band, he had to start by being great from day one.

Everything had to be done right 100% of the time.

“I wanted to find five rock stars…in it to win it,” Barnes said.

Barnes looked for not only talented musicians, but musicians willing to put in the time to making the band successful.

Once the band was created members got full time jobs with the intent of paying for a high quality recording and professional marketing. The members would pay whatever the band needed until the day the band could pay them to be full-time musicians.

The Actress Adorable wrote enough songs to get a professional recording with a producer. They hired a web designer to create a high quality MySpace page with photos they got from a professional photographer. All before they set up their first show.

Barnes even made connections with a national distributor, Quickstar Productions, to have their music available on iTunes.

The launch of the MySpace page and the announcement of The Actress Adorable’s first show was released to the public the same weekend. Then, promoting the show began.

Until the day of the show, every weekend the band took off work and spent two 12-hour days out on the streets talking with people. They lived close to several colleges and spent much of their days going from dorm room to dorm room.

The band also found a way to get the local media to write articles about the show. Two local newspapers ran page-one stories about the show.

The members of the band had a friend who needed medical assistance, so some of the proceeds from the show was going to help their friend’s bills. Once the local media got information that the show was also a benefit event it became local news.

“I put 100% of my effort into promotion,” Barnes said.

When the band finally played the sell out show it was a new experience for many the members. Some had never played for that may people before.

The club owner said that if they could sell out shows that The Actress Adorable could set up any kind of show they wanted.

Right from the start the band was getting a lot of respect from clubs and other bands that were more than happy to play with them. The Actress Adorable became the only local, non-cover band to play the largest venue in their hometown.

The sell out show also had a big effect on the work ethic of the band. They wanted to have this kind of audience for every show they played.

One of the biggest marketing tools they learned from that show was putting in the long weekends of hitting the streets pays off, and they have continued this practice for every show to date.

Working the streets with the full band has had great success to bring people to shows. It does a lot to help connect with the audience. First, it allows the band to talk to a lot of people in an area at once. Second, it allows different members strengths to come out whether it’s talking with girls or talking tech with music fans. Last, it helps to keep the band a tight group, something touring bands deal with every day.

Even as The Actress Adorable grows, the lessons they learned from their first show are still helping them succeed today.

Here are some of the tips for selling out your first show like The Actress Adorable:

Be prepared with marketing- When the band started promoting the show they already had a MySpace page with music for people to check out and follow. They followed this by making the music available on iTunes where fans were able to buy their music.

Meet people offline – Connecting with fans face-to-face is the fastest way to make die-hard fans and friends who can help your career.

Make the event more than just about you – The Actress Adorable’s first time on stage was also a benefit show. Give people more than one reason to come out and see you.

Don’t cut corners – Put away real money towards making the band better. Great recordings and good producers will cost money. A band is a business, and businesses need investments to get off the ground.

Don’t be satisfied – Congrats if you sell out your first show, but the job is not over. Promoting shows is a constant battle. Don’t assume that if you sold out your last show you will sell out the next one.

A music blog for musicians

By
Kevin
 – November 9, 2009Posted in: Music Business
A music blog for musicians

Hello everyone and welcome to the Detone8.com.

Detone.8.com is a place for musicians to find success in the music industry. The staff of Detone8.com has gathered information from professionals in the music industry and working musicians with the goal of putting it all together for the next generation of musicians.

The process of making this website as good as we would like it to be has taken longer than expected. This blog was created because we have already gathered a lot of great information and we want to start sharing what we have learned now. In the next few months we will launch the full site and then begin introducing tools that we hope musicians will find useful as they pursue their dreams.

So look forward to information on making contacts, selling out venues, designing Myspace pages and more.

And don’t forget we want your opinions and ideas. So, if there is something you want to know about the music industry let us know.

Think of us as your personal research assistants. You need to know something, tell us, we’ll research it, talk to industry professionals and other musicians that have experience in the topic, and let you know what we find. In most cases we’ll even point you to the source of the information, so if we didn’t answer your question fully, you’ll at least know where to go to learn more. This is your site, we just work here.

image by Annie Mole

Links for week of November 9-15

By
Brett
 – November 9, 2009Posted in: Links, Music Business
Links for week of November 9-15

How to add an Amazon Store to your web page- Makeuseof.com gives a step-by-step process to make money from Amazon.com. It works by linking from your website to items on Amazon.com. So, if you recommend another band’s music, or equipment you like, you can make some money if someone else want to buy that item too.

Google Music Search and how it will change the music industry – If you know about the Google Music project you might be wondering what it means to the industry. Mashable.com gives some ideas on who will benefit, MySpace.com, and who will not, Apple’s iTunes.

.music - Can’t get your band’s name as a .com? Then .music maybe a solution if they can get enough support. Sign the petition to get .music added to the web, and look for our interview of .music later this week.

image by David Paul Ohmer

5 Things you need to start a Band

By
Brett
 – November 9, 2009Posted in: Music Business, Rookie bands
5 Things you need to start a Band

Musicians always stress that quality music is the most important thing to a great band. Yet many things can derail a great band before it even gets started, and small problems grow as a band grows.

Detone8.com has collected a starting band checklist from up-and-coming artists in the music industry, so you can concern yourself with what is most important: making great music.

1. Get the right people for the right band.

Everyone should know, and believe in, the goals of the band. If every member’s goal is to only play local clubs, that’s fine. But, if three members want to tour full-time and one member joined the band to hit on girls, there is a problem.

2. View the band as a business.

Everyone in the music industry is there to make money. Some people may love what they do, but they also need to feed themselves. A band must make the industry a profit before the band members can expect to make any money. Band members do not need to be business majors, but they should think like business majors..

Just like a new business a new band will require a lot of money to succeed.

3. Make someone the manager.

Every business needs a leader, and every band is a business. A band’s personal manager does not need to control every aspect of the band, but a single person acting as the head of the business will help avoid confusion. This should be decided from the start, so if there are any problems later the band will have to decide together if a change is needed.

4. Make lots of contacts.

No one in the music industry works alone, so remember to make good impressions and to not burn bridges. This also applies to anyone that meets the band.  One can never know if the kid asking for an autograph, your hair stylist or mother’s friend may know someone in the industry that can help you. And, it never hurts to ask.

5. Read “All You Need to Know About the Music Industry,” by Donald S. Passman.

For any band that has a goal of making a living as a musician this is a necessary read. It gives basic information about every major aspect in the music industry and goes into detail without becoming confusing. It is a handy reference guide for each stage of a band’s life.

Book Review, “All You Need to Know About the Music Industry”

For those that have learned things from being in a successful band, or learned lessons from past bands share your experiences.

image by Made Underground

Contact the writer of this article at brett@detone8.com.

Page 4 of 512345